Campaigners have called for more action to be taken to help the one million people in Scotland living in poverty.
The Poverty Alliance said that 230,000 children are included in the one-million figure
Tracy Gilmour, a former social worker and mental health officer, said: “I’ve been living on income support since I had to stop working because of my mental health 18 months ago.
“The benefits I receive aren’t enough to meet my family’s basic needs and I carry around guilt at not being able to provide them with everything they deserve. The pressure and demands of daily life are a constant battle. It’s exhausting having to hide it from my two daughters and to constantly make excuses for why we can’t do things. A simple request for a school trip payment is enough to make me feel like we’re sinking and losing our grip.”
Reformists never learn. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. They still hold faith that societies can shape capitalism that can regulate itself better, to produce a kinder, more tolerable society. But if this is possible, why has it never happened up to now, at least not for any length of time? The fact is that capitalism can’t be reshaped so as to put human values before market values. It has to put profits first and its economic mechanisms impose this on any government which may have other thoughts. In order to retain power, the possessing class teaches the idea that capital and capitalism have always existed. They seek to convey the idea that capitalist class society and capitalist exploitation will continue to exist forever. In other words, it is a system of society which is natural and eternal, and there is no use, anyone, thinking of making fundamental changes in it or replacing it with any other social system.This idea is false and has been developed only to maintain the capitalist class’ economic and political control.It is a system of hideous absurdity, a destroyer of social wealth, the eliminator of human happiness, security and life itself. The wondrous productive machine which capitalism helped to create, if rationally organised, could easily supply the needs and comforts of all, proves to be a mechanism that degrades the people to poverty, wretchedness, suffering, and iniquity.
Capitalism robs us of those things which make us truly human: socialism is the re-appropriation of those powers alienated from us under class society. The worker whether the business which employs him or her is owned by foreign shareholders or not. He or she can live only by persuading some firm or other to buy the person's working ability and wherever he or she works they will receive, on a broad average, the same wage. Perhaps, at times, a glimmering of the facts gets through to the workers and sets them realising that "their" nation does not belong to them. That a very small minority in the world own almost anything that is worth owning, whilst the rest spend their waking lives in work to keep things that way. That the majority scrape along with the shabby and tawdry whilst the few can have—literally—the best. The best clothes, houses, food, holidays. The best chance of living a worthwhile life. And—final irony—they can have all this without needing to work for it. They can leave that part to the lazy, loyal working class. Why are they loyal? Because they think that they have some stake in the country of their living, which gives them a common cause with the capitalist class. And what does this stake amount to. About the biggest and most valuable thing that most workers are ever likely to own is a house. And what agonies they must go through, to get it! Every capitalist concern, whatever the nationality of its shareholders, is in business to make profit. It is, indeed, to make more profit that they invest overseas.
The Socialist Pary seeks a better world founded on common ownership, equality, and democracy, to meet all mankind’s material needs, to raise his or her personal and individual development to the greatest possible height. The Second International or the Third International traditions have come to dominate what passes for socialist thinking that they are now regarded as a refutation of the principles of socialism and cause for redefining socialism. The Socialist Party was well aware of the dangers of a concentration of economic and political power within the hands of an all-powerful state. It claimed that state ownership could only end in some form of bureaucratic despotism. State property is administered by ministerial officers, and these are, by the nature of things, a hierarchy and chain of command. State ownershipis a means of controlling and regimenting workers. These officials involved in the administration of the state do so as representatives of those who control the State. So we need to remember that the State and social ownership are not the same thing. One cannot equate the state with society. The change from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political state throughout history has meant the government of a few over the majority.
Socialism will administered by the whole community, a true democracy. Socialism will require no political state because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden property-less class: there will be no social disorder as a result, because there will be no clash of economic interests; there will be no need to create a power to make law and maintain order. As Engels wrote, the state will wither away. Engels states that ‘man...has become master of his own social organisation’.
The working class elect people to run capitalism or try hard, but some don't have a clue where it’s at, which is obvious by the dumb things they say. A typical case being the comments made about the cost of groceries by soon-to-be ex-Premier of Quebec, Philippe Couillard on Sept. 20. With the brilliance and clarity of genius, he said a family of an adult and 2 teenagers could be fed on $75 a week. What he didn't say was only if they were auditioning for a movie part as concentration camp inmates. Dalhousie University Prof. Sylvain Charlebois set Couillard straight by saying in Quebec it would be $149 a week. To bad thanksgiving (for what?) is over, then starving people could have eaten that enormous Turkey.
