Remembering the Miners' Strike

While the UK government ruled out an inquiry into the "Battle of Orgreave", an independent review of the impact of policing on communities during the miners' strike has been set up by the Scottish government.

It is estimated that 500 Scottish miners were arrested during the year-long strike, with Scotland seeing 30% of the arrests during the disputes despite only having 10% of the UK's mining workforce.

 David Hamilton, a former miner's leader who went on to become Labour MP for Midlothian, explained, "They'll be able to look at what's happened, they'll be able to see the mistakes that were made.

"They'll be able to see that it was a state versus a trade union.

"And I think if they come to a conclusion that proves beyond doubt, something that we've always known as miners, that the general public have never known, and young people don't understand, that the power of the state was used in a way that should never have been used...It's about recognising they were criminalised during that strike and they should never have been criminalised."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-44402284

Scotland's Empty Houses

Figures used in the report from the National Records of Scotland suggest there is nearly 80,000 empty homes in Scotland.

Edinburgh came out with the highest number of empty properties, with the city having nearly 8000 empty properties, followed by Glasgow which had over 7500.

In 2007, 2.67 per cent of properties in Scotland were empty, but this has grown to over 3 per cent in 2018.

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/12851/over-100000-empty-homes-and-under-used-second-homes-scotland-worsening-housing-crisis

The Price of Death

The basic cost of a burial in Scotland has risen on average by 75% since 2010.  Citizens Advice Scotland said of the 55,000 funerals taking place in Scotland each year 10% of families struggle to pay the bill.

Jim Brodie, of the Scottish Association of Independent Funeral Directors, believed council charges for interment and cremations were "immoral". Mr Brodie said grieving families were being subjected to a "postcode lottery" because of the variety of fees being levied by the country's 32 councils.

BBC Scotland showed that the basic cost for an interment varied between £310 in the Western Isles to £1,780 in Stirling, with the Scottish average being £730 - a rise of 75% in eight years. In Shetland, interment fees have increased by 355% from £110 to £500 since 2010 and in South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire the charge has risen by 151% and 136% respectively.

Pay an additional £67 to Dundee Council for "extra depth
Permission from Dundee Council to scatter ashes will set you back £47
Music for a cremation service by Falkirk Council will cost you an additional £147

Overthrow capitalism and replace it with something nicer

Socialism is not some idyllic Utopia, which we OUGHT to establish but a future system which we MUST attain if humanity is to continue civilisation. Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of men, goods, power, land. The ultimate destiny of all useful goods is to be consumed. Yet under capitalism goods are not produced to be consumed, but for profit, and if a greater profit can be made by destroying the goods, the destruction takes place. While production is a social act, the appropriation of the product, under the present system, is individual. As capitalism develops, larger and larger factories are built, thousands of labourers co-operate in the production of a single article, yet the article does not belong to them but to the owner of the means of production. The labourers are merely paid wages for the use of their labour power, wages which constantly grow less and less an aliquot part of the total product as the total product ever increases. Simultaneously the owner of the industries becomes progressively more divorced from the productive process. Small mom and pop enterprises become big corporations or are driven out of business, the original entrepreneurs become mere rentiers. The corporation also develops, becomes more and more a public utility. The state begins to take a hand and to run the industry. The former individual owner now becomes a purely parasitic hanger-on, his dividends paid regularly by the state apparatus which he controls.  The greater the productivity of labour and the greater the amount of production, the greater becomes the surplus product in the hands of the owners, the greater the need for markets, the greater, therefore, the competition among the capitalists, and the greater the tendency to lower the rate of profit, the greater the lowering of the wages of the workers, the larger the army of unemployed and paupers, the more vigorous the drive for foreign markets for exploitation, and the more violent the military interventions to control the world. The greater the globalisation of markets, the greater the need to have a military machine to defend the market interests, the greater grows the oppressive burdens of the state apparatus, the greater grows the necessity to transform the whole nation into an armed, economically ruthless, chauvinistic state.

