Who owns the North Pole?

It has been a long time since the Socialist Courier blog last added to our once regular thread on the North Pole but the potential for conflict in that region has not disappeared.

As the ice melts and shipping lanes open up, geopolitical tensions are growing and old cold war bases are being reopened. The climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders. The current tensions are a result of a world warmed by industrial emissions. The Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet, shrinking sea ice and exposing more water and territory to exploitation and access. By 2035, the Arctic is forecast to be free of ice during summer, which will allow ships to sail across the north pole. 

Tromsø, in Norway, was once a tiny trading post. Today, it’s a gateway to the mineral-rich north. 
“Now we have a historically strange situation with political and economic activity in the Arctic. So many people are knocking on our door, including business and state representatives from China, Pakistan, Singapore and Morocco,” the mayor, Kristin Røymo, told the Guardian. “There is also a very obvious increased naval presence.”

China, which has declared itself a “near-Arctic nation”, is among the countries exploring this area. Last year, it launched a second Snow Dragon ice breaker and released an Arctic white paper that explored the potential for infrastructure investments in a Polar Silk Road.

Russia is reopening and strengthening cold war bases on the Kola peninsula in the far north-west of the country. Norway is beefing up its military presence in the high Arctic. Last October, Nato staged Trident Juncture with 40,000 troops, its biggest military exercise in Norway in more than a decade. A month earlier Britain announced a new “Defence Arctic Strategy” and promised a 10-year deployment of 800 commandos to Norway and four RAF Typhoons to patrol Icelandic skies. The US is also sending hundreds more marines to the region on long-term rotations and has threatened to send naval vessels through Arctic shipping lanes for the first time.

“Right now, the reasons we are seeing more military activity is that countries are worried by the spectre of open water,” one of the speakers, Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, told the Guardian. “The unique Arctic security architecture has shape and form that come from natural extremities. If the Arctic becomes just another ocean, this breaks down. It’s elemental.”

According to Tore Furevik, a professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen, “We’re heading for a new and uncertain Arctic with ramifications for nature and politics.” 

Norway's former defence minister Espen Barth Eide, compared the situation to the South China Sea, where China, the US and other nations compete, not by firing weapons, but by demonstrating capacity and presence. “To some extent that is happening now in the Arctic.”

The US navy secretary, Richard Spencer, complained last month,“The threat is back on. This is an area … we need to focus on,” he said. Spencer has called for a strategic Arctic port in Alaska and US naval vessels to conduct navigation operations later this year in northern shipping lanes so they have the capacity to conduct emergency operations if necessary. 

Lisa Murkowski, a US senator for Alaska, explained, “It’s important for the US to project military strength.”

The problem is capitalism. The solution is socialism

The world of mankind and our natural world is under threat. We need to look beyond capitalism. We find unprecedented anger, division and despair among the working classes as capitalism concentrates wealth toward the top. The problem is structural. Politicians first and foremost serve business interests with some small crumbs hopefully “trickling down” to the masses. Since their promises did not materialise, the “populists” and “anti-globalists”are openly scapegoating immigrants for society’s problems. While working-class are angry at the system and united in their despair, they are divided against each other, often along racial lines. Something new and better is needed. Call it What you may, “post-capitalism”, “social democracy”, “eco-socialism,” “democratic socialism” or just plain old “socialism”. People must rise up in a movement for self-preservation and overthrow capitalism in favour of a socialist sustained, ecologically supportable existence with our fellow human beings and the planet.

Scarcity and privation need not be mankind’s future. There is a better way for suffering humanity – to go forward together to reestablish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities. Socialism advocates the synthesis of ecological balance, social harmony, personal freedom and material comfort. The Socialist Party says that human beings can learn to understand nature, production and social relations, and change them in a rational manner. Only socialism, by absorbing all classes in the common ownership of the means of production, can resolve the antagonism between the employing class and the working class. A truly human way of life is incompatible with private property, wage-labour, money and the state. The Socialist Party wants to bring about a society in which men and women will consider each other as brothers and sisters and by mutual support will achieve the greatest well-being and freedom as well as physical and intellectual development for all. The strongest is the one who is the least isolated; the most independent is the one who has most fellowships and friendships.

Political parties are the product of the class struggle. In a class-free society which has rid itself of the remnants of class interests and ideology there will be no political parties. They will be unnecessary. But we are in the midst of a society torn by class struggle, and the political parties of necessity express and reflect the interests of classes in conflict. The battle-lines in this class war is between the capitalists and the workers.  The capitalist class is no longer a progressive class. It cannot lead mankind forward. It can only drag it backwards. Based upon private property, it has long-since fulfilled whatever progressive role it had to play in the development of society. Capitalism now fetters the productive forces, drags society into desolation and catastrophe. The working class is the custodian of socialism which paves the way to the next great stride in the evolution of society. We have to campaign clearly and say that there can be no solution to the problem of our fellow-workers under capitalism. We have to argue we must fight all the time to change the system. That’s the only solution. The Socialist Party challenges every other school of thought to come and put their cards on the table and debate with us. Because the only people that can talk about a future for mankind is the Socialist Party – and we shouldn’t be ashamed to say so. Socialism will not be formed blindly but will be built consciously. Solidarity will be the basis of society. People will divide into “parties” around  such questions as the route of a new railway or road, the location of a a new building, and over the  best in sports. Such “parties” will not be poisoned by greed of class or caste. All will be equally interested in the success of the whole.