For socialism, Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC
Many have observed that there has been a lull in the class war and therefore believe that it is all over and the ruling class has won. Workers always have to struggle to get by and always have to fight to keep up their living standards. The greatest danger the capitalists are faced with is the steady spreading of the knowledge of the class struggle that must exist in a society divided into masters and slaves. To meet this spreading understanding the master class uses various agents and agencies to mislead the workers, to hide the facts of the case or to strenuously deny them, and to endeavour to increase the confusion of thought existing among those who are beginning to have a faint glimpse of the truth. That is well worth remembering. One great difference between the master class and the working class is the clear grip that the former haveof the insecurity of their position as a ruling class. The workers in a large number of cases have not even grasped the fact that a ruling class exists, and so are quite puzzled at the various social actions going on around them, the effects of which they feel without understanding the cause. But a small number at present are beginning to understand that there is some connection between the evils they suffer from and the fact that they have to work for an employer. This understanding is confused and even vague with many at the moment, but its existence is beyond dispute and causes a good deal of uneasiness among the elite. The cleverest of the master class is always on the look-out for new methods to meet this danger. They and their agents began to popularise the term "socialism" by tacking it on to every little reform or intervention in the market taken by the Government. Various attempts have been made to trick the workers into believing that socialism meant taking part in the internecine quarrels among the capitalists.
What is it that the Labor Party advocate? Revolution? Radicalism? Reform? Well, no—it is respectability! This is the logical end of the Labour Party's road to power via capitalist policies. It is the end which the Socialist Party foretold over a hundred years ago when Labour Party members were busily dubbing us the Impossibilists.
While we strongly sympathise with all real struggles against the employers' attacks, we never cease to urge upon the workers the need for class-consciousness for ending this system of society altogether, by political control. A General Strike tactic as a means of emancipation must surely fail, for the working class are propertyless, and if they cease work deprivation stares us in the face. All acquainted with daily life know the terrible misery that a strike entails; the suffering on the faces of the helpless children and struggling wives, the crammed pawn-shops: these remind us that strikes hurt the workers as well as the masters. A sectional strike has those at work helping those who are out. But when all the workers strike even that help fails, for they are all in the same boat. True, a general strike may paralyse a nation but we all depend upon continual production, and cessation means pain upon the most vulnerable—we have no stores, no reserves. Our masters have.
For the workers, the capitalist treadmill will last for as long as the working class chooses to put up with capitalism. Many claim Marx’s “predictions” did not come true. Has the control of industry become more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands? Has the proportion of capital invested in plant, machinery, and equipment grown more and more in relation to that spent on living labour? Has the process of capital accumulation proceeded, not smoothly, but in fits and starts, periods of rapid growth ending in periods of slump? Have the rich got richer? Have more and more of the old 'middle classes' become employees? Has the peasantry declined? Has the proportion of wage earners in the working population gone up? Have money-commodity relations spread more and more into all aspects of life? Has the economy become more and more international and globalised? Need we continue?
The Socialist Party doesn’t blindly adhere to everything Marx said and did. In fact we criticise him on some points, for instance, his taking sides in wars and his support for some nationalist movements. We recognise that, because he was politically active at a time when capitalism had not yet fully built up the material basis for a world socialist society, he took up positions on day-to-day issues which are no longer relevant today now that capitalism has done this. The reason why we continue to refer to Marx’s views on capitalism and history is not that it was him who put them forward but because he happened to be the first person to “lay bare the laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production”. The conceptual tools he developed for analysing capitalism (value, labour-power, surplus value, constant capital, variable capital, rate of surplus value, rate of profit, etc.) are still useful today. Similarly, with the tools he developed for analysing past and present societies and social change (forces of production, relations of production, economic base, political and ideological superstructure, class, class interest, class struggle, etc.).
It is true that Marx’s expectation was that the working class would become more and more class-conscious and that when a majority had become socialists they would take political action to abolish capitalism and establish socialism and that this hasn’t happened. But because it hasn’t happened yet does not mean that it never will. If that was true then capitalism would last forever. But it is of paramount importance that we advance to the next system in an orderly way. If we are not careful we may extinguish all life on the planet before socialism can be established and lose our chance of finally controlling our destiny.
