Making money out of misery

Arms giants with factories in Scotland have been accused of profiteering from new border security systems to prevent vulnerable people escaping oppressive regimes and reaching Europe legally in a new report by Transnational Institute (TNI)

.The European Union (EU) has developed a policy of making nations outside of Europe responsible for its border security, which has involved deals with oppressive states to stop refugees from reaching Europe for safety. The rapid growth in border security spending outwith Europe has benefited a wide range of companies, particularly arms manufacturers and biometric security companies. Arms multinationals which operate factories in Scotland – Thales and Leonardo – are both named in the report as prominent players after doing deals with countries with poor human rights records such as Egypt and Algeria. The EU’s approach to migration is called border externalisation and has resulted in other nations effectively becoming border guards for Europe. This means collaboration with third countries accepting deported persons, training of police and border officials, and the development of extensive biometric systems. It also involves donations of military equipment including helicopters, patrol ships and surveillance equipment. But what makes these collaborations problematic, the report says, is that many governments receiving support are “deeply authoritarian”. The support they get often goes to state security organs responsible for human rights abuses.

TNI said that the “plight of the world’s 66 million forcibly displaced persons” seems to only “trouble the European Union’s conscience” when the media spotlight turns on a tragedy at Europe’s borders.

“These tragedies aren’t just unfortunate results of war or conflict elsewhere, they are also the direct result of Europe’s policies on migration since the Schengen agreement in 1985,” TNI added. “This approach has focused on fortifying borders, developing ever more sophisticated surveillance and tracking of people, and increasing deportations while providing ever fewer legal options for residency despite ever greater need,” the report continued. 

There have been EU agreements with, and funding provided to, regimes such as Chad, Niger, Belarus, Libya and Sudan, among others with poor human rights records. French arms giant Thales – which has a factory in Glasgow – is highlighted in the report as a major arms exporter, providing military and security equipment for border security and biometric systems and equipment. Thales serves as a good example too of the way the military and security industry makes money out of the refugee tragedy,” the report says. “It played a significant role in lobbying for security-based EU border and migration policies. It has also won significant border security contracts, for example deploying a complete, integrated system for border security at the Eastern Latvian border, with command and control software, optronics, sensors and a communication network.”  The report goes on to say that when it comes to EU border externalisation, the focus of Thales lies on “capitalising on the growth in security markets” in Africa. Thales has provided nine African countries with control systems for identification documents, the report says.

“For example since 2005, Morocco has been switching to biometric identity cards, based on digital fingerprints, in part to ‘control migration flows’. Thales has helped implement the project – delivering ID document production equipment and software. The relationship with Egypt is especially close,” the report adds. “In recent years, Thales has helped supply Egypt with Rafale combat aircraft and radar for frigate and corvette warships. Egypt’s cooperation with stopping migration for the EU plays a role in this, as it facilitates a permissive application of arms export regulations.”

Thales has a factory in Glasgow employing 720 people. An Italian multinational called Leonardo with a factory in Edinburgh is also mentioned in the report. It makes laser systems for F16 fighter jets and was recently linked to the bombing of Kurds in Afrin, Syria, an attack described as “ethnic cleansing” by Kurdish groups. TNI says Leonardo has benefited from border security work in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

The report says: “Leonardo is also involved in other border security deals in countries neighbouring Europe. It supplied 15 helicopters for border monitoring to Algeria in 2010 and 2011. And in 2013 AgustaWestland [a Leonardo subsidiary] signed a contract with the Mauritanian Air Force for the delivery of two AW109 helicopters, to be used for border patrol and reconnaissance missions.

“In February 2017, Leonardo announced it was selected by Austrian company Schiebel to supply its PicoSAR radar surveillance system for Camcopter S-100 unmanned air systems (UAS) to a North African country, reportedly Tunisia, for tasks including border monitoring.”

Both Thales and Leonardo have helped shape European border security through lobbying, the report adds, as both firms belong to the European Organisation for Security (EOS), which has promoted increased border security. But TNI claims this has led to a higher death toll for forcibly displaced persons, because measures to block one migration route often result in people taking more dangerous journeys.

“The boosting and militarization of border security has led to a higher death toll for forcibly displaced persons,” the report says. 

