Our Objective

We are often told we do not work hard enough nor long enough. Facts, however, prove the contrary to be true. The more we work, the greater our poverty becomes; the more we work, the greater the wealth of the master class becomes. Fellow-workers, you have the power to alter all this; you have the power to make life well worth living, by gaining control of the means of living. You have this power because the numbers of the working class far exceed those of the capitalist class. Riots, strikes, and bloody revolutions of the past have not given workers control of the means of living. To-day, these methods are still useless. But we have one method which is a sure method—the vote. To be able to use the vote to advantage requires knowledge. Workers, study socialism, fight for socialism, and bring about the socialist commonwealth which will free you from your chains and give a full and happy life to all.

 The simple fact that socialism can only be established by a socialist working-class is ignored. The leaders are criticised not because they are leaders, but because, in the eyes of their followers, they are not "good” leaders. The bewildered following look around for other leaders, but do not realise that similar results must follow. All leaders are "good” (i.e., make extravagant promises) so long as they are still on the climb. Their intentions may be benevolent or merely ambitious, but in the long run, their actions are determined by the conditions of their existence. These conditions are capitalist society, and a blind following, which, though dissatisfied therewith, does not understand how to overthrow it. Ignoring the necessity for socialist education of the workers has led, and can lead, to nothing more than the elevation of a series of "leaders” to office and favour with the master-class. If working-class history is any guide, it is only a matter of time before each little group of "leaders,” as it arises, follows its predecessor along the path to "responsibility” to the capitalist class and practical inability to reduce Utopia to a working formula. A knowledge of the economic laws of capitalist development would prevent the workers indulging in day-dreams about "a living wage,” and would impel them to organise for the abolition of the wages system.

The Socialist Party advocates the conversion into the common property of all industrial undertakings which are indispensable for the provision of the wants of the workers, and we see no reason why the workers are obliged to pick and choose, in a piecemeal manner, the industries to be dealt with. That process is only necessary to the "Labour” politicians who know that they have no mandate for socialism, and are thus obliged to frame a programme which will suit the interests of some section or other of the capitalist class. Any attempt to introduce socialism with a non-socialist electorate is foredoomed to failure, and it is only the dupes of the "Left Wing ” that imagine otherwise.

The Socialist Party was formed with a definite revolutionary objective expressed in unswerving tactics. Marx and Engels have been a guide. Hence for us, there has been no wandering in circles; no futile attempts to advance before we have accumulated the army for the attack. That we are satisfied with our rate of progress we do not, for one moment, pretend; but we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that if the workers exhibit the signs of confusion, it is not due to our educational campaigns. When the workers learn to see in socialism their only hope, when they realise that it can only be gained by their own efforts in the teeth of the opposition of their masters, then we know that they will march forward as one body, blundering neither to right or left, till their emancipation is achieved.

The Dundee Poverty Divide

Plans to create a community fridge in the West End – a converted shipping container that would allow people to pick up free produce at any time day or night – have outraged some businesses in the area. They fear the fridge would see the West End inundated with ne’er-do-wells of all hue who might, it is suggested, scare away their customers by getting up to, presumably, all manner of vegetable-related anti-social and threatening behaviour. While everyone is keen to stress they are not against the idea of a community fridge per se, they are just against having it in their own back-yard. Some business owners said that while the fridge is probably a very good idea indeed, it would be far better suited to areas of the city where there is greater deprivation.

 It’s true the West End is generally more affluent than other parts of Dundee, the harsh truth is that poverty is no respecter of postcodes. Just because someone lives in one part of a city rather than another does not mean they are free from money worries or do not need assistance. The sad fact of the matter is that while some areas have greater numbers of people in poverty than others, there are people in every street, in every block, struggling to make ends meet and to put food on their table.

Does a child go to bed less hungry just because they live in one part of the city and not another? Perth Road and its environs may be, on the surface, far more affluent than Lochee, Charleston or Menzieshill, but it is wrong to think that poverty does not affect people there, or that some invisible line is enough to separate the haves from the have-nots.

The real outrage – and it is as an outrage – is that in the developed world something like a community fridge or a food-bank is necessary at all

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/721032/dundee-matters-west-end-furore-cannot-mask-truth-about-poverty/

Knowledge is Power

Labour theory of value 

Socialism may be divided into three parts.

In the beginning is the Materialist Conception of History, which examines man’s social development and relates it to his power of wealth production. In this perspective, history is the process of struggle between classes for social and economic dominance.

In the end is the recognition of the class struggle under the present capitalist social system. Modern society is divided into workers and capitalists, who are in dispute over the division of wealth. When the subject working class take conscious political action to overthrow the capitalists' dominance, society will evolve into its next and higher stage—Socialism.

These two ends are linked by the Marxist analysis of capitalism. This analysis probes to the economic root of the system uncovers the course of capitalism's sustenance and expands into its outermost branches. The basis of Marx's examination of capitalism is the Labour Theory of Value.

 Karl Marx opened his great work Capital with the statement:

  "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities ” . 

What, then, is a commodity? It is not simply something which has physical properties. It is also something which has social properties, something which exists and operates under certain social conditions. Commodities in the mass are peculiar to capitalism and therefore typify that social system.

To understand capitalism, then, we must understand the commodity. To do this we must first isolate the commodity from its social sophistication so that it can be seen in its pure form. Only when we have thus examined it can we introduce the complications of its real existence.