Socialism is the science of the revolution. Its tool is historical materialism. Socialism has been able to analyse capitalism, and to provide answers to the main economic, political and social problems of our times but it does not and never pretended to answer all the problems of mankind. It does not, for example, pretend to solve all personal problems, but insofar as it points the way to the solution of the social problem of society, it contributes to the solution of personal problems. The wealth and productive facilities of the world could supply the material basis for a new social organisation which would ensure plenty for all in the shortest time. But the capitalist ownership of industry and the their control of the government stands in the way of using these riches and facilities for the benefit of mankind. Abundance already exists potentially today and it is clear that every new technological development makes the case for socialism even stronger.

Organise for Socialism

WORKERS POWER

We cannot achieve economic and social freedom by merely wishing it. And to see what is wrong with capitalism and what is right with socialism is still not to see how to pass from one to the other. The participation of every person in the decision-making process which guides his life is a condition of freedom, it follows that until the working class find this way no one else can find it for them. Socialism is not a society of regimented individuals, regardless of whether there is equality of everyone, and regardless of whether they are well-fed, well-clad and well-shod. It is not a society in which people are subordinated to the state-machine and its bureaucracy. The aim of socialism is to create a form of production and an organisation of society in which mankind can overcome alienation from its product, from its work, from fellow men and women and from nature thus becoming one with the world. Mankind produces in an associated, not competitive way; produces rationally and in an unalienated way, which means that bringing production under control, instead of being ruled by some blind power. It means that the individual participates actively in the planning and in the execution of the plans; it means, in short, the realisation of political and industrial democracy. The aim of socialism is freedom in a much more radical sense than the existing democracy conceives of it. Socialism is a society which serves the needs of humanity. Socialism is the abolition of human self-alienation, the return of man as a real human being.

We live in a world where technological innovations unimaginable in previous societies are within our grasp. Yet never before have we felt so helpless and vulnerable. We can produce enough to satisfy the needs of everyone on the planet. Yet millions of lives suffer from poverty and are stunted by hunger and blighted by disease. Our society is dominated by feelings of insecurity, of isolation and of loneliness. Socialism has been best able to analyse the reality of society in its evolution but seeks not only to explain but to change the world, to bring the social organisation into harmony with mankind’s needs. Men and women working on a social basis of production, at a minute division of labour, producing an infinite number of commodities, has in effect socialised the forms of production. But we live with the paradox of private property, private profit and private accumulation which is a form inherited from past class systems, but can no longer be adjusted to present forms of production. So long as this paradox endures, we will have wars, crises, poverty and the final terrible agony of humanity on a world scale. End the vested interests and their centralised domination over man’s wealth and resources; eliminate the capitalist class which have within their hands tremendous wealth, and who prevent the living standards of the mass of the people from keeping pace with the output of the productive plant. Organise our economy on a socialised, planned basis and then the foundations will be laid for the withering away of the state as an agency of repression.

The Socialist Party aim is to sharpen our fellow-workers views to draw the central lesson of their class struggle: that the capitalist class as a whole is the enemy, its politicians included; that the capitalist system must be destroyed; and that the world working class has the social power to accomplish this. We point out that the working class needs to unite its various struggles against the capitalists to win real gains—and above all show the working class the real power it has when it unifies to challenge the system. Against the reformist palliatives, we point to the only way to actually solve the crises we all face is socialist revolution. Capitalism maintains its profits solely on the basis of lowering and worsening the standards of the workers. The capitalists, faced with increased productive power and a shrinking market, can only look for the solution in fiercer competition, in restricting production, in cheapening their own costs of production, in cutting wages against their competitors, in increasing their own competitive power, in fighting to enlarge their own share of the market. But these measures are pursued by the capitalists in every country. Although one set or another set may gain a temporary advantage for a short time, the net effect can only be to deepen the crisis. The net effect of every advance of technique, of every wage-cut, of every cheapening of costs and intensification of production, is to intensify the world crisis.

Only Socialism can bring the solution. Only Socialism can cut through the bonds of capitalist property rights and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for all. This is the aim of the working-class revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, care drive the capitalists from possession, can organise social production. Many workers placed their hopes in the Labour Party to bring the solution. They have seen the need of basic social change; the Labour Party spoke of basic social change, of socialism, and promised to realise it. Every time a Labour Government has been installed, swift disillusionment has followed. The Labour Party acts and will continue to act, as the representative of capitalism — because its basis is capitalism.