In 2017, 1 out of every 57 migrants crossing the Mediterranean died, compared to 1 out of every 267 migrants in 2015. This reflects the fact that in 2017 the longer, more dangerous Central Mediterranean route was the main route for (a significantly lower number of) forcibly displaced people, mostly from West African and Sub-Saharan countries, compared to the 2015 main route from Turkey to Greece, used predominantly by Syrians.”

Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade, said: “Whether the issue is arming human rights abusing regimes and dictatorships, fueling and facilitating war and conflict or enabling the appalling treatment of refugees: companies like Leonardo and Thales are happy to profit every step of the way.”

Pauline Diamond Salim, of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “The right to seek asylum in another country is enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention – an international UN treaty to which the UK, along with more than 140 other countries, is a signatory.”

Oliver Feeley-Sprague, Amnesty International UK’s Arms Control Director, said: “The EU has robust prohibitions in place against selling arms and security equipment to states where they risk being used for serious human rights abuses. Those very rules explicitly say that other factors, such as the need for security, can’t over-rule the prohibition on supply in these circumstances.”

https://theferret.scot/arms-firms-scotland-deals-states-profit-refugee-crisis/

This is what socialism could be

Nothing can save capitalism in the long run, because it has long since become a barrier to progress and long since prepared the conditions for its own destruction. Democracy is to socialism what reform is to revolution. No amount of democracy by itself, can possibly end the class exploitation which is the foundation of the world’s foremost system of oppression. Only socialism can do that. Capitalism restricts and limits democracy for the masses. Behind the facade of formal democratic institutions, the real power is exercised by and for the capitalist class. The capitalists, through their powerful lobbies and campaign funding, dominate the political process, insuring that candidates favourable to their interests are elected. While capitalism engenders democratic illusions, it makes their realisation impossible; it creates a contradiction between the democratic tendencies of the masses and the bourgeoisie’s need to curtail their rights. It is this contradiction which has been the motivation of the democratic struggles in our history. While the Socialist Party recognises that no amount of democracy can abolish class oppression, it also recognises that the greater the democracy, the more direct, the more open and the broader the class struggle. And the more the working class has the freedom to organize and struggle, the more it will see that its oppression stems from capitalism, not insufficient democracy.

Socialism will make possible the building of well-constructed housing for the masses of people. Under capitalism, it is more profitable to speculate in land, maintain slum housing and put capital into buildings for big business than to build decent housing for the masses. The working class will take the land and buildings once held by the banks and other such capitalist parasites; mortgages and debts will be immediately cancelled. The slums will be ripped down, and in their place, new homes and other facilities for the masses of people will be built. The working class will develop housing construction in a rational way.

Healthcare under capitalism is a nightmare for the people and big business for the drug companies, hospital corporations and others who make billions from the butchery of the people. Under socialism health care and hospitals will no longer be a means to make a profit, but a means for the working class to prevent disease and to preserve the health of the people.

Education in class society reflects and promotes the interests of the ruling class and instills in the youth the values and outlook of this class. Under capitalism, this means that education is geared to maintain the division of society into classes, the conditions of capitalist exploitation and the rule of the capitalists over the working class and masses of people. Capitalist education prepares the great majority of youth only for existence as wage-slaves and as a key part of perpetuating the capitalist system of wage-slavery distorts history to make it revolves around the “brilliant ideas” and individual heroism of great “geniuses,” Kings, Emperors, Presidents, bankers, industrialists and other representatives of the exploiting classes throughout history. Children are taught to compete against each other and that competition is what “makes this country great.” Reality is stood on its head so that it seems that capital, not labour, is the source of all progress and that the workers live by the grace of the capitalists. Education in a socialist society will serve the interests of the working class in building socialism.  It will promote cooperation in place of competition, and equality between peoples and men and women. Like other aspects of culture, sports is big business under capitalism. Most people are reduced to “spectators” and decent facilities for the youth and working people as a whole are very few. Socialism will build sports as a mass activity and, not bound by the laws of private profit, will construct facilities for sports in all neighborhoods and widely-organised sports programs to provide recreation for and promote the health of the people. And sports will promote the bonds between working people, above competition among them.