Why are we the enemy of capital, national and international? Because the capitalists own the means whereby we live. All that we own is the power to labour. In order to live we are compelled to sell this to those who own the necessaries of life. It is they who decide whether we shall live or not. It is here where the interests of capitalists and workers are opposed. It is from this the class war springs, with its strikes and lock-outs, its police and bayonet charges, its hellish punishment of the workers.
Poverty, unemployment, almost all the evils we are subjected to, arise from this fact of ownership by a class of the means of life. It comes to this, that in order |that we may exist at all, it is necessary first of all to obtain their permission. If the workers desire to be free and to abolish the class war with all its evils, they must organise themselves as a propertyless class against the property-owning class on the political and industrial fields, and seize from the capitalists their political power, thereby clearing the way for the freedom of the whole human race. This is the work the Socialist Party has set out to accomplish, but it can only be done when the workers decide to do it. Therefore we appeal to ALL to endeavour to understand our Declaration of Principles with a view to accepting it and joining us, so that the day will be appreciably nearer when we shall smash up this rotten and inhuman system, and institute a healthier, happier, peaceful, and truly prosperous state of society. Democracy means participating in the running of affairs, not following leaders. The only kind of politics that is going to work is a do-it-yourself politics aimed at abolishing the profit system.
Scotland's ageing population poses a "real risk" to the country's budget in future, a Holyrood committee has said.
The working-age population is set to fall from 2018 onwards, alongside a big increase in the number of over-75s.
Scotland's economy is forecast to grow more slowly than that of the UK for each of the next four years and the Scottish Fiscal Commission said a "key factor" behind this was demographic change and population growth, with the number of people in the 16-64 working-age bracket set to shrink in the immediate future.
Finance committee convener Bruce Crawford said "The bad news is that while our ageing population is not new, it is set to accelerate from 2021, and this is happening faster than rest of the UK. In the longer term, all future Scottish governments will need to respond to the pressures this creates."
Almost a fifth of Scotland’s entire land mass is a grouse moor, and despite popular perception these moors are not natural.
The land is intensively managed to create a habitat suitable for one species, the red grouse, which is farmed to beshot for fun and entertainment.
In order to support sport shooting in Scotland, intensive land management techniques are employed to ensure estates yield large numbers of grouse to increase bag sizes at commercial shoots.
This includes heather burning, rigorous predator control, mountain hare persecution and unnecessary construction of roads and tracks, among others, all of which have wider negative social, environmental and welfare impacts
Broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham is backing the campaign, explained,“There is no doubt that we all deserve, need better uplands, a prosperous place for wildlife and people – and that is far from impossible. But making that turn will need a suite of skills and energies and that’s why I am keen to help inaugurate this partnership. Dead, burned and barren has to go – Scotland’s hills should be alive.”
For the Socialist Party, abundance is not the complete satisfaction of all conceivable material needs (it is hard to see how that would be possible) but providing for all our basic and secondary needs. There is no reason to hold that our vision of socialism and a sustainable environment are in conflict. Our focus is with the free development of human capacities, not with the growth of material production and consumption for its own sake. It is not just a question of taking over and reproducing the existing form of economic organisation as it exists under capitalism. Tackling climate change means demonstrating that the solution requires the reorganisation of society, that we face not technical but economic barriers. Partial demands under capitalism run the risk of being subverted by capitalism. It points to the limits of reforms under capitalism and the necessity of a revolutionary transformation of society. Concentrating upon lifestyle changes is in danger of taking us away from a real onslaught on the political structures of capitalism and towards the cul-de-sac of changing individual behaviour. Capitalism which operates for maximum corporate profit cannot halt its march to destruction even if some of the 1% do recognise the need for reforms. It requires replacing capitalist profit with production for real human need, and a substantial transformation of how we live and work, in ways that only a fundamentally democratic and fully participatory society can hope to achieve. There isn’t time to waste. The most critical issues facing mankind's future on the planet have generally not been treated as a priority and the “solutions” proposed are the wrong ones. An ecologically rational society is incompatible with capitalism. We cannot slide into suggesting that capitalism reforms could avoid ecological catastrophe. Capitalist production and “the market” cannot and will not halt climate catastrophe. The struggle to