We end capitalism or it ends us.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten

We live in divisive times, where politicians focus on our differences instead of our common humanity. The Socialist Party pushes for economic and social justice. We claim it is our birthright as human beings to have dignity and a decent standard of living. Social division will remain everywhere as long as major political parties continue to divide our populations with their hateful rhetoric and bigotry, preying on those in our societies that are most vulnerable. We have shared responsibilities for ourselves, our families, and our neighbours because we are all connected. Socialism is about society and communities taking control of their own needs and wants, putting solidarity at the core. Democracy needs to operate at all levels - local communities, regional and globally. Socialism must be a worldwide movement, not simply restricted to one country. We can't fix the problems caused by capitalism by continuing to do what we’ve always done. The people must rise. The world is at a tipping point. Another way is possible but everyone is needed. This is must be just the beginning to build a political economy that produces material dignity and freedom for all the world’s people. We will have to build a movement that challenge the hegemony of capitalist power. Trusting in reforms ensures our continued enslavement.

The Socialist Party, understanding capitalism, see in the rise and fall of production, in booms and slumps, just the normal working of capitalism—its pendulum, so to speak. And capitalism without its pendulum movement would not be capitalism. The poverty and insecurity of the workers can only be abolished when the condition on which the pendulum rests is abolished. That condition is the private ownership of the means and instruments of production. Socialism needs a high development of society's powers of industrial production on an international basis, plus a majority of socialists. The idea “to each according to his needs" requires as its basis a high level of industrial productivity, i.e., the capacity to produce wealth in abundance. It is not sufficient merely that a group of men and women should have convinced themselves that they believe in it. On the question of the incentive for work and study. Capitalism denies to vast numbers of workers the possibility of interesting themselves in these problems, but socialism would not do so. On the other hand, in socialism, all kinds of workers will be helped and given greater incentive by the knowledge that their work is for the good of the whole human society of which they are part, and in the welfare of which they share.

People have to be learning and people have to be taking action. Solidarity is a guiding principle of the Socialist Party for all the exploited people face the same enemy and the only way any of us can defeat our common oppressor is with class unity against capitalism and all its manifestations. Divided we are weak but united workers are a force to be reckoned with. Freedom only comes through self-organisation and this is what too many on the Left today fail to grasp. You can’t give someone their freedom. Nor should the reformers regard freedom as a privilege to be asked for politely. We remain exploited because capitalism exists. A democratically-expressed majority is the only way to ensure that there will be a sufficiently large number of people aware of how society will need to be run and prepared to assert it.

We must be socialists because it is in socialism that we will realise true equality and end injustices. The Socialist Party seeks a world where all distinction of nationality should disappear, and the whole human family should constitute one people. Our vision of the future is the conception of a class-free society and an end to oppression, misery, and war. Co-operation instead of competition is the aim of the Socialist Party. Humanity is divided into two classes — the employers and the employed. Our present capitalist system has been a pronounced failure. In the future things must be done unity and co-operation.

We have to name the criminal culprit in today’s world...capitalism. The profit system is changing the climate, degrading the land and the oceans, extinguishing other species, producing toxic pollution and thus creating an environmental time bomb. Capitalism’s ceaseless growth is a cancer. In contrast socialism generates the conditions for an egalitarian and environmentally sustainable planet that we know to be possible and seek to achieve. That’s not wishful thinking. For sure most people can’t quote Marx’s Capital but they fully understand that global corporate power which is shaping their lives, slashing their pay, cutting their jobs, and creating insecurity while laying waste to the environment around them. The blight of poverty is everywhere. People die before their time. What has been previously hidden has become increasingly visible. The ruling class are growing more and more nervous. Certainly, the capitalists will continue courting the reformists who are willingly compromising and maneuvering for every small advantage, competing with one another for whatever favours can be gained by the ruling class. Perhaps socialism is not yet triumphant, but its hope and dreams are still very much alive and its possibilities live on. The big message is to build in ways such that all involved are reinforced by a sense of common struggle and shared future.

Socialism: life-giving, not life-destroying.

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” -  Oscar Wilde

We are in tempestuous times, where the chronic problems thrown up by the capitalist system have caused so much pain are, at last, coming to be seen as urgent and in need of attention by an increasing number of people. We also live in a divisive time.  There are some who seek to divide us. It is now important that we develop a movement of social change. The timeline now requires fairly massive, fairly quick moves toward socialism. we want to make real progress in fighting capitalism which destroying our lives and the planet, we need to find ways to support each other and express solidarity with one another by learning how to organize together for revolutionary change. Challenging the Establishment, believing that one can make a difference, and committing time to confronting those in power is not easy. In the capitalist world, our relationships with one another are structured by political disconnection. Effective action involves coordination and strategy to achieve our aspirations. Socialists are, of course, anathema to the political elite who, with all their might, resist such revolutionary efforts to transform society.