In a capitalist society, many workers are drawn to religion because it represents their hopes and aspirations for a better life–projected, however, into the future and into another realm completely beyond man’s ability to understand. The bourgeoisie promotes religion to convince people that since life is miserable on this earth–and it cannot be denied that this is so under capitalism–the answer is to hope for a better life “beyond this one.” Further, religion serves capitalism by telling people that they are basically helpless before the forces of nature-and the rulers of society–and they should put their faith not in the ability of the masses of people to change the world, but in a supreme, supernatural being, or beings. And if that isn’t enough, religion can call up the image of fire and brimstone to threaten people. More, those who control major organised religions make huge fortunes from collecting large sums from their members, investing much of these sums and exploiting labor. While telling the people to wait for “pie in the sky,” these hypocritical leeches live like kings, right here and now, from the sweat and blood, hopes and fears, of the people. At the same time, in every community, hustlers of all kinds–calling themselves “men of god, prophets,” etc.–prey on workers and other poor people, promising them all kinds of miracles to ease their misery–for a nice fee (tithe), of course. Socialist society will wipe out the decadence of capitalism in all spheres.

Socialism will mean all this, and much more. But none of this will come as a “gift,” or “automatically”. The means of production from the overthrown ruling class is an act which can be accomplished almost immediately once the proletariat has won political power. And it is an act which must be carried out swiftly. To achieve this the proletariat cannot rely on armed compulsion but must rely on persuasion and education to show people that their only hope for the future lies with eliminating all vestiges of capitalism, all private ownership of means of production. Since its founding, the Socialist Party has tried to show that socialism is nothing other than people's conscious self-organisation of their own lives in all domains; that it signifies, therefore, the management of production by the producers themselves on the scale of the workplace as well as on that of the economy as a whole.

The world needs inspired voices

In the absence of mass movements pressing for the interests of the people, capitalism is the default society. Workers depend on the continued functioning of the capitalist economy for their livelihood.  Workers' productive activities are under the control of corporate managers. Capitalists are the ruling class because their interests rule over everyone else. They rule not just from positions of power within the state, but from their control of the commanding heights of the economy upon which we all depend. Capitalism aims to reduce all human relationships to market relations, that human society should be run in every respect as if it were a business, its social relations reimagined as commercial transactions, people redesignated as human capital, society  structured in the interest of capital, not people. Capital needs state power for this purpose. What is the daily experience of people living under such rule? It is the powerlessness of atomised individuals. The workers  are governed by a state in service to capital. Ordinary people can limit that powerlessness only when they band together and act in solidarity through trade unions and social movements. It is such democratic organisations that the ruling class seeks to oppose and dissolve.

We are burdened today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the name of the national interest by the elite class who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. We, the working class, are not so fortunate. We find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonising as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their back-room dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. This is what happens when capitalist bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing us all to march in goose-step with the government. It’s time for a dose of reality. Wake up from the nightmare and take a good, hard look around.  No one is coming to save us, except ourselves. 

Today, there is a great need for a mass socialist party. Not just a party interested in implementing reforms for a kinder, gentler capitalism or jockeying for political office but an independent party that strives to be a beacon for the social struggles, organizing and protesting. We need a socialist party with the political vision for the way forward to end capitalistic profit-madness that has left the planet wallowing in environmental degradation, violence, inequality, and poverty.

The people will triumph over those who had oppressed them, to vanquish every last remnant of a system of capitalist greed and profit that knows no other way than to exploit the many for the benefit of the few. We can build a new economic foundation of the next system to succeed capitalism, socialism, created not by just thinkers who have advocated its ideas but through the struggle of people against the harsh conditions imposed on them by capital. Capitalism is no longer able to meet the needs of the people it has made dependent, and so people struggle against it in order to survive. Only collective action can countervail the power of capital. In those struggles, they overcame their individualism, discovering themselves as a "we."   The consciousness of a collective "we",  our social being, can overcome social problems and deliver a fair society. Community—the communal mode of production and life—is the oldest of traditions and belongs to the earliest days and the first people. A strike will teach a group of workers very quickly who their real friends and enemies are. It sounds like jargon to say so, but only because it’s so true. Independent mass social movements, organized from the ground up, led by those who endure under the present system, are the motor force of history. But motors don’t just run on their own. They need vehicles to move forward. They need a direction and a power source. They need socialist organisation and a clear sense of purpose and goals.