halt environmental destruction and capitalism itself must be waged simultaneously. Decarbonisation is simply incompatible with the most basic imperative of capitalist production. That imperative is growth — meaning the growth of production for profit, whether or not such growth enhances or degrades human lives, the viability of life on Earth, or anything else. The absolute urgency of cutting way back on fossil-fuel consumption is going to require, inevitably, a reduction in growth in that sense — although if properly organised, not necessarily a reduction in production for human needs. The production of war materiel and plastic wrapping is profitable, in a way that clean water for two billion folks who can't pay “market price” may never be. In a capitalist market economy, each unit — each enterprise — must profit at whatever expense, or die. Honorable intentions make little to no difference. And each capitalist nation-state can be expected, under DDP or any similar project, to advance the interests of its own leading businesses' and industrial corporations' interests. Our society is based on private property, which means that a few people own the means of life. This leaves a lot of people who are virtually propertyless. and who therefore have to work for the few owners. In this work, they create a surplus which must be sold so that the capitalists can realise their profits. These profits are used by and at the discretion of the international, wealthy ruling class. Capitalism can be attacked coldly, with fact and arguments on economics, history and the rest. This does not mean that we do not see through the cloying mess of moral standards and human values which capitalism foists on us. It is useless merely to try to be humane; for many, an uphill struggle to implement a reform has been followed by capitalism's unhappy knack of encroaching upon the reform, when it clashed with some sectional economic interest. No, we need a bigger change than that. Something to make human beings free and secure. Anger and outrage seem to have lost its usefulness as a call to action in these times of mounting despotism. Ignorance is growing as the corporate-controlled media is use as a tool of domination and when political education is not viewed as central to politics itself but substituted by banal sound-bites and vacuous sloganisation. Unapologetic for the widespread horrors, gaping inequality capitalists have joined in the discourse of hate and culture of cruelty and our fellow-workers offer unquestioning obedience to the powerful "strongman" who advocate patriotism, racial and ethnic cleansing as the "protection" of the superiority of a select national group. The Socialist Party wants a new social system based upon the common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. We are not in favour of capitalism of any sort because we know that, whatever efforts are made to reform the system, it will continue to produce problems like poverty and war. Our critics offer only the old plea that we should drop our work for socialism until we have sorted out one more of capitalism’s problems. We have heard this plea many times before, from organisations which were worried about unemployment, or fascism or some other side-effect of capitalism. Indeed, some of these organisations have had the chance to apply their reformist ideas. How have they turned out? The Socialist Party has always stood for the social revolution which will sweep away capitalism and all its false social values. This will be the complete, only and once-for-all cure for the problems of capitalism. To stand for anything less could mean that we would end up by supporting the very thing which we originally professed to oppose. We need a world socialist movement which brings together all the various single-issue campaigns drawing together all the threads that connect them. In addition, we need clarity that crosses borders. Our choice is to continue to accept capitalism as a given and try to squeeze whatever crumbs it might be willing to let fall from its table. Or Radically change direction and begin to build a global movement that can transcend capitalism once for all.
Michelin is to close its tyre factory in Dundee, the city's largest employer, with the loss of about 850 jobs, confirming that it would leave the city by 2020.
The company said the factory was "unsuitable" given current market conditions and it would not be financially viable to invest further. Michelin said the Dundee site has suffered because of a shift in the market towards low-cost products from Asia. The company praised its Dundee employees' dedication but said that in spite of that and its own "continuous efforts" the plant could not be saved.
The union Unite has said the closure would be a "hammer-blow" to the city.
So finally, at a few minutes before the deadline on September 30, the leading joe boys for their respective, if not respected capitalist classes in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico worked out a NAFTA agreement. It was as if one said, ''Here's your slice of the pie buddy, and yours too my fellow partner-in-crime'', and one said, ''Thanks but what about the working class?" The others looked on in amazement and yelled, ''WHO?'' ''You know the poor dumb schmucks who create the wealth we are carving up between us so their bosses and ours can live high on the hog.'' “Oh! those twits, well don't worry about them - while we eat the pie so crumbs may fall off the table that they can fight for!''
For socialism, Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.