To-day, the worker is driven to wage slavery through the private ownership of the natural resources from which all mankind must get the means of life. Under capitalism the propertied class exploits the working class. Receivers of rent, interest and profit are living on the unpaid labour of the workers. They are able to do this because they own and control the means of production and distribution, including the land. At the back of their ownership stands their control of the political machinery, including the armed forces. The choice is between capitalism and Socialism, between a continuance of exploitation and its abolition. Any attempt to reform the relationship of the different sections of the propertied class while continuing to prevent the working-class majority from ending exploitation, can rightly be described as an attempt to perpetuate a half-strangled capitalism.

No Socialist Party member could take exception to the struggle of the workers to preserve a democratic platform. On the other hand, we cannot support any movement which encourages workers to sacrifice themselves in defence of capitalist wealth. If working class history has any meaning for those who wage the struggle to-day, it is that the association of workers with capitalist movements has led only to their division and confusion. The clearest presentation of the class struggle leads to another conclusion; that every movement of the workers must be waged on the basis of unity with their fellows and of fundamental opposition to the capitalist class.

Socialism, is the taking in the name of humanity all the wealth that exists on the globe. In the society of the future, socialism will be the enjoyment of all existing wealth, by all men and women according to the principle: From each according to abilities, to each according to needs, that is to say: from each to each according to his or her will. The taking of possession and the enjoyment of all existing wealth must be the doing of the people themselves, no intermediaries, no go-betweens, no brokers, no new government, no new state, whether it calls itself popular or democratic, revolutionary or provisional. The common wealth belongs to the entirety of humanity, who find themselves in a position to use it will use it in common. We want the control of all the world’s resources to be in the hands of the people themselves and to be kept by their powerful hands, and that the people themselves decide the best way to enjoy it, be it for production or consumption. People will use the planet, the machines, the workshops, the houses, etc., of the land and will serve everyone in common of them. If a person from another region comes to this land, he or she will have the same rights in the same way that he or she enjoyed in their land. Some ask us is socialism possible? Will there be enough to let everyone have the right to take as they wished, without demanding from individuals more labour than they are willing to give? We answef: yes and that we can apply this principle: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need, because, in future society, production will be so abundant that there will be no need to limit consumption, or to demand from people more work than they are willing or able to give. We can imagine this immense growth in production, which will come about from:

1. Harmony of cooperation in the different branches of human activity will replace today’s competition

2. Large-scale introduction of all kinds of new technology

3. The considerable conservation of the forces of labour and of raw materials, facilitated by the abolition of harmful or useless production.

Socialists have made great contributions to political-economic thought. Probably the greatest contribution has been to work toward a class-free, non-authoritarian, co-cooperatively based society. It is a society where individuals care for the needs of all members, and that individual also benefits from the protective net, avoiding the consequences of future ill-health or natural disaster. What kind of world is it that most people want? Dog-eat-dog capitalism or everybody looking out for and caring about one another, replace the inefficient capitalist market with a solidarity economy where workers are not dictated to by a board of directors for the profit of shareholders? Sadly, no socialist revolution is imminent, violent now or in the near future. Capitalist production follows the dictum “Mors tua vita mea”, your death is my life. Conflict is relentless and happens from nation to nation, from region to region, from individual to individual, between workers, between capitalists. A worker finds work where another has lost it; one industry or many industries prosper where other industries decline. In the socialist society of the future, this individualistic principle of capitalist production, every man for himself against all others, and everyone against everyone, will be replaced by the true principle of human society: all for one and one for all. Imagine how great will be the growth of production, when each person, far from needing to fight against all the others, will be helped by them, when we will have them not as enemies and rivals but as cooperators. If the collective work of ten attains results absolutely impossible for one person alone, how grand will be the results obtained by the large-scale cooperation of all mankind who, today, work in hostility against each other?

Today, innovative technology often has the ignorance of the capitalist against it, but more often still his interest. How many inventions are going unapplied only because they do not bring an immediate benefit to the capitalist? So many discoveries, so many applications of science go unheeded, only because they do not bring enough to the capitalist. The worker today finds an enemy in automation, and rightfully so, because they are the monster that comes to threaten unemployment, to starve and to degrade him, to torture and to dehumanise. But what an immense difference it would beif , on the contrary, it augmented the work process we will no longer be the slave to the machines but instead they would be at our service, assisting us and  and working for our well-being.

How much resources are horribly wasted today, because they are used for the production of absolutely useless things, when they are not harmful to humanity. How many workers, how much material, and how many factories are used today by the military to provide it with is armaments  How much is wasted to produce luxury objects and consumer goods that serve nothing but the needs of vanity and corruption? And when all this is used, for the production of useful objects what a prodigious growth in production we will see.

Yes, socialism is viable where we let everyone take according to their will, since there will be enough for everyone. We will no longer need to demand more work than anyone wants to give, because there will always be enough products for tomorrow.  And it’s thanks to this abundance that work will lose the dreadful character of wage slavery, leaving people to of live in harmony with nature. Not only is socialism feasible, we affirm that it is necessary.