A commodity is an article—a loaf of bread, a pair of shoes, or a service—a haircut, technical knowledge, which has use value. That is, it is useful to human beings because it satisfies some need or some fancy. A commodity must be able to be constantly reproduced in social production, as are the goods which come out of modern factories. It is produced, not for the individual consumption of the person who worked on it, but for sale on a market at a profit.

Selling a commodity is, in fact, exchanging it for another, with money intervening as a convenient method of carrying through the exchange. When commodities exchange they do so in a certain regulated proportion. If at a certain time a ton of coal may exchange for half a hundred-weight of tea, something must explain why the coal does not equal more or less tea. What is it that regulates the proportion in which commodities exchange with each other?

The only way in which commodities can be compared is through something which they have in common. This means that a commodity's physical properties, which are obviously dissimilar from that of other commodities, must be disregarded. Coal has nothing physically in common with tea, or butter, or any of the other things with which it exchanges.

There is only one thing which all commodities have in common. They are all produced by the application of human labour to some available material. Human labour, then, is the common property of all commodities and this, measured in time, is what must determine the proportion in which commodities exchange with each other.

But the labour time taken up in producing a commodity varies with the occasion and the condition of its production. With coal, for instance, it varies with the abundance of the seam which is being worked and with the degree of mechanisation involved. Thus the exchange value of a commodity is fixed by the amount of labour time which is socially necessary to produce it, under average conditions and intensity of work, at the time and place at which it is wanted.

This value regulates the rate at which commodities exchange with each other. It fixes the line above and below which a commodity’s price, under the pressures of market forces, may vary.

This conclusion applies to the commodity which we are all born with, but which emerges as a commodity only under the necessary social conditions—labour power. When our employers engage us, they are buying our labour-power at the price of our wage. This wage, just like any other price, can fluctuate. But the fluctuations are regulated to the value of the labour power.

Now what is the value of labour power? It is the amount of socially necessary labour involved in producing it—the labour in the houses, clothes, food, entertainments, and so forth, which contribute to the re-energising and reproduction of our ability to work. This value can be varied by a number of influences—among them the workers’ struggles in their Trade Unions.

So far so good. But if all commodities, including labour power, exchange generally at their value, how does profit arise? The answer to this question is found in the peculiar nature of labour power.

Employment is the process of synthesising part of the value of a number of commodities—of raw materials, of machines, of part finished products, and so on. At the end of this process, the finished product has a value greater than that of all the commodities embodied in it. It is labour power which, in the acts of its application, has done this—it has created value.

This is how it comes about that a capitalist buys his materials, his buildings, his machines and the workers’ labour power, all, on average, at their value. When these are all joined by human labour the result is a commodity of a value greater than the sum of all the commodities originally put into it.

It is from this surplus value, from the exploitation of human labour, that the capitalist gets his profit out of which he pays dividends, rent, interest on loans, taxes for the upkeep of the State, and so on.

This exploitation is the mainspring of capitalism; by understanding it we also understand the mechanisms of the system. We understand why capitalism works as it does, why it produces the problems that it does and why it must end as it will. The practice of modern capitalism in concentrating upon reducing the time spent in producing articles in order to sell cheaper, is a tribute to the truth of the labour theory of value. 

It is this understanding what makes the Socialist Party a distinctive organisation, marked by its exclusive ability to understand capitalism and to work for the next and higher stage in mankind's social advance.

Confessions of a Labour Leader (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Tom Johnston, Labour M.P., says we are better fed during the war than ever before: —

  Nutritionally, we had never been better fed in our history than we were now, Mr. Tom Johnston, Secretary for Scotland, said at Dundee yesterday.
  Despite shortages, other difficulties and the rationing system, everyone for the first time was able to get three meals a day.
  It was tragic that it took the war to ensure that the most necessitous—children and infants—got priorities, fruit juices, and so on. (News Chronicle, August 19th, 1944.)

Mr. Johnston was a supporter of the Labour Government in 1924 and again in 1929-31, and held office under the latter as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Scotland and Lord Privy Seal. Will he explain why the Labour Governments did not tackle this elementary problem of nutrition?

No Socialism without Socialists.

Our aim is World Socialism, a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by and for the whole community. With Socialism, production will be for use and distribution direct. The working class must establish socialism itself. This cannot be done for them. Thus we reject leadership. Self-styled leaders cannot lead the workers to socialism, but they can, and do, lead a cosy life on the backs of the working class. We also reject the view that socialism can be legislated into being by a majority of MP's over a passive and non-socialist working class. We do, however, believe that the way to socialism lies through revolutionary political action. Before socialism can be established the working class must gain control of the machinery of government Then, being also organised economically for socialism, they can use it to effect the change from capitalism to ocialism. We hold that only a consciously socialist working class can establish socialism. Thus we place extreme importance on socialist understanding. Our primary task is to help to bring about such understanding and we believe the way to do this is to campaign for socialism and socialism alone. Otherwise, we would get the support of those who merely want a reformed capitalism and eventually cease to be a socialist party. Thus we have no reform programme. This does not mean that we are opposed to all reforms. We are not. But we are against a reformist policy. A socialist programme can contain only one demand: Socialism.

We accept, and act on, the doctrine of the class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class and we are therefore opposed to all other political parties whether they claim to be socialist or not. In our view the Labour Party is a capitalist reform party. Its policy of piecemeal reforms cannot lead to socialism. When in power. Labour parties have always acted as faithful caretakers for capitalism and against the interests of the working class. 