  It was capitalism which created the working class who bear the full weight of capitalism upon their backs and as the working class fights against its increasingly worsened position it comes to the realisation that the only way out is for labour to take what it has produced for itself. To take over the means of production, the mines, mills, factories, resources, utilities and run them for their own benefit. Then we will have production for use and not for profit. Then we will end both despotism in the factory and anarchy in the market. Then society will allocate its resources and labour power according to a social plan that will benefit all. It is capitalism which sharpens the workers' intelligence and gives it its science. It is capitalism that arms the workers with knowledge and gives them the strength to carry out their own interests. In short, capitalism, as it grows out of date, creates its own grave-diggers. The interest of the workers is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists and exploiters of the workers who, controlling the government and the social educational agencies, strive to keep the workers down. Surely, the victory of the working class cannot be forever delayed as the capitalists, blinded by their interests, try to stop the Juggernaut of progress. When the workers of the world unite to take political power and to supplant the capitalist system, then the rule over people will begin to give way to an administration over things. The state and religion will begin to wither away. There will be no exploitation. There will be no classes. The productivity of labour will greatly increase, each will receive according to needs and will contribute according to his ability.

When we have reached socialism we will have reached a rational economic where society will be a free one and mankind emancipated. 

Nationalist Questions

Only 59% of people in Scotland say they feel strongly British, well down on the 79% who do so in Wales and the 82% in England.

 More than four in five say they feel strongly Scottish. Indeed, as many as 61% saying they feel "very strongly" Scottish.

In contrast, only 54% of people in England feel "very strongly" English, while just 41% of those in Wales claim they are "very strongly" Welsh.

 A strong Scottish identity - and a weak British one - is the hallmark of SNP support. No less than 79% of those who voted for the party in last year's general election say they feel "very strongly" Scottish, whereas only 9% say they feel "very strongly" British.

 Only one in six people in England say they are English and are not British. No less than 70% of "English nationalists" say that "England was better in the past" and only 13% that its "best years are still in the future". In contrast, just 16% of SNP supporters believe that "Scotland was better in the past", while as many as 64% feel that the country's best years are yet to come. The optimism of SNP supporters is sustained by the prospect that one day Scotland will become independent and their belief - disputed by others of course - that Scotland will be better off as a result.

The SNP has long argued that it promotes an inclusive sense of Scottish identity - anyone who comes to live in Scotland has the right to be regarded as Scottish, irrespective of whether they or their parents were born in Scotland or not. In England, however, politicians have tended to promote Britishness rather than Englishness as the identity to which all living in England can lay claim.

Only about half (47%) say that someone who has lived in Scotland for more than 10 years makes someone Scottish. However, that is nearly twice the proportion of "English nationalists" (25%) who say that having lived in England for more than 10 years makes someone English. Half say that Scotland's "diverse cultural life" adds strongly to their sense of belonging to where they currently live, whereas only 22% of "English nationalists" do so. Half say that Scotland's "diverse cultural life" adds strongly to their sense of belonging to where they currently live, whereas only 22% of "English nationalists" do so.

There is one thing on which SNP supporters and "English nationalists" agree - that their country is better than most others. Three in five SNP supporters (60%) and almost two in three "English nationalists" express that view. In both cases, little more than a handful think that their country is worse than most other countries.

The novelist, Victor Hugo once said, “Let's not be English, French or German anymore. Let's be European. No not European, let's be men. Let's be Humanity. All we have to do is get rid of one last piece of egocentricity - patriotism." 

Why love a country more than any another simply on the basis of the bit of soil you happen to have been born on? The Socialist Party case against nationalism is straightforward. We do not advocate re-drawing the border. No socialist will ever fight to defend any border — we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states. Nationalism can never be a solution to the problems of oppression. The problem is class, not national, racial, or religious origins. As a class, workers have no country. The Scots do not own Scotland.

The independence movement seeks to persuade all those who live here that a better Scotland is possible. Nationalists endeavour to prove an independent Scotland would make everyone better off yet political power lies with a global elite and the economics is inter-linked across borders. Multi-national companies lobby and fund political parties across the world. No nation in a capitalist world has economic independence, they are all interconnected though obviously, the more powerful economies dominate the rest. Given the growing globalisation and unification of the world – contrary to the will of nations and governments – some people cling to what is familiar. 

Would an independent capitalism Scotland be any different than now - of course not? You've got to ask yourself, will the average Scot really gain much by Scottish independence? Or will he continue to be part of an exploited majority in a system run by a privileged minority, whether they be Scots or English?  If you think that some people have "rights" based on "nation" ("right of nations to self-determination" or a "right of abode" based on national/ethnic criteria) then you are arguing for nationalism and the right of bourgeoisie to dominate its "own" working class, not internationalism. If you support the "right of a nation to self-determination" you merge the population comprising this so-called nation into a homogenised mass with an over-riding common interest and common identity that is their national identity. Class differences are suppressed or even completely ignored for the sake of upholding this national identity. This is class collaborationism for the sake of an abstraction called the "nation state" which is itself a product of capitalism. Nationalism is not only a product of capitalism but a major means by which capitalism perpetuates itself. By buying into the illusion of nationalism you are aiding capitalism.