A large proportion of working people are may indeed be dissatisfied, even angry, but few contemplate any such revolution. Many activists believe the time is not ripe and are content upon placing demands upon the ruling class that in no way disturbs the status quo. However, socialists recall the words of Karl Liebknecht’s posthumous article from a hundred years ago.

 “Those defeated today will be the victors tomorrow…whether or not we live to experience it, our program will remain alive; it will prevail in a world of a rescued humanity – In spite of everything!”

It is our warning to the capitalists of the world and our battle cry to our fellow-workers.

Arise ye workers!

Study socialism, and make yourselves proof against the propaganda spread by the master class daily. Are the problems which face the working class capable of solution within the capitalist system, or are they not? If they are, then socialism is not only a dream, but also a waste of time and energy. If they are not, then those who divert working-class energies to a futile attempt to save the present system are of necessity enemies of the workers and must be opposed by the Socialist Party. There is no need to await events to put this to the test. The workers are slaves to the capitalist class because the latter own the means of producing wealth. The workers will either replace capitalism by socialism, or they will retain capitalism. If they perpetuate capitalism, they will perpetuate their slavery to the capitalist class. The form may change; the slaves may become well-fed; they may be given access to the cultural crumbs from their master’s table; they may become contented, but they will still be slaves. Wage slavery is inherent in the capitalist organisation of society. When the workers understand and want socialism, they will have it; not before.

Many reformists really do imagine that they can take action in Parliament to further socialism; but they are no less dangerous than the anti-socialist because it is with sincerity that they advocate their delusion. Either from ignorance or with intent, are prepared to support the continued existence of the capitalist system. The reformist main argument is that an honest and efficient government, sympathetic to the aspirations of the workers, can remove poverty, end inequality, abolish war, and in general can solve the many problems of the day without changing society; without abolishing capitalism. An elementary study of the working of capitalist economics is sufficient to show that poverty, war and unemployment are natural products of the capitalist system of production.

Only the Socialist Party aims at power for socialism. It is our contention that other political parties have programmes which are designed to attract anti- or non-socialists. These are made up of a series of immediate proposals or demands which, judged from the socialist viewpoint, may have advantages for the workers, but will be useless in preparing and making the working-class socialist-minded. Hence our attitude to reforms is not merely that they are of no immediate or lasting benefit to the workers, but that for the party aiming at social revolution the task of making socialists is paramount. The advocacy of reforms fails to accomplish this, in fact hinders the furtherance of socialist education.

Socialist action on the political field must be action for the abolition of capitalism, whatever the intentions of the leaders, whilst the mass of the working-class electorate are not socialists, they can only act within the bounds of capitalism. The problems they set out to solve are inherent in the capitalist system. Thus at the very outset they are doomed to failure and will be discredited. Having spent their time popularising reform programmes and catching votes they have had no time or energies for spreading socialist knowledge. Socialism could only he achieved by a working-class understanding socialism.

The workers blame the existence of such problems as poverty, unemployment, etc., upon the men who hold the reins of Government. The Socialist Party is not concerned that these political parties and their leaders should be discredited by their failure, but a serious consequence is the disillusionment and apathy that falls on millions of workers as a result. It is insufficient for workers to aim merely at political control, but that they must obtain political control through their own independent organisation and for socialism. The myth of Russian socialism and the Third International has done much to put back the clock of working-class development.

Those who may have been among the many workers whose tireless energies and selfless devotion built up the Labour Party and other left-wing organisations should answer this question: If it were possible to start again, with the knowledge they possess to-day, would they still do what they have been doing for the past decades?

Surely, the miserable plight of the workers throughout the world, their suffering and anxiety, is a vindication of the attitude taken up by the Socialist Party; that an organisation having for its object the capturing of the machinery of government for socialism, must devote its energies and abilities to the making of socialists and organising them to this end. 

Dictatorships, poverty and other social evils can only arise in a world where the control behind the management of industry is the production of goods for sale and profit-making. Whilst this obtains peoples will stand in fear and hatred of each other and Governments be driven on to the building of armaments for their eventual use in war. These problems can only be removed by the world working class establishing a social system which has for its basis the production of wealth solely for the use of all, regardless of race or sex. This cannot be accomplished by a working class blindly following leaders who have preached to them policies of reforms, nor can violence be a method to make up for the unreadiness of the workers. Only by the mental development of the working class can the suffering and misery of capitalism be replaced by socialism.

Kirkcaldy's Misery

More than 70 per cent of children in one of Kirkcaldy’s poorest areas are estimated to be living in poverty. The shocking latest figures for Sinclairtown Central have revealed that 70.5 per cent of youngsters under 16 are living in households which are struggling just to get by.

The figure isn’t much better in Gallatown West, where an estimated 59.9 per cent are living in families in receipt of working and child tax credits and with an income less than 60 per cent of the average household. This compares to a figure of 17.9 per cent for the whole of Fife and 16 per cent for Scotland.