Under capitalism trade unions are necessary and inevitable. We are not against trade unionism when it is used to improve workers' wages and conditions, but we say that trade unionism has its limits and cannot be used to overthrow capitalism. So long as this lasts—and it will last as long as the capitalist system of society—it will not be possible for the workers of any trades union organisation to more than slightly modify their condition, and their power in this direction is becoming every day more limited by the combinations among employers to defeat the aims of the working class.

Religion acts as a delusory escape from the misery of capitalism and is thus a buttress of this system. Nationalism, too, is an illusion which help to maintain capitalism. It obscures the class struggle and leads the workers into actions which are altogether against their interests. A socialist working class can have no use for nationalism. The most pernicious of these illusions is perhaps racialism. Scientific evidence shows that all race theories are so much nonsense. The colour of the skin has no connection with intelligence. No group of people sharing particular characteristics is inherently inferior to any other. The interests of all the workers of the world are one; they should not be led by the delusions of religion, nationalism and racialism to think otherwise. Nor do we back the so-called anti-colonial revolutions or national liberation movements. It is our view, and experience confirms this, that these independence revolutions are mere changes of rulers, equally cruel taskmasters to the workers of the territories concerned.

Modern war is the product of the capitalist system. So are the horrifying methods of prosecuting it, including nuclear weapons. We have opposed, and are opposed, to the shredding of a single drop of working class blood in capitalism’s wars. The articulate opposition to war is often the pacifist, to poverty the philanthropist, to suppression the libertarian. These people may be very sincere. But because they treat their problems in isolation, because they regard the problems in terms of idealistic defects in society, they are doomed to failure.

Anti-capitalism with its emotional platitudes are not enough. Nobody in their senses likes the effects of capitalism— nobody enjoys war or poverty or suppression. But what to do about them? Up to the present, these problems have provoked, in the main, apathetic grumbling on one hand or emotional idealism on the other. Both are ineffective. The sterility of simple discontent is obvious. What really counts is understanding the effects of capitalism, linking those effects to their cause and explaining this whole process in consistent materialist terms and in a scientific manner.

We reject capitalism. We reject its inhumanities, its inadequacies, its values. We know that human beings are capable of something better than a society in which millions of people suffer varying degrees of poverty and outright destitution, a society which periodically divides itself into armed camps which proceed to smash the life out of each other. Capitalism is abundant in the hypocrisy of its platitudes.  

A bit of economics

As a wage-working man or woman, your life is conditioned upon having access to a job; you must establish yourself as an employee to some employer. You have the power to produce wealth—labour power. It is the only thing you have, but it is an essential factor in industry. In fact, all capitalist industry is predicated upon the existence of men and women like you who have no other way to live, except by offering their life energy, labour power, for sale. When you sell your labor power to the boss you agree to deliver to him the use of it for so many hours per day, for which he, in turn, agrees to pay you a stipulated price known as wages.  You sell your labour power to the boss, measured by the clock. The boss buys labour power because he needs it to operate his establishment, whether that be a factory, a mine, a railway company or a farm. The most up-to-date equipment is valueless as a means of producing wealth unless the magic influence of labor power sets it in operation.  Workers sell their labour power and receive in return a wage, out of which they must provide the means of life for themselves and their dependents.  It is not a philanthropic motive that inspires the boss to employ the wage worker; it is because he must employ him, or fail in his enterprise. A favorite argument on behalf of capitalism is that "labour needs capital and capital needs labour." This is not at all so, for capital in that connection is meant to disguise the capitalists. Labour does not need capital as capital. What labour needs, and will eventually have, is the instruments of production, without their character of capital. This character, which is a character imposed upon the means of production, the workers will destroy without injuring these tools, without so much as even scratching the paint on them. Only the instruments, without their capitalist ownership, are necessary to labour.

The capitalist system must be replaced by a system which will recognise in industry a means through which social wants and comforts are provided. To accomplish this is the mission of the working class. It is our duty to ourselves and to the future to profit by the experiences of our predecessors and by our own.  The power of the workers in production is the power of the life and death over society. This power can only be used to serve society by organisation of all the workers in all the working places. The capitalists are using their control over industry to destroy society with wars, unemployment and inadequate living standards. Industry must be for human service, not for the profit of the few. To bring this about is the mission of the working class.  The workers are learning more and more about the necessity of removing every barrier and impediment to class unity.

Under any system in which the means of producing a living are the exclusive property of a limited class, the worker, deprived of such means, purchases the right to work for his living, paying for it in surplus labor. The worker's day, economically speaking, is divided into two parts; the first period during which he or she works to reproduce the value of his or her own labour-power, or, in other words, their living; and a second and longer period in which employees produces the surplus value which by necessity is yielded to the owner of the land, machinery or other means of producing wealth. The commodities produced during the entire working day, no matter what their kind or character may be, are sold by the employer and thus are transmuted into a price-form, money, and the employer returns the worker's portion to him in this form. It is called wages, but the money-form in which it is paid to the worker merely conceals the commodity-form in which it was originally produced. It is in reality merely part of the total amount of commodities produced by the worker during the whole day's work, and the smaller part; for the greater portion is retained by the employer. The transmutation into the money or price-form also conceals the division of the day's work into its two constituent parts—the necessary labor and the surplus labour. The part of the day's product retained by the capitalist employer is surplus value. It is the wealth produced in this second period of the working day—surplus value—that constitutes the sole object of all capital investment. It is the basis of all capitalist values. It is the substance of all so-called earning power of capital. It is the soul of capitalism. It is the sacred cow that is worshipped as a god. It is the incentive of all endeavor by capitalist-minded humans. It is the subject of all sermons and precepts by gowned clerics and bewhiskered philosophers who do homage to the sacred cow: 
"Servants, obey your masters—work long and hard for him, and great will be your reward—in heaven. On earth you will get just wages—a mere subsistence—while your master takes the rest; but in heaven, after you are dead—ah! the golden glories that await you—ideological reflections of all the product of the unrequited surplus labor which you gave to your master on earth and which he converted into the physical earthly realities that he enjoys ease, comfort, luxury, peace."