If you proclaim yourself to be “anti-capitalist”, it is a good idea to have some idea of what capitalism is and understands that the abolition of capitalism involves the disappearance of money, wage-labour, commodity production and buying and selling generally and that Marx does not distinguish between communism and socialism. You would have thought that the main aim of an anti-capitalist movement would be to end capitalism and establish socialism. Apparently not. Many in the “anti-capitalist movement are not anti-capitalist as such but more anti-‘globalisation’, or perhaps anti-neoliberal, or even just opposed to particularly malignant corporations. They assume that the detrimental effects of the capitalist system can be eliminated by taming global corporations or by making them more ‘ethical’, ‘responsible’, and socially conscious, by legislation and regulation. The aim seems to be to bring pressure on existing governments to introduce reforms and to change their policy so as to tame multinational corporations and/or return to the state interventionism. Coherent anti-capitalists should be campaigning for socialism not changes of policy.
Labour has always stood for step-by-step reform and the Socialist Party opposed Labour when they claimed to be working for socialism by running capitalism. Labourites accept capitalism as a desirable economic system, aims to gradually improve the economic position of workers by providing welfare policies (health, education, social security, old age pensions, unemployment benefits), and by so doing alleviating the inequalities of unbridled capitalism. Reformism is alive and well and in complete control of the Labour Party. And, if it comes to power again, it will again fail to deliver the promised goods. Some pioneers of the Labour Party used to think that it stood for peace, security and prosperity. That was their dream. But what was the reality? The Labour Party will stand foursquare behind the war effort of British capitalism. A future Labour government would e as keen to protect the interests of the British capitalist class as is the Tory government we have at present. No worker should waste his or her time by voting for a Labour government. The Labour Party aims for power to run British capitalism. And no party has yet succeeded in doing that to the benefit of the majority.
It is only too easy in these days for the working class to succumb to the promises (not a few made in all sincerity) of left politicians. Wealth is not created by market forces; at most it is only distributed by them — unequally and to the benefit of those who own the means of production. Socialism does not mean state industries run on capitalist lines. Socialism means a system of society in which the means of production are owned by society as a whole, a system in which goods will really be produced for use, not for sale and profit-making, and in which there will be no such thing as an income from the ownership of property, whether as land, buildings, plant, shares or Government bonds. There can be no such thing as compensation if Socialism is to replace Capitalism. What the owners now possess is the right to an income from property, the right to live without working, the right to exploit the labour of the working-class. There can be no Socialism unless and until the means of production and distribution are taken from them and made over to society for the use of all. The former owners will then enjoy the fruits of associated labour on an equal footing with all other members of society, neither privileged nor suppressed, but as equals. But there can be no compensation. You cannot abolish exploitation and at the same time give the exploiters something equivalent to their former right of exploitation. A slave-owner, deprived of his slaves, could be given property rights of another kind under capitalism. But abolish capitalist wage-slavery and you end exploitation for all time and for all persons.
People should have a proper understanding of capitalism’s class structure—what it is, how it operates and what it does to us. Simply—class is determined by a person’s economic standing and interests. Those who have to be employed—at whatever job—for a living are members of the working class. Their interests are the same as those of all other members of that class and opposed to those of the one other class, who as a class employ and exploit them. In this process capitalism’s class structure is protected and perpetuated. Whether Labour Party politicians understands this or not is another matter.
The Labour Party will take office if opportunity arises, determined to apply its numerous and complicated schemes for reorganising industry, raising wages, abolishing unemployment, etc., while retaining all the essentials of capitalism. It will retain rent, interest and profit, the wages system, buying and selling, and the struggle for foreign markets, and will leave the capitalist class still possessed of their property rights, their right to exploit the working class. The penalty for the working class is appalling to contemplate.
The City of Mississauga, Ontario is noted for being a reasonably prosperous place, as far as capitalism will allow, and also a City where the public services are run extremely well. This would not be possible were it not for the number of volunteer workers involved, which was admitted recently by a City administrator. I regret I have been unable to find statistics in this matter, but the number of volunteers in all aspects of social life must be thousands. Yet still, the majority of people anywhere think society would collapse if people weren't paid to do work.
For socialism, Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.
In September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a brutal military coup against the then president of Chile, Salvador Allende. It was an act that was condemned around the world. But over in East Kilbride, Scotland, a few men were compelled by a sense of solidarity with the Chilean people to act in support. Pinochet’s army used British-built Hawker Hunter jets to attack the presidential palace, the engines of which were routinely sent back to Scotland to be serviced. Led by a firebrand shop steward, the workers in the factory refused to touch them.