And the most up to date statistics taken from the Department of Work and Pensions Child Poverty Estimates for 2016, don’t take into account the recent introduction of Universal Credit, which is hitting the poorest families the hardest.

Joyce Leggate, chairman of Kirkcaldy Foodbank, said: “These figures are shocking and I cannot even begin to imagine how much worse they will be when the post Universal Credit statistics are added. To have seven out of 10 children in one small area living day to day, month by month and even year by year in poverty should bring shame on every politician who has the power and influence to change this broken system. “We are constantly being told we live in one of the richest economies in the world but I doubt if many individuals living in this part of Kirkcaldy will agree. It’s time for everyone to wake up to the drastic effect that austerity is having on people and change lives for our future.”

 https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/child-poverty-kirkcaldy-s-shocking-story-1-4857879

Stinking Capitalism

Even supposing that we had absolute equality of opportunity—which is impossible in a capitalist society—even supposing that no member of the ruling class could give money or shares or a better education to his children, and that while the Smiths and Browns provided the capitalists of this generation, the Joneses and the Robinsons provided the capitalists of the next (again, impossible, but let it pass) even supposing all this, we should have exactly the same society that we have now. So long as we have a capitalist society—part private and part state, like the Conservatives want, or a little-less-private and a little-more-state like the Labourites want—we will have the exploitation of the mass of people, the working class, by a small minority, the ruling class. To support capitalism while demanding equality of opportunity is like supporting burglary, provided everyone has an equal chance to become a burglar. Equality of opportunity in our present society simply means that each generation of capitalists would have different names from the last lot. But who in the world cares what they are called? To alter a familiar line, a sewer by any other name would smell as foul.

The Socialist Party refuses to lose sight of our own aim and object—socialism. Emotion is only a positive and constructive force when it is controlled and directed. When it is misdirected its effects are negative and pernicious. We do not put forward our diagnosis of society merely because it is right, but because in the conclusions we draw from it are the humanitarian assumptions of remedying the ills of extant society. We are keenly sensitive to social suffering, but we refuse in lieu of our own remedy to accept what we hold to be harmful soporifics based on a faulty diagnosis. In answer to this antagonism ridden, man divided, class divided, nation divided society, we proclaim the alternative, socialism, one world, one people.

Capital is wealth used for the purpose of profit. To be strictly accurate, capital is a function of money; it is money which begets money; money invested for the purpose of bringing back a larger amount of money than that which was originally advanced.

The starting point of all capitalist operations is the investing of money. A glance at the prospectus of any company will make this evident. A long period of time, and complicated processes, may intervene between the original investing of the money and its final return, plus an increment; nevertheless, the increment was the object of the investment. The increment, or extra money, is the form taken by unpaid labour — surplus value. The cause of the production of this increment is the fact that the worker produces more in a given time than he receives for working during that time; in other words, he produces a surplus of value above the value of his means of subsistence. This surplus goes to the capitalist, as the worker receives on the average only a sum equal to his cost of subsistence.

Production of articles for sale with a view to profit is the basis upon which capitalism is built. Before this can become the rule, two essentials are requisite. First, wealth must be privately owned; and second, there must be a stock of free labourers on the market—free to be bought along with the other articles necessary for the production of wealth. The free labourer is a product of modern times. He is free in the sense that neither family nor territorial ties interfere with the sale of his labour power. He is also free in the sense that he may starve if he does not find a buyer for his labour power.

In the past, capital has appeared here and there, but only as the odd, the unusual element in production. Originally it appeared as lending money in the hands of usurers. It only became the social rule when a new type of worker appeared, who was bound by no feudal or other ties, and was free to sell his energy to whoever wished to buy. Capital is therefore bound up with wage slavery.

To sum the matter up: the existence of capital as the general condition of a society presupposes the existence of a class producing surplus value and a class appropriating it; a robbed and a robber class; a class producing wealth which it does not own, and a class owning wealth which it does not produce. With the introduction of socialism, the private ownership of wealth will cease to prevail; wealth will be produced for use and not for profit. Consequently, wealth wilt not function as capital. The conditions for the existence of capital having disappeared, capital will do likewise.

Capitalism continues the vicious conditions of life, whether unemployment, overwork, or the perversion of the most exquisite physical functions, have their origin deep in a system of life which we claim has outlived its usefulness. Our analysis of present-day society proclaims the workers the only useful class; when workers reach that consciousness, they will understand that their emancipation involves the emancipation of humanity irrespective of race or sex. Then women, like men, will become units in a class-free society; wherein the useful necessary tasks of that day, will be undertaken by all capable, with the object of securing the best physical and mental development possible. Socialism will assure a leisured and bountiful life to all, because, even with our present powers of production, unfettered by the restrictions of trade and profit, and used with the object of satisfying all our needs, with the minimum of effort, wealth could be produced to almost any quantity we might demand. As yet, we have but scratched nature’s skin; with socialism the basis of our social order will cease to be a private property one, giving way to common ownership and democratic control by the whole people. Individual ego can then be pursued through the communal welfare of all, as against the present wasteful competitive cut-throat methods of life.