A "Saintly" Society

“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficiently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, while it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private property.” - St Ambrose (340-397 AD)

More and more workers are realizing that the capitalist system is rotten to the core. They are open to new ideas; looking for an alternative. The road to transforming the society into a socialist system cannot be achieved in 1001 different ways. There is only one way, that’s the way traced out by the history of the working class’s struggle against exploitation. 

The right of private property is the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to utilise it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the misery and wretchedness of those who produce it. In the wake of that principle, that so-called right, came slavery, in which the multitude toiled in chains that a few masters might live in luxury; feudalism, when a handful of nobles feasted and wallowed in idleness on the enforced labour of others; then capitalism, when the masses were herded into factories, to get the wherewithal to live, while the product of their labour was appropriated by the new lords of capital. The right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right to over-produce and cause crises, the right to compete, and cause wars. The basic cause of all the ills of present-day society, which is normally attributed to the imperfection of human nature, is, in fact, the lack of rational organisation of human society.

Socialism begins when capitalist society causes so much suffering to the people that they are ready to break with the even tenor of life and rise up against the domination of capital when the ’masses can no longer endure the conditions created by capitalist society.  Capitalism leads to the bloodiest anarchy, to the destruction of the few cultural achievements which have been created, to the deepest misery of the masses and their literal enslavement. Socialism is the only way by which the workers can hope to emerge from the want and misery of capitalist society. Socialism assumes a society where the productive forces have grown to such dimensions that it is possible to meet all the needs of society when the bourgeoisie and its state have disappeared along with all class oppression and distinctions. No such society can exist unless the productive forces have attained the level of assuring abundance for all. Today, we have achieved that accomplishment. No longer can socialists be accused of levelling down.  One day, the story goes, Baron Rothschild took a walk. Two labourers met him and accosted him thus: “Baron, you are a rich man; we want you to share with us.” Rothschild took out his purse and answered: “Certainly! We can do that business on the spot. The account is easily made. I own 40 millions of florins; there are 40 millions of Germans. Consequently, each German has to receive one florin; here is your share;” and giving one florin to each of the labourers, who looked at their money quite confused, he walked off smiling.

Bourgeois "equality" in fact perpetuates inequality, and attain the distribution of wealth according to the formula "from each according to ability, to each according to work." The goal of socialism is to go beyond to "from each according to ability, to each according to needs."  Socialists, if we read their papers and pamphlets, what do we find? They do not intend to introduce division of property; on the contrary, they are for abolishing its division. Slavery has been, abolished, serfdom has been abolished, so the power which capital exercises now will be abolished. Certain left-wingers tell us “the workers are not ready to hear about socialism and revolution. We have to wait. If we start talking about socialism, they will desert us and we will isolate ourselves.” The Socialist Party is perfectly clear on this matter. We must openly and clearly tell them about socialism.  This is not book-learning but not to do education about socialist revolution is to cut off the socialist movement from the workers’ movement.  The socialist ideal is beautiful, while the reality of the existing capitalist world is ugly. This is precisely why the majority of the people demand the changing of that reality and why it must be changed. In order to change the world we must not divorce ourselves from reality, disregard it or escape from it, nor must we surrender to ugly reality. We must face reality squarely, study and understand it, live and grow in it, fight against the ugly reality and transform it, so that we can gradually realise our idea.

The Socialist Party's case is for the abolition of the right of private property, and instead the common ownership of the means of production, so that all may enjoy the fruit of their labour, and consume it, thus eliminating hunger, poverty, and war. For there is no other way. It is capitalism, economic crisis, and armed conflict – or socialism, freedom, economic planning and peace.

The three essential points of socialism are:

[1] The abolition of the wage system,
[2] The abolition of individual property in the means of production and distribution.
[3] The emancipation of the individual and of society from the political machinery, the State, which helps to maintain economic slavery.

Scots without a home

The use of hostels to house the homeless in Scotland has risen by 43% since 2010.