To, produce this surplus value and to convert it into the price form of money and credit to the utmost possible expansion is the object of all capitalist endeavor. The more efficient the worker and the more effective the machinery and tools upon which his labor-power is expended, the greater the share of wealth accruing to the owner of the means of production. The workers' share remains fairly constant—just enough to reproduce their labour-power—relatively subsistence-level plus enough more to breed and support a family—reproducing a new generation of workers when they are worn out and "scrapped." There is also always a reserve army of unemployed workers on hand even in the best of times to keep down the wage through competition for the job at the level of a mere subsistence. Indeed, the entire working mechanism of capitalist society—its laws, institutions and political forms as well as its religions and ethical and moral codes are devised to that end—to maintain a surplus army of propertyless, unemployed workers for the purpose of stabilizing the wages and controlling the workers at a subsistence level. 

The surplus wealth that may be produced by the extension of the working day or the intensification of the surplus labour, either through speeding up the work or developing the effectiveness of the implements and means of production, is practically unlimited. We may say that while the worker's share of the wealth produced always remains practically at a bare living level, the master's share may be indefinitely increased by any or all of the following means:
1.—By prolonging the working day.
2.—By improving and increasing the efficiency of the machinery and means of production.
3.—By lowering the wages or the worker's share of the day's product.
4.—By intensifying the labour by speeding up the worker.
5.—By expanding the market or raising the price of the produce without raising wages

It will be noticed that by any or all of these means the part of the product of the day's work remaining in the hands of the employer is increased while the worker's share remains unchanged. That is the peculiar quality of the surplus value upon which our capitalist system rests and which so endears it to the gamblers in the wealth produced by others, called capitalists—the unproductive gentry who "toil not neither do they spin," yet Solomon in all his glory was a poor skate compared to one of these latter-day parasites.

Plenty for Everybody

The Socialist Party is not in existence to malign or misrepresent anybody; neither is it prepared to lie in the interests of the organization or in any other interest. It exists to speak the truth upon questions affecting the working class. Since its inception, The Socialist Party has consistently propagated the principles of socialism and consistently refused to retreat from its position of irreconcilable antagonism to every manifestation of capitalism. In so doing it claims to be proceeding along the only lines that a party rightly expressing working-class interests — which are, and can never by any chance be other than, in diametrical opposition to capitalist interests — can pursue. In entering the arena of political activity, The Socialist Party has, of necessity, to continually justify its position in the eyes of those —whether members of bodies claiming to be socialist or not — who are not in possession of all the facts—just as it has to justify its existence in opposition to the orthodox political parties. To do so effectively it must, of course, make references to the actions of persons and parties. Such references we assert most emphatically have never been in the nature of abuse of individuals or misrepresentation of organizations. If it can be shown that we have been guilty either of the one or of the other, we are quite as ready now, as we always have been, to make honourable and straightforward amends. We ask the workers whose class interests we champion and to whom we belong, to constitute themselves our judges in this.

We are the “impossiblists.” If possiblism consists in determination to do the thing that cannot affect the result desired, we are the “impossiblists.” We accept the epithet and all the opprobrium that attaches to it. Workers of Great Britain, we who tell the whole truth are the “impossiblists.” They who squander your energies and divert your purpose and lead you into a ditch are the “possiblists.” Choose ye this day whom ye will have as champions of your interests. A study of the Socialist Party's literature will help you recognise the folly of placing your trust in "leaders.” Replace blind faith in “leadership” with working class understanding.

To end poverty we need to know how it began.   poverty is a relatively recent phenomenon unknown to our "primitive" forbears. Early hunter-gatherer needs were easily met with little effort, permitting a surfeit of leisure. Wealth was more or less evenly shared on a communistic basis. Anti-social behaviour was minimised because in a small group everyone knew everyone else. Social hierarchies, as such, did not exist although a kind of "pecking order" operated based on respect and influence, not authority. This way of life came to an end although its remnants can still be found in remote corners of the world today.

Colin Clark, an agricultural economist, in the 1970s denied that overpopulation is, or is ever likely to be, a problem and has insisted that the world is quite capable of providing for many times its present population.  Clark estimates that the average consumption of people in North America and Western Europe is about 8 times the bare human subsistence level. How much land, he asks, would be needed to allow one person to live at the American level if the best agricultural techniques were applied? Only 2763 square metres or about two-thirds of an acre. Is there enough land in the world to allow the present world's population to live at this level? The potential agricultural area of the world . . . could provide for the consumption. at these very high standards, of 35.1 billion people, or over 10 times the world’s present population. This, it will be remembered, is on the assumption of the general use of agricultural methods already practiced by the average farmer in the Netherlands or similar countries, without allowing for any further improvements in agricultural technology, for any provision of food from the sea, or for any extension of present systems of irrigation. This. remember, is only a measure of what the world could provide if the most productive modern techniques were applied everywhere. To do this would take time and demand a massive technical and educational programme of a kind only a rationally-organised socialist world could mount. But it does show that nobody need now starve and that overpopulation is just a myth.