The Socialist Party - a movement for a new society

The capitalist system is the enemy of men and women, and it is only through socialist revolution and the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and the building of socialism, that the oppression and exploitation of men and women can disappear. The complete emancipation of workers is only possible in a class-free society – a socialist society. The Socialist Party fights for the class unity. Our goal is a class-free society. The Socialist Party rejects all reformist and opportunist methods of struggle. Socialism requires a working class whose sights go beyond the here and now. Socialism requires the participation of large numbers of workers with a political grasp and sense of purpose. Socialism will be built on the social foundations inherited from capitalism. By abolishing relations based on private ownership, it will enable humanity to pursue the goal to which men and women have always aspired – a harmonious society, free of both classes and the State. This is the task of the Socialist Party. Socialism means a class-free society which means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the wealth, while the majority live only on their labour to produce it. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour.

The workers can only reach a permanent solution to their problems by the conquest of political power, that they as a class must use their political supremacy to end forever the exploitation of man by man. In other words, we aim at a social system which would be entirely class-free, one in which the means of production, and the wealth produced, would be the common heritage of the whole people, instead of, as at present, the private property of the rich minority.

To our fellow-workers reared under this oppressive capitalist system the socialist aim seems so enormous that they cannot fully grasp it. and considers it unattainable and therefore Utopian. The workers will learn to fight implacably for the socialist goal only when they realise that, in the struggle for existence, reforms cannot free them, and that they must use more effective means. When we speak at meetings, when we speak with our colleagues, when we go from house to house leafleting , when we write in the periodicals, we will tell our suffering fellow-workers where the capitalist class are always trying to throw the burden of their crises on working men and women. It is easy to make this clear to the workers. When capitalist production does not bring sufficient profit, the capitalist uses every means to guard himself against loss. He throws the workers pitilessly out into the street. He raises the cost of living. He beats down salaries, and for this purpose he creates lock outs, mobilises strike-breakers and organises campaigns to destroy workers’ resistance in order to intimidate the workers. The capitalist seeks to increase or decrease the hours of work or introduce new technology to improve the efficiency of labour, in case wages remain the same. Protection for the workers is made impossible. Affordable decent housing is neglected. Hospitals are closed. Invalids, pensioners, and cripples are abandoned. In order to carry this out more easily the capitalist buys the media and employs journalists and commentators to influence the workers’ opinion in a manner favourable to the employers’ own interests. The capitalist strives to demoralise and to dishearten the workers’ organisations, especially the trade unions, with a subtle system of swindle and lies. Those who are working are incited against the unemployed and vice versa. The trust of the working people in the truth of socialism will not be strengthened through continual nagging of the workers about their troubles but rather through our armour-plated argument against capitalism. Socialism means that we will run our economy in institutions that work for society, not for the profit of rich owners. Basically, socialism means no rich and no poor, common prosperity for all.

The principal task of the Socialist Party is to try to restore the credibility of socialism in the consciousness of millions of men and women. A coherent vision of socialism means priority must be given to solidarity and cooperation. The practice of socialists must be totally consistent with their principles. Our basic position is the complete overthrow of the exploiting class. Our aim is the class-free society of world socialism so that all humanity will be emancipated. The Socialist Party does not cultivate a constituency: we make no appeal for votes. We do not fashion a policy to fit ignorance and prejudice. The movement for a new society must be one of understanding and participation.

OUR WAR IS A WAR OF IDEAS, A BATTLE OF WORDS

No to Nationalism

There is always a lot of myth and romanticism surrounding so-called nationalism offering a popular ‘solution’ of a sovereign state to workers. The working class would soon find out that this was no solution at all. For the Socialist Party which has no desire for yet more flags and frontiers and who anticipates that the setting-up of any new state will no more solve the problems of members of the  working class than has been the case with scores of other “successful” national struggles, the most promising line of action would seem to be to join with other workers to the early attainment of a class-free and border-free society. Such a socialist or communist society (they mean the same) will not only enable us to have free access to our material requirements but we shall democratically control the pace and nature of work that we freely choose to undertake. It would also be a way of life in which the language in which we express ourselves and the clothes we wear will be freely determined by each one of us. For the expropriated class of producers, nationalism has nothing intelligible to offer. We are but pawns in the game of life so long as that game is played by rival sections of the master class. Nationalism raises the national struggle above that of the class struggle.