On an average night, more than 10,000 Scottish households will be living in temporary accommodation.

Almost a third of the households considered to be without permanent accommodation were living in hostels or B&Bs,

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/10000-people-sleep-on-scotlands-streets

Towards a Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth.

There seem a great many persons, calling themselves socialists nowadays but who foremost fancy themselves before all things as sensible and level-headed so the immediate prospect of building a socialist society is placed on the back-burner for some time in the indeterminable future. The members of the Socialist Party are no utopians. They are not are impractical visionaries. The Socialist Party claims to possess an adequate explanation of the present economic facts (and of a great many other things besides), and also to show the only way out of the present situation. Capitalism – production for profit – presupposes a class of property-holders, who monopolise the means of living, and a class who have only their labour-force to offer in exchange for the necessaries of life. The capitalist, as a capitalist, must seek to intensify the working day and to keep down wages, in order thereby to increase his share in the product of labour – his profit.  The worker has to defend him or herself against the capitalist and soon finds that the only way to do this is by organisation. Hence the trades union. But we ask you to consider that the great aim of socialism is the abolition of capitalism, itself and the transformation of the divided world into communal world. Capitalism must be abolished. Working people need to throw the capitalist parties out of office and form their own administration committed to fundamentally transform society. The needs of working people can only be met by creating a planned economy, where ownership and control of production and distribution are taken from the tiny minority of capitalists and placed in the hands of the working people, to be run democratically. When the vast resources available to us are used to serve the needs of all instead of the profits of the few, in a world socialist commonwealth, then the way will be opened for unparalleled growth in culture, freedom and the development of every individual. Such a society is worth fighting for.

The capitalist mode of production has posed before humanity the alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism.  Capitalism has long been the central obstacle to social progress and can promise the world’s peoples only further economic crises, famine, war, oppression, and the destruction of the environment. The world capitalist economy remains shaky and unstable. The relatively good economic activity still observed in a number of capitalist countries is due in large measure to the arms drive and other transient factors. However, the capitalist economy is bound to encounter deeper slumps and crises.

The only definitive solution to these problems is the elimination of capitalism and its institutions, and the establishment of common ownership of the means of production with rational social planning.


Thus, the fundamental task of revolutionary Marxists is to build a mass socialist party capable of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism. We in the Socialist Party, desire above all things to advance the case for socialism, and by socialism we mean, the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system and the conducting of all industry on a co-operative basis. The abolition of the present system of production means substituting production for use for production for sale. Ownership by the workers in common of the instruments of production; that means a co-operative system of production and the extinction of the exploitation of the workers, who become masters of their own products and who themselves appropriate the surplus of which, under our system, they are deprived by the capitalist.

 Capitalism has developed as a world economic system. It is illusory to believe that the much higher development of the productive forces that socialism entails can be achieved within the framework of a single country. The division of the world into different nation-states imposes a definite form on the revolutionary process. The working-class must and can take power in the territories defined by different existing states. But the construction of socialism can be completed only on a world scale. The Socialist Party wants not only a society in which people’s needs are provided for by an abundance of goods and better social services but in which their great and varied capacities can be fully developed. Changing the economic system is not an end in itself. It is a means of creating conditions in which human beings will be able to realise their full potentialities and work together for the common good, instead of being divided by class, sex, or race. Capitalism distorts human individuality, subordinates men and women to the needs of the profit system sets them against each other. Socialism aims to develop their individuality by creating a society in which exploitation and poverty are ended, and the resources of science and technology used to reduce the time spent in monotonous and mechanical jobs to a minimum, and vastly increase the amount devoted to leisure and creative work. It is the people themselves who have to build socialism, become involved in government, and be responsible for the development of society. In the process, new attitudes to society, to work and to culture will develop. New relations, based on co-operation instead of domination and exploitation, will come into being between the sexes, between generations, between races, and between nations.

We declare that the most important work that men and women can engage in is that of helping on the overthrow of capitalism, and the building of the socialist co-operative commonwealth.

Freedom for the wage-enslaved working class.