Producing enough food to feed the world’s growing population is not a problem in itself: We have the technology to get the rest of the world into the position of food surplus that the West has enjoyed in recent years. The problem of course is poverty. The hungry people of the world simply do not have the money to buy the food they need and so do not constitute a profitable market. Food production is limited to what can be sold profitably, and its rate of expansion is governed by the rate of expansion of the market for food. A balance between supply and demand means no more than that there is as much food on the market as can be purchased with the money available. It does not mean that there is enough food to meet all human needs. The only framework for a rational solution of this problem is production to meet human needs on the basis of the common ownership of the world’s resources. This means an end to finance and trade, and the problems they bring, and the institution of the planned distribution of food to where it is needed.

 If all we had to do to maintain the world’s population in food was to measure now much we needed, apply scientific discoveries and then grow the food required, we would have few food problems. In a socialist world this essentially is all we would have to do. Certainly some of the problems — the technical (including the training of farmers in modern methods) not the financial ones — that they go on to discuss would be inherited, but they too could be solved within a society geared to serving human needs instead of profits.

To Win

If misrepresentation could destroy a new thought, an idea, or a movement as the expression of theories crystallized, then socialism would have been dead long ago. The adherents to the principles and the program would have been buried with the death of the idea. They would today be remembered only as confusers of minds trained in the school of dogmatism. The advocates of implied faith in the textbooks of never-to-be disputed authorities on social phenomena would have another rest. Questions would no longer need answering; the workers could trust its fate in the hands of and to the intellectual guardianship of self-styled “leaders”. The tide is turning. The workers have begun to think, to meditate and to act. In ever-increasing numbers, stirred by a deeper knowledge of the principles underlying the socialist ideal, they have begun to move of their own accord and to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps great "leaders" have been blind to the fact that the economic forces in society are among the great factors in overturning all the vague theories and plans upon which the would-be deliverers believe a benevolent kind of Welfare State could be ushered into existence.

The owners of all resources and means of wealth form a class of their own; the owners of labour power as their only possession in the market, another. Political, judicial, and other institutions are only the mirror of the prevailing system of ownership in the resources and means of production.
One class owns and controls the necessaries,: the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all other institutions to their prevailing class interests.

Conversely, there is a class that strives to change the foundation of the society. The workers realise that immediately following the change these social relations will also be shifted; institutions deriving their support and sustenance from the class in power will be made to conform to new conditions after the overthrow of the previous system. Co-operative control of industries by all engaged in the process of production must build its foundation on the highly perfected form and methods of production, and upon the conditions which accelerate the passing away of the capitalist system of ownership in the instruments of production and distribution. The working class alone is interested in the removal of economic inequality, and that can only be accomplished by revolution. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all humanity.  Harmonious relations of mankind in all their material affairs will evolve out of the change in the control and ownership in industrial resources of the world. That accomplished, the men and women, all members of society in equal enjoyment of all the good things and comforts of life, will be the arbiters of their own destinies in a free society.


The socialist movement is a worldwide movement. We are "patriotic" for our class, the working class. We realise that as workers we have no country. National flags and national anthems mean naught to us but oppression and tyranny.  As long as we quarrel among ourselves over differences of nationality we weaken our cause, we defeat our own purpose. Our party is open to all workers. Differences of colour and language are not obstacles to us. In our organisation, we are all on the same footing. All are workers and as such their interests are the same. An injury to them is an injury to us all. Local unity is not sufficient. It seems that the working class in every country has to pass through the same school of experiences before they will find the road that leads straight to the storehouses of wealth created in abundance by the toilers of the world.


The arsenal of facts based on economic developments and conditions, in support of socialism, is almost inexhaustible. Socialism is not an infallible dogma hatched out in the brains of a few doctrinaires. It is a theory based on investigation of the organized forces of production, and on the proposition that these organized elements of production should be utilized to create things for the use of all human beings and not for the profit of the few who are in control of the machinery and implements with which, by the application of obedient human servants of the machines, all wealth is created. Human intellect and energy has developed the system of production to a very high point of perfection. But the great majority realizes more and more that they are denied a just share in the enjoyment of the yields and fruit. 


What workers of all epochs have been after has been a better world. No one knows the suffering better than the slaves themselves, and therefore it must be they who must free themselves from the lash of the masters. Nothing can be stronger than the working class, when all the workers are properly organised; when they all stand together, the same as the masters do today.

Technology today is used to enslave people, while it could be used to help society as a whole. Practically all inventions and everything worthwhile are made by the workers; and as soon as we wake up to the fact that everything should belong to those only who produce and who do useful labour—then they need not suffer any longer, because then the machine—the real organiser—will be a blessing to mankind, instead of a curse as it is today.

Then will come the time about which poets all through the ages have dreamed; the time which broken-hearted, sweating toilers, men and women, have suffered for; the time which the Socialist Party is fighting for, and will fight for until the workers come to their own, and the master and the slave shall have disappeared from the earth. The bankers, brokers, merchants, soldiers and the whole gang of parasites do not produce one day's need in their whole lifetime; they make money, but do not create wealth. But, one might say, the capitalists furnish the machines. But it was the steel mill workers who did that. The capitalists keep them alive while they are building the machines and then take the machines away from the workers, by power of police, if necessary.