This earnest, if slightly laboured documentary reunites the now retired engineers and reveals to them the impact their actions had. There are some unexpectedly moving moments in an understated film that gets much of its charm from the down-to-earth decency of the characters. The men are shown messages of thanks from the Chileans whose lives they touched. “That’s smashing,” says one modestly, adding that thanks were really not necessary.
When Scots refused to service Chile’s jet fighters after the 1973 military coup, their protest all but grounded the air force – and may have saved prisoners’ lives. Nae Pasaran, a powerful documentary, tells their story.
he artificial spiders’ webs hanging in the windows of the Royal British Legion in East Kilbride, on the edge of Glasgow, are just part of the Halloween decorations. But they feel oddly appropriate on this bright, frosty morning in the company of men whose distant triumphs have recently had the cobwebs dusted off them. Sitting off to one side is the 41-year-old Chilean film-maker Felipe Bustos Sierra. Huddled around a table next to him are the former Rolls Royce plant workers whose bold statement of solidarity with the Chilean people in the mid-1970s is the subject of Nae Pasaran!, an inspirational documentary that proves principled acts can have positive consequences – even if they take decades to come to light.
Six months after the bloody coup of 11 September 1973, which began the brutal 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, these four Scotsmen – Bob Fulton, Robert Somerville, John Keenan, Stuart Barrie – downed tools and refused to service and repair engines for the Chilean air force’s Hawker Hunter planes. “Down tools?” says Bob, a former engine inspector and the instigator of the boycott. “We hadnae time to pick ’em up!”
Bob is 95 now, a gentle man with expansive hand gestures who sometimes holds on to the sides of the table while he talks, as if he’s planning to drive it away. He can still remember vividly the events of that March day in 1974: “I got to my desk in the morning and there was this compressor shaft up on the table ready for me to inspect. The first thing you do is check the card. Well, I turned the card round.” He acts out the scene, flipping a beermat over and staring disbelievingly at the underside. “And there it was: Chile.”
“We had already condemned the Chilean junta,” adds Stuart, who is 74. John, the 78-year-old former assembly unit worker and member of the works committee, leans in to clarify. “The people being tortured and murdered, many of them were just like us: trade unionists. At our monthly meeting, Robert had made a motion condemning the actions in Chile. And then when Bob recognised the engines – well, you tell him!”
Bob jabs a finger at me. “This is true,” he says, and I notice Felipe giving the fond smile of someone who has had that finger jabbed at him plenty of times. “I went to the foreman and said, ‘I cannae work on that.’ From there, I went to see Stuart, who was a shop steward, and told him there were bits and pieces of the Chilean engine possibly on the line already.” Stuart is chuckling: “I can hear him shouting, ‘There’s Chilean engines in here! The whole place is awash with ’em!’” Everyone falls about at his impersonation. “I would say you were somewhat volatile at times,” says Stuart.
“I might’ve been,” replies Bob, in a voice softer than falling snow.
“I told Bob, ‘Right. That’s it. We’ll black the fuckers.’” Blacking entailed attaching labels with the word “black” on them to each contested part, warning everyone in the plant to steer clear of them. The four engines – which had likely come from the Hawker Hunters involved in the attack on the presidential palace in Santiago – were eventually dumped outside in crates. Without protection from the elements, they were useless within a year.
In theory, the men could have been sacked for their protest, but the strength of the unions made that unlikely. “The only reason we could do what we did was because we were organised,” explains John. “We took strike action for the NHS, the Shrewsbury pickets, you name it.” But this was something different: a high-profile international case that brought hope to people 7,000 miles away.
Precisely how much hope, and to what end, had remained unclear until Felipe started researching his film six years ago. It was widely known that Hortensia Busside Allende – the widow of Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president killed in the coup – visited Glasgow in 1975 and expressed publicly her gratitude. Hundreds of letters of thanks poured in over the years, too, and Robert helped to resettle Chilean refugees in Lanarkshire as early as 1974.
“It was perfect, perfect,” he says now of the community’s reaction. “The amount of help we got – from the council, who gave them houses, and Rolls-Royce, who asked for people to help out by donating white goods.” It sounds a world away from the hostility that can accompany the arrival of refugees today. “Aye,” says Stuart sadly. “There was no trace of what you see now.”