The idea of a socialist cooperative commonwealth is that wealth comes from our association together in society.  The Socialist Party holds a vision of a society based on solidarity, of collective empowerment, of social institutions that nurture the fuller development of all. Ours is a struggle to establish a human world in the midst of the myriad crises thrown up by the capitalist system.  If social harmony, peace and environmental integrity are to be brought about, we need socialism. Capitalism is the root cause in the catastrophe that is climate change and global warfare. Marx and Engels wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” about how the long-standing class struggle between producers and appropriators always ends “either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” It’s “socialism or barbarism.” wrote Rosa Luxemburg  with a later Marxist scholar adding “if we’re lucky.” The rich are destroying the chances for a decent human future. Capitalists are driven to pillage and poison the planet by the profit imperative compelling them to relentlessly commodify everything and to drive business expansion. Beseeching our capitalist masters to be nicer and smarter for the common good is a fool’s errand. The Socialist Party recognises that there’s no appealing to capitalists' better nature where money and profit are concerned. The Socialist Party understands that five people owning as much wealth as the bottom half of the species while millions starve and lack adequate health-care is capitalism working as intended. know that giant corporations buying up every last family farm, tapping every new reserve of cheap global labour, raping the planet’s raw materials in alliance with local warlords, purchasing the votes of nearly every elected official, extracting every last fossil fuel and driving the planet past the limits of environmental sustainability is capitalism working. The Socialist Party knows that a giant military-industrial complex, generating vast fortunes for the owners of the high-tech “defence” industry while schools and hospitals are underfunded—we can see that capitalism is working.

The only solution is for workers and citizens to organize collectively to overthrow the profits system and take control of what they produce and how society is organised. The only thing that’s going to ever bring about any meaningful change is an ongoing, dedicated, socialist movement that must coalesce into a unified popular movement that can really do things.  If the socialist movement has no future then there can be no future for humanity itself.

 “The history of all hitherto existing society i.e. recorded history is the history of class struggle.” With these words Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 introduced their Communist Manifesto. 

Class struggles arise out of a form of production which divides society into classes, one of which carries out the actual process of production (slave, serf, wage-worker), while the other (slave-owner, lord, capitalist employer) enjoys a part of the product without having to work to produce it.  Class struggle, and with it the setting up of a State apparatus to protect the interests of the ruling class, came out of the division of human society into classes whose interests clashed in production. Class struggle and the State continue through history as long as human society remains divided in classes. But when the working class takes power it does so in order to end the class divisions – to bring in a new form of production in which there is no longer any class living on the labour of another class; in other words, to bring about a class-free society, in which all serve society as a whole.  When this process has been completed (on a world scale), there will be no class conflict because there are no classes with separate interests, and therefore there will be no need of a State – an apparatus of force – to protect one set of interests against another. The State will “wither away”. As Engels put it: “Government over persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production.”

 Socialism is primarily distinguished by analysing every social and political problem from a class point of view. This means that socialism always explains and interprets events only in the light of the fundamental conflict whose course determines the direction of historical development: the conflict between the capitalist class and the working class. Socialism interprets the role of the state as the political executive of the capitalist class, whose historical function is to maintain the social power of the employers and investors and to uphold the system of property relations upon which that social power is based.

The working class can play no revolutionary role in society while the majority of its members desire to improve their situation individually, within the framework of the existing society, by leaving the ranks of their class. 

Edinburgh Branch Meeting (7/6)

Thursday, 7 June - 7:00pm

The Quaker Hall,

Victoria Terrace (above Victoria Street),

Edinburgh EH1 2JL

The Socialist Party welcomes any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. What we have stated is that to achieve socialism requires a clear understanding of socialist principles with a determined desire to put them into practice. For socialism to be established the mass of the people must understand the nature and purpose of the new society.

Our idea of socialist revolution is grounded in the position of the working class within capitalist society forces it to struggle against capitalist conditions of existence and as the workers gained more experience of the class struggle and the workings of capitalism, the labour movement would become more consciously socialist and democratically organised by the workers themselves and would require no intervention by people outside the working class to bring it. Socialist propaganda and agitation would indeed be necessary but would 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.  The responsibility of the Socialist Party is to challenge the apologists of capitalism and counter the pseudo-socialists in a battle of ideas and that requires talking to, leafleting and debating and engaging with our fellow-workers.

The motivation for building this new socialist world comes from the common class interest of those who produce but do not possess. An important part of this motivation comes from the global problems thrown up by capitalism. There are no national solutions to world problems like world poverty, hunger, and disease. Ecological problems make a nonsense of the efforts of governments. War and the continuing threat of nuclear war affect us all. The problem of uneven development means that many producers in the underdeveloped countries suffer starvation, disease, and absolute poverty. All of these problems of capitalism can only be solved within the framework of a socialist world.