To go toward victory in the socialist revolution that is already in its beginning stage, the workers must embue their brains with the spirit of attack. That means, "To Win."

Socialism – The Solidarity Economy

Long before the coming of the World Socialist Movement, it was understood by the economists that all wealth is produced by labour. How then, it was questioned, can profits be accounted for? If labour produces all wealth why do not the labourers receive their full product? The answer to this question was not known until it came from Karl Marx. Wages, said Marx, are not the full product of labour. Nor are wages any,definite part of the product. Wages are simply the selling price of the worker in the market. This selling price, on the average, is just enough to keep the worker in good condition to do work and reproduce someone to take his or her place. For instance, if the worker toils ten hours and produces $10.00 worth of wealth, he does not receive $10.00, nor $5.00. If $2.00 will support him he receives $2.00, and no more. These $2.00 are his wages and the remaining $8.00 are the profits of the capitalist. If the hours of the worker be increased, and better machines introduced, the workers' product is increased, let us say, to $15.00. Do the workers' wages go up? No. Instead of rising they fall. They are now but $1.50.

The theory of surplus value is the beginning of all socialist knowledge. It shows the capitalist in his true light, that of an idler and parasite. It proves to the workers that capitalists should no longer be permitted to take any of their product. Without this knowledge, the worker will never fight along correct lines. With this knowledge, he will never stop fighting until Socialism, which will give to the working class the whole of its product, shall be fully realised.

An understanding of the class struggle, which we have repeatedly discussed before, comes only from a knowledge of the economic interpretation of history. If the conditions of a people are determined by the nature of the tools they use, of the work they do, and by their relation to these tools (that is, whether they own them or not), then we may easily obtain an insight into the working class struggle. All the great revolutions of history, said Marx, have been class struggles. So, too, must be the movement of the workers. No class has been really free until it has ruled society. Therefore the working class, to be free, must rule society. But the workers, when they free themselves, will make slaves of no one. Machines will be so developed that everyone can labor and live in freedom. Long ago slavery was necessary to the end that the master might develop civilization. In socialism a higher and better civilisation will be open to all.

Until Marx, it was generally thought that history was made by great men. Great men won battles, made treaties of peace, created constitutions and laws, ruled nations, and saved humanity from destruction. Marx and Engels showed, through their study of history, that this was a childish view of life and of government. The great facts of history-its wars, its governments, its art, science, and literature-these were created by a deeper social force. This force, said Marx, was the economic or material force. People lived as they did and acted as they did because they made their living in a certain way. If they used small, crude tools, and the soil they worked. was poor, their ideas would be much different from what they would be if they used larger and more productive tools upon richer soil. The nature of man's social life depends chiefly upon the physical conditions under which he is living. This same principle is true in matters of morality. An individual, or nation, or a class, will finally come to think that right which is to his material advantage. Nations make war in order to add to their possessions. Individuals engage in such work or business as will yield them the largest pay or profits. A class will fight to the death with another class over profits or wages.

In war, killing people and burning cities is thought to be a patriotic work. If successful it is considered to be right and fine. In industry, the capitalists will enslave small children, and the profits wrung from their pitiful toil goes to build churches and universities and support Christian missions. The murderous capitalist who robs cradles to get his gold comes to be praised as most "benevolent," "virtuous," "religious," etc.

When the worker, either through experience or a study of Socialism, come to know this truth, he acts accordingly. He retains absolutely no respect for the property "rights" of the profit-takers. He will use any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does not hesitate to break them. He knows that whatever action advances the interests of the working class is right because it will save the workers from destruction and death. A knowledge of economic determinism places the worker squarely oil his intellectual feet and makes him bold and independent of mind.

The necessity and value of a knowledge of socialism to the working class need not be emphasized. Into every country has gone the Socialist Party with its message of enlightenment and hope. This part of its work has just begun. During our political campaigns, the educational work of the Party is especially effective. It can then get the ear of the working class and emphasise the great truths it bears, drawing the attention of the working class to socialism and spreading a desire to understand it. The mission of the Socialist Party is therefore twofold:

First, it must lay bold of all the powers of political government and prevent them from being used against the industrial organization of the workers.

Second, it must be the bearer of sound knowledge, using its great and growing organisation to teach socialism.