The men always felt the story was unfinished, though, not least because of the way the boycott ended: after four years, the engines were mysteriously stolen in the middle of the night by vehicles with false licence plates. “It was as if the SAS had done it,” says Bob. “Obviously the government, no question,” says Stuart. “But personally, I’ve always seen it as a victory. They can only fly so many hours before they need to be overhauled – and we stopped that, didn’t we?”
Indeed, the film tracks down Fernando Rojas Vender, the unrepentant former commander of Chile’s air force, who makes clear the extent of the damage done. The entire squadron of 29 Hawker Hunters was close to being grounded by the boycott. Although India, Israel and South Africa came to Pinochet’s aid, probably with spare parts, East Kilbride was the only place in the world where those engines could be properly repaired.
The boycott was familiar to Felipe: as the son of a journalist exiled to Belgium after the coup, he remembered hearing East Kilbride mentioned at solidarity meetings. “I’d been told that many of the original guys had passed on, so I was intending the film to be fiction not documentary. Then, when I met them, I realised they’re natural born storytellers. That matches the way Chilean solidarity has been told over the years, as oral history.”
Robert was wary of revisiting the boycott, though, having been stung in the past by inaccurate reporting, while Stuart harboured little affection for those days. “I was about as interested in anything to do with Rolls-Royce as I was in the location of my last shite.”
When I ask Stuart what changed his mind, Felipe jogs his memory: it was the footage of Chilean political prisoners remembering how the protest saved their lives. Most government records were destroyed, but the film argues convincingly that members of the air force who had been sympathetic to Allende – and were imprisoned and tortured under Pinochet – may in fact have had their freedom granted in exchange for those Hawker Hunter engines.
“I remember watching that with you,” says Felipe, “and you kind of lost your sense of humour a bit.” Stuart agrees: “When those guys discussed the impact it had, I was impressed. Some people would be broken after what they’d been through. But they had got up again. I was touched by that. And I make an effort not to get touched too much.” Bob is more forthright: “It was a bit emotional watching all that. I think it’s a cracker of a film.”
Felipe says one of the first questions he was asked by the men was whether he could find out what happened to the engines. And one of the offending items does make a cameo appearance near the end of the film. How did it feel to see it again? “It was a good feeling,” says Stuart. “Ah, it was just an engine,” sighs Bob, to much laughter, though he brightens at the news that it will soon be on display permanently in East Kilbride. “I think it has affected Chileans more than these guys,” Felipe tells me, “because so much from Chilean history has been destroyed. Finding tangible evidence is quite a rare thing.”
The men are long retired and the sprawling plant has fallen silent: it closed in 2015 and was demolished the following year. But the question raised implicitly by the film is whether something like the East Kilbride boycott could ever happen again. “Anyone today who wants to mirror what these guys did is taking a much bigger personal risk,” says Felipe, citing the lack of trade unions. “But considering what’s happening now, some of us are going to have to take that risk.”
Bob gives it some thought. “I’m not sure. It would have to be very specific circumstances.” These men were responding, after all, to a coup that focused the world’s attention on Chile, whereas anyone wishing to obstruct, say, Britain’s sale of arms and torture equipment to countries on its own list of human rights abusers, faces a more diffuse task.
“It wouldn’t be so simple now,” says Stuart. “But never underestimate the power of someone standing up and speaking the truth.”
Well worth a visit to the cinema to view solidarity in action List of showings http://naepasaran.com/upcoming-screenings/
Throughout its existence, the Socialist Party continually refers to capitalism as being the main cause of the evils which exist to-day. Those evils are almost too well known to need recapitulation. They are widespread poverty and semi-starvation in the midst of an abundance of wealth, lying advertisements—part of the enormously wasteful method of distribution, with its myriads of shops and salesmen and deliverers, the colossal waste of human effort in the building of battleships, aeroplanes and armaments, the fussy and useless activities in the circularizing of letters and the faking up of news as an adjunct to the advertisers, the waste of valuable human labour in ministering to the whims and caprices of wealthy idlers—these, and the evils which arise directly from poverty itself, such as prostitution, robberies and murders. If capitalism is the cause of these evils, then it is obvious that any party which maintains that this is the case must constantly refer by name to that order of society. In all sciences, there are words which indicate certain basic ideas or principles, and if any discussion upon any section of that particular science is to be understood at all, those words must be used whenever that particular idea or principle is referred to. For instance, in physiology one constantly has to refer to the heart and the circulation of the blood. In the same way, in sociology, one has to refer to the elements which constitute a particular society, and the particular form of society in which we are living at the present time, and which therefore interests us the most, has been given the name of capitalism. It is, therefore, frequently necessary to use this word, and no apology is required for doing so.