The Socialist Party insists on social solutions to social problems. Today, there is hope that another world—an alternative to the capitalist status quo—is possible. But beware, Another world is possible, but it may not necessarily be the one we want. The Socialist Party's perspective is rooted in the belief that change is possible. Not inevitable, but achievable. A society that accepts inequality and war has no future, at least not one any civilised people should want. The establishment of democratic social power from the ground up is the vision of socialism that the Socialist Party promotes. The class-free society of the future is one in which “the free development of each is the precondition for the free development of all.”

BUILD A SOCIALIST SOCIETY

In all class societies, there is one class that rules over others. Capitalism is no exception whatever particular state-form may embody the rule of the capitalists. So long as the challenge from the working class does not seriously put into question the stability of the system, parliamentary democracy is a form of government with considerable advantages to the capitalists compared with more openly dictatorial forms of rule. The capitalists prefer to avoid resorting to open force.

Socialism can be built only when the working class has taken state power from the capitalist class: that is when there has been a revolution. Revolutions can only be one by class-conscious workers organised in a party with a clear understanding of the nature of today's society and committed to the overthrow of capitalism. The Labour Party is not such a party, nor can it ever become one. Labour governments pursue capitalist policies not because it is in the hands of the right wing, but because the Labour Party is itself a capitalist party whose role is to keep the present system in existence. Failure to understand this is a failure to understand political realities. Those who criticise the Labour Party in office as though it were anything other than a capitalist party, who suggest that the obstacles in the way of ’real change’ to socialism come from the right wing leaders, help to deceive the workers and divert them along the old reformist paths.  It is Leftists who keep alive the illusion that the Labour Party is always being betrayed by a right-wing leadership. Their policies contain nothing that is incompatible with capitalism. It allows exploitation itself to remain in place. Rather than to allow capitalist power and its profits to be reduced even a little, let poverty and injustice continue forever! The Socialist Party well know that as long as capitalism lasts only a few cosmetic modifications can be made in it.


Socialism eliminates the anarchy of capitalism and its crises, by common ownership of the means of production and collective planning of the economy. This removes the tremendous barriers to production that capitalist relations have erected. When all of society has been transformed, the ulcers left over from capitalism have been eliminated, and the community of workers has been established, then communism, completely class-free society, will have been achieved, and humanity will enter a whole new stage of history. There will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society.


Unemployment will be ended because socialism will be able to make full use of the labour of everyone in society, while at the same time developing and introducing new machinery and scientific methods to expand output. As machines can replace workers, workers will not be thrown into the streets, but transferred to other jobs–according to an overall plan–and gradually the work day for all workers will be reduced. The nature of work itself will change completely, because the labor of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life today, while providing for the future, according to the conscious plan of the working class itself. The pride that workers have in their work will be unhindered by any sense that they are working themselves, or someone else, out of a job, or that they are being driven to produce for the private benefit of some moneybags, under the orders of his foremen and the constant threat of being fired. Machines will no longer be weapons in the hands of the capitalists to grind down the working class, and workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine, as they are under capitalism. Instead, machines will become weapons in the hands of the working class in its own struggle to revolutionise society. The organisation of work will be the province of the working class itself. The working class will have a variety of organisations to involve the masses of people in the process of running and remaking society.  All this will unleash the stored-up knowledge of the working class, based on its direct experience in production, and inspire workers to make new breakthroughs in improving production. Work itself will become a joy and enrichment of the worker’s life, instead of a miserable means to sustain existence, as it is under capitalism.


What must the Socialist Party do? There must be continuous socialist explanation and education. Politics and the nature of capitalism must be laid bare. All illusions about easy shortcuts to socialism must be exposed as dead-ends, dissipating the strength of the working class by engaging in ineffective activities. It is our job as socialists to show men and women that only by fighting for and achieving socialism can they give meaning and dignity to their lives. Humanity is doomed unless ideals of sympathy, solidarity, cooperation and compassion, the values of socialism reorient the struggle for a new society. A new society shall be built–in which our children, our children’s children, and the billion billion children to come will never be forced to hunger for food or shelter or love – a new society without exploitation of man by man. To this end, the Socialist Party resolves to devote its resources and its members, their energy.