The Socialist Party through its knowledge of the law governing social progress gains an insight into the future which is impossible to those ignorant of social evolution.  Through the study of history, we come to understand the part played by revolutions. Whenever a social class has become powerful enough to rule society it has seized the reins of government. When the working class is strong enough at the ballot box, it will make an end to capitalism. That period in which it will be engaged in the work of seizing all the powers of industrial and political government will be the period of the social revolution. Of course, we cannot tell when this will come. Neither can we tell whether the period of revolution will be long or short? Both will depend upon several facts. The most important question is, how long will take for the working class to educate and organize itself. This will depend much on what the capitalists will do. The revolution might be hastened by a recession. It might be retarded by reforms or a war. But it is bound to come. That the Socialist Party can clearly see. For the revolution to be successful, it will have to result in the common ownership and democratic control of the fields, the factories, the mines and communications by the workers.  When a worker understands socialism, he or she does not ask who will do the hard work, will socialism divvy up the fruits of labour, will socialism destroy incentive and similar questions. The questions which come into our minds about socialism are few and simple.  "The less work the better," is the motto which the workers must set themselves. Let all the wealth now wasted in wars, in the commerce of the market - let all this waste stop. Let the immense profits which now go to the capitalists be taken by the workers. Let the workers be liberated for the many inventions and the development of better processes, which would rapidly follow inside Socialism. If all this were to be done, it is readily seen that a small portion of the day, or a few days per month, or a few months steady work per year, will yield wealth in abundance. It would be foolish for us to say how much a worker should work because we do not know how much wealth lie will desire for himself and his family. It is not for us to determine that. But it is most reasonable to suppose that with socialism an individual working eight hours a day for four months in the year will produce food, clothing, and shelter in abundance for a family. Those who will not work will probably not be permitted to starve. They will undoubtedly be tenderly cared for in insane hospitals and nursed back to health. At present, even, all healthful people wish to work, yet none desire life-long slavery to the profit of others.

 The working class, through securing freedom for itself, will liberate humanity itself. Socialism will free not only the slave but the slave-driver and the slave-owner. Socialism today makes war upon the enemies of the working class. When it is victorious, the enemies of the working class will embrace it. Peace and brotherhood will come with freedom.

 

Suicidal Scotland

Scotland still has the worst suicide rate in Britain – despite long-term improvements from a record high. Official figures yesterday revealed 13.9 deaths for every 100,000 people in Scotland last year, compared with 9.2 in England.

The Samaritans charity warned in May that the Scottish Government had not treated suicide as top priority.

We Have the Power

The unity of labour upon the basis of the class struggle. is at this time the supreme need of the working class. We are engaged today in a class war for the simple reason that in the capitalist system in which we live, society has been divided into two economic classes – a small class of capitalists who own the tools with which work is done and wealth is produced. and a great mass of workers who are compelled to sell themselves on the labour market as they are property-less. Between these two classes there is an irreconcilable economic conflict. No master ever had any respect for his slave, and no slave ever had any love for the master. The capitalist who never works comes to despise work and the workers. The worker naturally hates the capitalist who is taking such huge profits and paying such low wages. But at first, the worker's opinions are not clear in his own mind. In fact, few workers even now understand the real problem which confronts them. Capitalists cannot live without wage-workers. Where one class exists there the other will be found. Furthermore, there is sure to be trouble between the two. The master is always scheming to get more profits out of the worker. The worker fights for more wages from his boss. The less one gets the more there is for the other. Hence we have, between the capitalist and his worker, what is known as the class struggle. Unfortunately the workers do not yet understand the nature of this struggle, and for this reason, has hitherto failed to accomplish any effective unity of their class.

Socialism is the future system of modern society. Under capitalism, today machinery and other means of wealth production are privately owned. Under Socialism tomorrow they will be owned in common. Under capitalism constitutional government's main purpose is the protection of private property, Industry is at present governed by a few tyrants. Its purpose is to take from the workers as much wealth as possible. With socialism will be fully democratic, an industrial democracy. Its purpose will be to manage production and to establish and conduct the great social institutions required by humanity. Political government will then, of course, have ceased to exist. Socialism will save the working class, or rather, show the working class how to save itself. The world does not need to be cursed by long hours, by low wages, by starvation, by worry, and by disease.  When enough of the workers understand Socialism, believe in it, and are firmly resolved to have it, the time will be ripe for the change. That change is coming. It is coming soon. The working class is today enslaved chiefly because it does not understand the conditions of its life. A few rich people own the land and machines. The many who toil have nothing. This every worker knows.  

Only when they fully understand will the first great step toward a better condition have been taken. New technology and robotics have come to free the working class. Until the invention of machines people were enslaved by small tools to the soil. For them, it was work or starve. Work or starve it is still, not because nature forces us to do so, but because we have not yet seen our way out of it. We are enslaved not to the soil but to the people who own the factories. The world socialist movement has come to place technology, the shops, the transport networks, the land and the mines in the possession of the workers. That will mean freedom, security, and opportunity for all who live. The worker cannot rise as a worker without joining in unity with other workers and helping all. This mutual dependence of worker upon worker taught them by their everyday experiences in the shop, is the best and finest thing in modern life. It leads to brotherhood. It develops the mind of the worker. It raises us out of a state of individual selfishness and points to the goal of cooperation - Socialism.

When the World Socialist Movement was first started, socialists aimed to do two things. First, they wished to abolish competition and establish cooperation. Second, they wished to have the working class so organised that they could control the machinery of production and share in the whole product. Competition was known to be a very great evil. It immensely increased the whole amount of work to be done. For instance, instead of having one fine large department store in a city of 25,000 people, the socialists saw a hundred small stores. The socialists saw the competing businessmen cheat one another and the consumers. They saw ten doing work which one could do. Surely this, said the socialists, is a most foolish and wasteful way of doing business. Socialism would make an end of it. Socialism would bring about co-operation instead of competition. It would end competition not only in the store, but also in the work-shop.