That capitalism is the cause of the evils enumerated above, besides many others, has been abundantly proved in the previous posts of this blog. It is not proposed to go into this in detail here, but it is sufficient to point out that the characteristics of capitalism are—the private ownership of the means of production and the production of articles for profit. It is not very difficult to perceive that those evils arise from this fact of private ownership and the efforts of the few people who own them to dispose of those commodities. Does it not logically follow that if the means of living are owned by one class, then any other class can have no other relation to the first class than that of slaves? But if a logical deduction is not sufficient, then what are the facts? Unless he or she steals or begs, a person without capital has to work in order to live. We have to find a master. That master is generally some big corporation or other. During the time that we are with that company we have to work hard, we have to do what we are told, we frequently have to smile back when we are insulted, humiliated and bullied, and if we dare to stand up for ourselves, we endure the torments of unemployment. We are now “free,” but as it is difficult to live upon the dole, quick as though we have to start searching for another master. Whilst on the dole we are constantly being summoned to interviews for our case to be “reviewed”; an investigator comes round to see if we have managed to put by any savings or if he has earned a few pounds surreptitiously, and if we have and has not disclosed it, then woe betide us. Is this person not a slave to the class which employs him or her and which, when out of work, administers the relief and the unemployment benefit?
Letter to the Editors from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard
Sirs,
While agreeing entirely with your aims of socialism, I would quarrel with the idea, enshrined in your declaration of principles, that society is still clearly divided in such a way that everyone is a member of either the “master class” or the “working class”, or as you put it those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. There are now a vast number of people who, for example, work and own shares. It seems to me that the idea of a divided society is no longer valid: all the other objections to capitalism are in themselves more than enough, but the concept that everyone can be put on one side of the fence or the other is not acceptable. In particular, this would suggest that anyone who, for example, receives interest on a bank account, or who is partly paid in shares of the firm he works for, cannot support the SPGB' as “all political parties are but the expression of class interests.”
Yours sincerely,
Neil Mitchison,
Edinburgh.
Reply.
A class is a group of people who all have the same economic interest. The makeup of classes, the dividing lines between them, their functions in society, the number of them in existence, have all varied with different social systems.
One thing which capitalism has done has been to tidy up classes. There are now only two of them and, with relatively few exceptions, the whole population of the capitalist world is in one or other of them. The exceptions may be peasants living and working under social relationships more akin to feudalism, or shopkeepers and tradesmen existing in a sort of class twilight These people — and they are a small minority — may be unclassifiable but this does not affect the overall, significant class division of capitalism.
The vast majority of people can be placed in one class; they are forced to sell their working abilities in order to live. They do this to the owners of the means of production and it is only by selling their working power that they are allowed access to the means of production. It is reasonable, and accurate, to call these people the working class and to call the other class, who own the means of production and who therefore buy labour-power, the capitalist class.
Now what about the person who sells his labour power to an employer but who also owns some shares, or receives interest on savings? This does not alter the fact that he depends for his living on selling his ability to work; his relationship to the means of production makes him a member of the working class.
The division of society into classes, with opposing interests which cause so much unrest, is only one of capitalism's malaises but it is not to be ignored or minimized. The revolution for Socialism will overthrow the capitalist class and take away their monopoly of the means of production. It is, therefore, against their interests but it is in the interests of the other, subject class — the working class. That is why it is only the Socialist Party which stands for the interests of the working class and why all who oppose Socialism, or who stand for something less than Socialism, express the interests of the capitalist class.
Research shows 19% of workers in Scotland were paid less than the Living Wage. The real Living Wage currently sits at £8.75 per hour outside London, where it is £10.20 per hour. Jenny Stewart, Partner at KPMG in Scotland, said: “Scotland still has 435,000 workers paid below the Living Wage, and progress seems to have stalled with 19% of the workforce paid below the Living Wage compared to 18% last year...“If you’re one of the following – a part-time worker, or under the age of 21, or female – you are much more likely to be paid less than £8.75 per hour.” https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2018/11/04/rate-of-workers-in-scotland-paid-less-than-the-living-wage-is-below-uk-average/