In the slave system, it was considered “natural” for one group of people, the slaveowners, to own other people, the slaves. In a capitalist society, this idea is regarded as criminal and absurd, because the bourgeoisie has no need for slaves as private property (at least not in its own country). But it has every need for wage-slaves, proletarians. So it presents as “natural” the kind of society where a small group, the capitalists, own the means of production and on that basis force the great majority of society to work to enrich them. The slaveowners and the capitalists have one fundamental thing in common–they are both exploiters, and they both regard it as the correct and perfect order of things for a small group of parasites to live off the majority of laboring people. They differ only in the form in which they exploit and therefore in their view of how society should be organized to ensure this exploitation. When humanity has achieved socialism, society as a whole will consciously reject the idea that any one group should privately own the means of production. Then wage-slavery, based on the ownership of capital as private property, will be seen as just as criminal and absurd as ancient slavery, based on the ownership of other people as private property. The proletariat, by its own nature as a class, has no interest in promoting private gain at the expense of others and every interest in promoting cooperation. For only in this way can it emancipate itself and all humanity.


If all this seems like a mere dream now, it is only because the rule of capital has so greatly distorted development, and brought such decay.

Promise, Well Maybe

Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, outlined her party's plan called, Change for the Better, on April 16. With the present unpopularity of the Liberals, Ms. Horwath stands a good chance of being elected Ontario's premier on June 7. She promised affordable childcare - free for families who earn $40,000 or less - and an average of $12 a day for most others. An NDP government would raise the corporate tax from 11.5 to 13 per cent, close big business loopholes, and increase personal income tax on amounts of earnings above $220,000 by one per cent and on more than $300,000 by two per cent, (I'm sure they'd feel it). A 3 per cent surcharge would be put on cars and SUV's that cost more than $900,000. 

To quote Ms. Horwath, ''We are going to protect middle and lower income families and make sure everyone has better services.'' 

Would these reforms make life better for a lot of people? Probably, especially Mr. and Mrs. working class who have kids. 
Would these reforms be outdated in a few years? You betcha! 

Horwath and her buddies do not advocate changing the basis of society, the ownership of the means of life by a small minority. From this flows, AND WILL CONTINUE TO FLOW, the social evils of war, poverty, unemployment, famine, disease, planned obsolescence, addiction and, Ms. Horwath, breakdown of family life.

 We of the Socialist Party don't want superficial improvement for wage slaves within capitalism -- we want to abolish it for equal social access to the means of life for all.

For socialism, 

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

No Salvation As The Tides Shift.

The Salvation Army thrift store on Parliament Street, Toronto will leave a hole in the community on May 30, when it closes for good; or should that be for bad? They cannot afford a ''substantial rent increase.'' 

The fact that the area is being turned into condo's, of course, is immaterial. The store for many years provided the poor affordable clothes, household items, toys, and in general, goods they couldn't afford elsewhere. It was also a hangout for residents and a place for emotional support. 

Soon the poor in the area will themselves be unable to live in ''condo city.'' It ain't getting any easier folks.

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

Towards Socialism

The essential problems facing people stem from the nature of capitalist society. Only when this system is replaced by socialism, by the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution can the world's problems be solved. A socialist society will be very different from the society we now know.

  In the first place, socialism will be a class-free society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” For this to be possible, socialist society must be based on abundance. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police will have disappeared. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also schools and theatres, playing-fields, books and concerts so that people can lead full, physical and cultural lives. Socialism is not something which can be fully completed in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it must eventually embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to national rivalry and war. Because no wars can take place in a truly international society there will be no need for armies. The State itself will disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men and women will grow accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family, will finally be free. work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of people’s lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman wild develop their mental and physical capacities to the full, and this will inevitably bring about changes in their outlook in life.

The Socialist Party has capably demonstrated how socialism can end poverty, hunger, and war by creating common ownership of the means of producing the things of life, and ending national and international commercial competition. The Socialist Party mercilessly exposes of the evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy in human relations, and the most evident feature of its class character: the impoverishment of the masses and the enrichment of a small class of capitalists. The necessity for the world movement for socialism requires campaigns and agitation to tell millions what socialism is, its relation and comparison to capitalism, how it can be achieved and to spread the message of socialism. In a socialist world, capitalist greed and inefficiency would be a thing of the past. Socialism could take the vast resources which are available and use them for constructive purposes. That is why socialism is the burning need of the hour. The urgency grows to lift people out of hunger, poverty, sickness, and ignorance. Our planet’s eco-system must be rescued before it deteriorates beyond the point of no return. Even under wasteful and destructive capitalism, the productive forces exist that could if planned and utilised to meet human need instead of maximising capitalist profit, ensure sufficient food, nutrition, health care and education for all. Capitalism’s drive to maximise profit leads it to turn every area of human need – food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, sex, leisure – into a market for the production and sale of commodities for profit. However, when sufficient profit cannot be realised, even the products and services to meet society’s most vital needs will not be produced. As long as capitalist ownership of the economy exists, whether or not the so-called ‘free market’ is dominated by monopolies, its operations will produce crisis, destruction, inequality, and waste on an enormous scale.