The capitalists rule the world today because they have control over the State. In their war upon the working class, one of the most effective weapons of the capitalists has been the physical force wielded by their political government. Everywhere the workers have been fooled into supporting this government.  The Republican and Democratic parties, the Tories or the Labour Party and all the other various reform parties are maintained to keep the workers divided. Whichever of these capitalist parties is victorious, the workers are always defeated. Pro-capitalist politicians alike use the powers of government in the interests of the master class. Fortunately, workers have the vote. At first they foolishly try to defend themselves by defeating this or that obnoxious politician of the old parties. They vote for such politicians as call themselves "the friends of labour." But they soon find out again that "the friends of labour" out of office, become the enemies of labour when in office. So finally, in every country under the sun, the workers are obliged to organise a party of their own - a socialist party. 

The Socialist Party stands for the POLITICAL supremacy of labour. Its purpose is not to secure old age pensions and free meals for school children. Its mission is to help overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. The object of the Socialist Party is to capture the powers of the State and thus prevent them from being used by the capitalists against the workers. The Socialist Party is not a political party in the same sense as other parties. The success of socialism would abolish practically every office existing under the present form of government. 

Number Two Party

Alex Salmond's resignation may have reduced the SNP numbers by one but its membership has overtaken the Conservatives.  

The SNP has just under 125,500 registered members, compared to 124,000 for the Tories. Labour had the highest with 540,000 members.

The future belongs to labour

When the producers, who work for wages, organize politically and economically, they will have taken a long step in the direction of industrial freedom. The Socialist Party Declarations of Principles is not intended to apply to only one country but is intended to cover wage-worker in all countries.  Fundamentally, there is no difference between those workers who move about from job to job and from one industry to another in one city or neighborhood, and those who cross nations shifting from locality to locality, and following now one and again another industrial calling. The only thing that distinguishes or rather differentiates one from the other is the distance in which they move about. To change residence from one part of the city to another, is not different to changing from one city, or country or continent, to another. The necessity to move arises from a common cause. The problem of the one element is the problem of the other, and they must unite to solve it.

The migrant is an unemployed wage-worker in search of employment. He or she may find a job within reaching-distance of their residence or may have to travel thousands of miles to find one. But find a job they must, or suffer. To sell one's labour power is the sentence of capitalism upon the wage-worker. To try to sell it is his or her pressing business when unemployed. How far they must travel before they succeed in doing so depends on the circumstances and the person. Between the city's unemployed, who tramp the streets from factory to factory, and those who go from place to place, there is no difference substantially. The difference is only psychological, not material. The condition is identical, resulting from the same cause, springing from the same source, and demanding the same remedy. They must unite to solve that problem. Socialism offers the only means for doing so. The existing ownership and the class relationship growing out of it makes it imperative for the migratory workers to seek permanent access to the means of life—the earth's resources and the instruments of production. This element is where it must move for its own preservation, and the only objective toward which its condition and experiences are driving it entails a revolutionary change. It must have access to its means of livelihood. The present system of ownership stands between it and the social destination toward which it must travel—it must remove and replace that system of ownership before it attains security for itself.

Socialism is a message of hope

Humanity faces a multi-faceted crisis. Endless wars, economic inequality, racism, xenophobia, sexism and other forms of hate-filled discrimination and possible climate Armageddon. There is no “we”; there is only “us and them.” There are two opposing sides in this struggle. Pleading with those few with wealth and power to do the right thing is not a very effective strategy and it hasn’t gotten us very far up to now. A better strategy is to take the power and wealth into our own hands – into the hands of the majority – and use that political power to directly address the problems we face. We must adopt the democratic position of the majority giving the orders rather than continuing to accept the crumbs offered by the unelected minority that has been running the system for generations. We have to identify who’s on our side and whom we’re up against. Our allies are broadly speaking all working people, every person who lives from pay cheque to pay cheque.

Does capitalism deserve to be supported any longer? It brings hard toil, misery, and desolation, in peace and in war, to the mass of the people. It is time those who bear the sufferings took time to think how those sufferings could be abolished. The only way to do so is to destroy the source from which they flow—the private ownership of the means of production. It is high time that the workers realised that whoever rules over them will continue to serve the interests of only one section of society, the capitalist class. In socialism, there will be no ruling class and no working class, just free and equal human beings who will run society’s affairs communally and democratically. Socialist society will serve the interests of all.

One of the consequences of believing that big is bad is that certain key aspects of capitalism—such as markets, money, and buying and selling—can come to be seen as acceptable provided they only exist on a small-scale; then they become beautiful. 

Marxism is not a dogma, not a record of the sayings and doings of Karl Marx to be carefully preserved and uncritically applied whatever the circumstances. Marxism is a method of assessing what, at any particular time, is in the best interest of the working class and should be done to hasten the establishment of socialism.

Being Marxists, the Socialist Party broadly accepts the analyses of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which indicted the capitalist mode of production as underpinning the state of class divide in contemporary society. They identified that the material abundance created by capitalism paradoxically involved the exploitation of the majority of people, and their deprivation from a share in the fruits of their own labour. Nevertheless, their subjugation could also provide an opportunity for the emergence of a class consciousness, an opportunity for a consciousness that could bring about a socialist revolution which would dispossess the capitalists of their ownership of the means of production. This would in effect dissolve the basis for class domination and in turn, allow for a different kind of economy built on efforts in common.

Mankind is facing frightful threats to its survival. Some already believe it is already too late and doomsday unavoidable. The Socialist Party believes that humankind is not doomed and it is not merely wishful thinking but we make no predictions about the future. Within a capitalist society, human beings are despised, alienated, exploited, oppressed or denied basic dignity.  There is no better way than to dedicate your life to the great cause of ending such a humiliating system.