One of the great technological developments under capitalism has been communications and the rapid processing and distribution of information. This will alter our awareness of being in the world and the boundaries between what is local and distant are shifted or become blurred. From one moment to another we are able to take in local news, issues and events and those on the regional or world scene. Socialism will be a co-operative world-wide system. Nations and frontiers and governments and armed forces will disappear. Groups of people may well preserve their languages and customs but this will have nothing to do with claiming territorial rights or military dominance over pieces of the world surface. To move forward, the dispossessed majority across the world must now look beyond the artificial barriers of nation-states and regional blocs, to perceive a common identity and purpose.

There is but one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause—to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity—socialism. There is in reality only one world. It is high time we reclaimed it.

Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. This, however, is merely an organisational convenience; there is only one socialist movement, of which the separate socialist organisations are constituent parts. When the socialist movement grows larger its activities will be fully co-ordinated through its world-wide organisation. It is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control. This relates to the possibility that the socialist movement could be larger in one country than in another and at the stage of being able to gain control of the machinery of government before the socialist movements elsewhere were as far advanced. The decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be a folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must therefore be prepared to establish "socialism" in one country or even a group of countries like the European Union. For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions, and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish "socialism" in one country would be bound to fail owing to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Those who become socialists will realise this and also the importance of uniting with workers in all countries. The socialist idea is not one that could spread unevenly. Thus the socialist parties will be in a position to gain political control in the industrially advanced countries within a short period of each other. It is conceivable that in some less developed countries, where the working class is weak in numbers, the privileged rulers may be able to retain their class position for a little longer. But as soon as the workers had won in the advanced countries they would give all the help needed elsewhere. The less developed countries might present socialism with problems, but they do not constitute a barrier to the immediate establishment of socialism as a world system.

"...By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others...It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.... It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range...The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property." - Engels 

The Shame of Edinburgh Woolen Mill

Edinburgh Woollen Mill was among companies sourcing from Bangladesh that had failed to sign a new accord for the safety of millions of factory workers. The new pact is a three-year extension of the Bangladesh Accord, a legally-binding agreement between global brands and trade unions drawn up after the Rana Plaza collapse, one of the worst industrial accidents in modern history. It established a fire and safety programme for the country's $28 billion a year textile industry, which employs about 4 million people.

So far 175 of the 220 companies in the original accord have signed, but high-profile brands including Abercrombie & Fitch, IKEA, and Edinburgh Woollen Mill have not, the Clean Clothes Campaign said.

"They are doing themselves and their customers a disservice and are knowingly putting the lives of the workers producing for them at risk," said Christie Miedema of the Clean Clothes Campaign which lobbies to improve workers' conditions.

What we are about

Even in its normal state, capitalism is an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be got rid off. At the moment only a relatively small minority recognise this and are consciously anti-capitalist. The rest of our fellow-workers continue to try to satisfy their needs within the system rather than by overthrowing it. The socialist movement requires consciousness and organisation. We must mobilise to transform the existing capitalist society. It is our duty to understand and change the world. The socialist Revolution does not mean that we demand that the multinational corporations do this or that. It means that we, the working class take over the running of industry and make the decisions ourselves, abolishing the market economy. The injustices of slavery and serfdom were eliminated by abolishing the social institutions of slavery and serfdom themselves, not by prohibitions against maltreatment of slaves and serfs. The injustices of wage-slavery will be eliminated by abolishing the social institution of wage labour itself, not by directions to employers to treat their workers better.  

The social revolution required to transform capitalist enterprises into socialist collectives obviously involves far more than creating a workers' state and passing government decrees. We recognise that the revolution itself would have produced workers’ councils in many establishments, which would have taken over responsibility for management from the previous owners. But that doesn't actually solve the problem itself. It seems natural to assume that all problems of control should be resolved by “decentralisation of authority”. After all, the more room there is for lower level units to determine their own affairs, the more chance there is to adopt more progressive policies but a focus on “local” or “community” issues seems to reflect an acceptance that there is really nothing we can do about global issues.