In the capitalist society, it is the interests of capital that predominate. Common ownership puts an end to the exploitation of the working class, whereby surplus labour is performed for the benefit of the capitalist class. We share a common enemy which exploits workers here and abroad, oppresses large sections of society, strives constantly to roll back democratic rights, blocks progress on every front, generates militarism and war, and now threatens the viability of our planet. This enemy, capitalism, will have to be overthrown because it cannot be fundamentally reformed. The working class has the most direct interest in overthrowing capitalism. After all, this is the system which exploits workers, excludes them from real decision-making in the workplace and in wider society, condemns them to poverty at one or more stages in life, and confines most of them to a lifetime of inequality and insecurity.

The capitalists derive their main forms of income – profit, interest or rent – from their ownership of economic and financial property (usually in the form of stocks and shares, other financial assets and property deeds). Some workers may own stocks and shares directly, or indirectly through a pension or other fund. But their chief, if not sole, the source of income is their wage. They depend on their wages to live. Furthermore, what all waged workers also have in common as a class under capitalism is that they are exploited. This includes those in the public sector whose unpaid surplus labour does not directly produce surplus value for capitalist employers, but keeps down the costs of running the capitalist state. Their surplus value is appropriated by the state for the benefit of the capitalist class as a whole, whose interests are served in a variety of ways by the public services provided. Many workers are hired for their labour power by capitalist enterprises in the gig-economy as ‘self-employed’ or through sub-contractors. They, too, produce surplus value for capitalists as though directly employed by them. Moreover, they are further exploited as their de facto ‘employer’ provides no pension contributions, sickness cover, paid holidays or redundancy pay. Experience of these conditions of capitalist production creates the potential for the working class to liberate itself.  If the working class is to put an end to exploitation and oppression altogether, the trade union struggle against employers must go beyond this specific economic objective to embrace the political relation between workers and the state. Industrial militancy is not enough. Politically, the labour movement must have their own political organisation - a socialist party. The capture of state power will enable the working class to complete the removal of all economic and political power from the capitalist class. Without exploitative capitalists and landowners, the division of society into antagonistic social classes will cease to have any material basis. In place of class conflict and social discrimination, social cooperation and equality will prevail. Resources of every kind will be devoted to solving or alleviating the many social problems inherited from capitalism. As the amount of human labour required to produce society’s needs decreases, every citizen will have the time and facilities to develop her or his skills and talents to the full.

 The role of the state as the coercive force used by one class to suppress another diminishes. The collective organisation of working people will be by autonomous, self-governing communities of people. Workers’ self-management of industry and enterprises will be free to develop its full potential. The great majority of people will increasingly understand the need to organise and fulfill essential work as the pre-condition for their freedom and the ability of all to benefit from the expansion of educational, cultural and leisure provision.

Members of the Socialist Party do not accept that such a society is impossible to achieve or that there is a ‘human nature’ too negative to allow the development of socialism. So far in history, people’s thoughts and behaviour have been shaped, distorted and exploited by their existence in class-divided societies. Even so, human beings have always displayed an enormous capacity for reason, compassion, cooperation, courage, self-sacrifice, invention, and commitment to the creation of fairer and more just human societies. Are these not also characteristics of any such ‘human nature’? There is no reason why people should not comprehend that we share this Earth in common, that we are interdependent, that the individual good of the vast majority requires the collective good and that cooperation and unity is better than conflict and division. It is capitalism that seeks to make a virtue of greed, egoism, exploitation, and inequality while claiming that these are the ruling characteristics of ‘human nature’. It is capitalism that creates so much misery, destroys so many lives and now threatens the very future of human existence on this planet.

For the sake of humanity, we have to move forward towards socialism.

"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.