Anarcho-syndicalists seem to imagine that if everybody democratically discusses everything, production units will be able to exchange their products to supply each other’s needs, and to supply consumer goods for the workers, with no more than ’co-ordination” by higher-level councils of delegates from the lower level establishments. Actually things are not so simple, and any attempt to realise that vision would only mean preserving market relations between independent enterprises, still not working to a common social plan, even though anarchists and syndicalists are generally well aware that the right to vote cannot in itself transform capitalist social relations into co-operative ones.  Electing new bosses does not abolish the boss system. It was small-scale production that was suitable for capitalism, while the development of huge transnational corporations with a network management for entire sectors of the world economy, proves that the socialisation of production makes private ownership an anachronism. Capitalism is already transferring more and more authority on the shop floor to workers themselves rather than supervisors or lower level line management. This only highlights the fact that questions like unemployment are imposed by market forces outside the control of “shop floor” management, or higher management for that matter. Workers are paid to think much more than slaves, serfs or peasants would think in their work, and they get sacked if they do not think. It is just that they are not supposed to think too much. Elected workers’ councils would be in exactly the same position of having to lay off staff if there is no market for the goods they produce. Socialism unleashes workers’ intelligence in production, so that “management”, “engineering”, “research”, “science” and so forth would cease to be restricted to an elite, excluding the contributions of the vast majority. Research and development would become much more widespread, be much closer to production, and require much less “management”. Likewise personnel management, “human resources”, is an essentially routine function that will be made much easier by the elimination of “industrial relations” between hostile employers and employees. There should be no problem organising the recruitment, training and allocation of labour. Under slavery, public officials were necessarily slave owners. Under feudalism, magistrates were necessarily landowners and under capitalism captains of industry were necessarily capitalists. But social relations change. All it needs is revolution to change them. 

Our Revolution

Socialism is the reorganisation of society on the basis of the common ownership by the people of the land, mines, factories, means of transport, as well as the health, educational and cultural services required to fulfil their needs. There can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a minority holds economic power in the natural resources of a country and in the right to exploit the majority for individual advantages and personal gain. The Socialist Party insists that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action. While the privileged few holds economic power the people will bear the weight of any measures of partial palliatives. The Socialist Party believe that the fundamental basis of a true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation, and control to one of common ownership, democratic administration and control of the affairs of the world by the men and women who produce its wealth. When it is a question of changing a social system based on the assumption that a few are entitled to use the lives and labour of the many for personal profit and power, the forces of the State, based on this assumption, oppose the contention that the many have the right to organise a system of society which will provide for ownership and administration of the natural resources of the country in the interests of the many and not in the interests of the few.  The Socialist Party will organise and educate our fellow-workers so that they will be able to bring about the change in the basis of our social system. We hold that the new system of social ownership and administration can be introduced by the will of the people through the capture of the State machinery. The Socialist Party recognises human welfare as the supreme good. Only when our own and other peoples have established socialism will war be abolished, and a cultural renaissance, based on mutual respect and harmony, unite the peoples of the world in an era of peace, and happier days than the generations of capitalism have ever known.

Things are getting much more serious than the average person thinks or realises or that the media lets people know. No matter how much you are talking about the expansion of the economy, the poor are getting much poorer. The poverty is spreading. The wealth is concentrating. We are becoming a world of have’s and have-not’s. We are heading for a very serious, very difficult time. It’s going to happen as a cataclysmic eruption, it effects are going to be global. Revolution is not the result of subversion of the existing order, nor does it come about through conspiracy. Revolution is the first and inevitable step in the creation of a new social order on the basis.

We have the economic foundation today to give everyone on the planet the fundamentals for a cultured, decent existence. Everybody could go into a nice home and everybody could eat a healthy meal. The resources and materials exists right now. It will be expanded and made better, but we don’t have to create it. We don’t need the State as the owner of all the means of production to guarantee their development. The control of scarcity is the foundation of social strife. Today that can be eliminated. We’re talking about abundance. We’re talking about a world where the automated means of production can operate twenty-four/seven. We’re talking about a world where everybody can become involved and participate in the development of society. We’re talking about a world of happy people. Our troubles arise from material scarcity. When we do away with that, we can begin to build the positive thing, happiness. Happiness is an emotion that arises with contributing and cooperating in fellowship. We’re talking about entering a stage of development that’s no longer controlled by scarcity. We can talk in terms of abundance and that abundance obviously is here. All you have to do is look around. There is plenty of plenty. Happiness is a social thing. The idea is to have as full a life as humanly possible. Reacting to scarcity, we engage in struggling to get food, struggling to get clothing, struggling to get a house, struggling to get an education, struggling for all these things. If these necessaries are in abundance then we can turn to the real matters of life, the intellectual and cultural well-being.

So for the first time, we will truly create our own history. We create our history now, but under defined circumstances that limit our choices. In other words, we are not liberating ourselves. We’ve created our own history but it’s been a limited history. What we’ve created has been limited by the circumstances wherein we carry out our struggles. For example, the struggle against slavery couldn’t really end slavery, it could only transform slavery. We’re talking about an end to the struggle over allocation of scarcity. We’re talking about no longer having to struggle about getting a house. They will be stamped out by a robot at a factory. We will no longer worry about getting food, no longer worry about getting an education. Then, we can go ahead and create.

All we will need, for instance, is an agency that determines that if there will be ten million babies born this year, we will need so many million diapers this year. Somebody has to do that. Some work will need to be done, of course, but the allocation of human resources for that work could be done on a local level. Reconstruction will be so much easier to organise because of the tremendous productivity of the technology and machinery that we have. We have to reach our fellow-workers with a vision. It’s up to them to create this new world. To do this, though, they are going to have to know what to do. We cannot build a revolutionary movement with those who are simply angry with the system. We don’t need anti-social malcontents, we need thinkers with a vision of the kind of world that is possible.

The history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggle. Now, when class struggle is over and when real human history begins, what does history mean? What we are talking about now is the ability of human beings to grab hold of themselves and their destiny and create a history of accomplishments, rather than this action and reaction. Accomplishments will be things that we choose to do, not that which we have to do, but which we choose to do.

The first task of socialism is to rebuild the earth, to clean it up, to set about reconstructing the earth, reclaiming the earth, becoming part of the earth, again, to stabilise the earth, and consequently stabilise humanity. Happiness will arise in that process. What would you do with yourself if you no longer had to worry about your food, shelter, and clothing? 

Yes or No - It Disnae Matter

This afternoon Scottish Nationalists will be parading through the town of Dumfries. Socialists often hear the comment from the Scots Nats that "socialism is a good idea but it’s not practical." But today it’s becoming more apparent than ever that it is the present system — capitalism — that is impractical and unworkable. We know that a better world is not only possible but absolutely necessary. Socialism is the hope of the whole working class. A class-free socialist commonwealth cannot be attained without the overthrow of the rule of capitalism. To accomplish this aim is the historic mission of the working class.

The Socialist Party has always opposed Scottish nationalism. We ask our fellow-workers, “independence for who?” and “freedom for what?”  Sovereignty is presented as being for the good of the nation is purely for the benefit of the bosses. Any belief which denies this is a barrier which must be broken down if the working class is to assert its own independent class interests. Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working-class solidarity. Workers must know that under capitalism nationalism is now doing them a great deal of harm, far more harm than the advantages it confers. Independence only enhances the power of the local boss class. Nationalism is an ideology of class collaboration. Here in Scotland, the Socialist Party will not align with those whose antecedents depopulated the Highlands for the sheep and the grouse.

So-called self-determination encourages Scottish workers to waste their efforts in chasing something which cannot be achieved. Not simply because the native capitalist class preserves their power but any rulers of any newly independent Scotland immediately find themselves having to come to terms with a worldwide economic system dominated by powerful blocs and integrated on a global scale. Their room for manoeuvre within this framework is extremely limited. Despite the hopes of the Left-nationalists, either the dominant power relinquished direct political control but continues to exert its domination at an economic level. Or the client state frees itself entirely from the domination of one imperialist bloc only by switching to the all-embracing embrace of a rival bloc. Competition between nation-states puts pressure on each state to maximise its power to avoid subordination to others. States that have little power are under pressure to ally themselves with stronger states that have major economic forces at their disposal. In neither scenario is the result any real independence for the local capitalists or any weakening of imperialism as a whole. The formation of new nation-states can no more put an end to imperialism than the formation of new businesses can put an end to capitalism.

The Socialist Party position on any nationalism is simple. The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. This is not just a slogan, but the reality of the world we live in. The Scottish "national interest" is simply the interest of capital within Scotland. It is the interest of the Scottish ruling class. Nationalism distorts class struggles. Workers can waste their time supporting parties that openly stand for capitalism; they can delude themselves into believing that there is a halfway house between capitalism and socialism; they can even bury their heads in the sand and say they are not interested in politics. Or they can study the case for world socialism. They have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying emancipation in a socialist world.