The new era has begun to dawn. New and still bigger mega-fortunes are being made. The labour movement has to prepare itself for a further period of extremely bad weather and rough seas. Discontent and anger are characteristics of these times, animating waves of radical protest movements as well as the growing tide of nationalism. The current rise of nationalism and right-wing populism is a response to worries about immigration and national identity, coupled with genuine social injustices including economic hardship and unemployment, being exploited and manipulated so that in many countries they appear to be in the ascendency. Nationalism plays on notions of identity, encouraging allegiance to national and racial ideals rooted in the nation-state and in a world in which many people experience an alienated and fragmented feeling of loss, such nationalism appears comforting, offering a sense of belonging. But far from creating nationalism strengthens false notions of superiority, creating an atmosphere of distrust where a climate of fear can flourish. The ‘the other’, the ‘outsider, people from other nations, are seen as a threat, as rivals, and are viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility. They are described in inflammatory terms in a process of dehumanization. Nationalism is tied to the ways of competition. it is a dangerous ideology which is being cynically used by politicians, who see widespread public discontent as an opportunity to gain power. It is detrimental to human development and has no place in our world.

We cannot unite with those “socialists” who preach reformism under the cloak of “anti-imperialism.” Although dressed up as very revolutionary its politics opposition to the working class, advocating constitutional change within the confines of the capitalist system rather than aiming towards revolution as the goal. The capitalists strive to possess the means of production and the market of their own country. And since their greed for profits knows no limits, they strive to expand beyond their own country, to seize foreign markets, sources of raw materials and areas for capital investment, thus subjugating other nations and exploiting them, squeezing out the rival capitalists of other countries. The exploitation of wage labour, competition, the squeezing out, suppressing and swallowing of rivals among the capitalists themselves, the resorting to war, the utilisation of all means to secure a monopoly position in its own country and throughout the world - such is the inherent character of the profit-seeking capitalist. This is the class basis of nationalism. 

Patriotism is a demonstrably one-way affair, which insists that the interests of the British capitalist class should be dominant but does not allow the same belief to patriots in, say, Russia and China about the interests of their capitalist class because they are obviously wrong minded. This prejudice extends into the field of economic rivalry. For example, people like lorry drivers and car workers should work very hard indeed because that is their lot under capitalism and, in any case, it is good for the country that they should do so. Workers who dare to strike are excoriated because strikes interrupt production. which is not good for the country, but it is quite acceptable for the capitalist to shut down factories which are unprofitable because this is the sort of interruption of production which is. mysteriously good for the country. We advocate the only solution that will enable people of different race to live in peace - socialism. And capitalism should be eradicated without further delay to enable us to enjoy all the beautiful things of the world without fear.

It is time of unease and insecurity certainly, but also times of great hope and opportunity for socialists. If humanity is to progress fundamental change in the way society is run is essential. Socialism encourages cooperation, tolerance and sharing and can serve as stepping stones to global responsibility; collective action in which the skills, gifts and abilities of the individual is used for the benefit and enrichment of all, and not just for the nation state. Socialism goes beyond racial and national identities. Humanity is one, albeit diverse, single unity.

Welcome to the Revolution

Everywhere people are the same in that they seek happiness, desire prosperity and love liberty. Everywhere the rich are the same, i.e., they profit from the common misery to enrich themselves and desire make the people suffer. Capitalism has failed us. We’re overworked, underemployed and powerless. The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace world capitalist economy by a world socialism for it alone can abolish the contradictions of the capitalist system which threaten to destroy humanity. A socialist society will end the class division of society and cease the anarchy in production. It will abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will present a world cooperative commonwealth. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the development and strengthening of its own evolution. The future of our human civilisation hangs in the balance.

After abolishing private ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world socialism will replace the elemental forces of the world market, competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society-there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a painless economic development on the basis of unrestricted, smooth and rapid development of productive forces.

The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will do away with the exploitation of man by man. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy: instead of being merely a means of livelihood it will become a necessity of life: want and economic inequality, the misery of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed. At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place, will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire.

Private ownership in the means of production, the selfish lust for profits, the artificial retention of the masses in a state of ignorance, poverty-which retards technical progress in capitalist society, and unproductive expenditures will have no place in a socialist society. The development of the productive forces of world socialism will make it possible to raise the well-being of the whole of humanity and to reduce to a minimum the time devoted to material production and, consequently, will enable culture to flourish as never before in history. This new culture of a humanity that is united for the first time in history, and has abolished all State boundaries, will, unlike capitalist culture, be based upon clear and transparent human relationships. Hence, it will bury forever all mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition and will give a powerful impetus to the development of all-conquering, scientific knowledge. The most important lesson from the history of capitalism is this: It has sown the seeds of its own destruction.  Capitalism is not eternal but historical. It too shall pass — but only if we make it so. The socialist case is, and always has been, that socialism can come about only through democratic action by a working-class majority, throughout the world. The socialist revolution will be a majority, democratic act—the first social revolution in human history in the interests of the majority.

When it comes down to it there is no real choice between reform and revolution. These are not two alternative ways of reaching the same goal. Certainly people can try to reform capitalism to make it work in the interest of all, but they can never succeed. All their efforts are wasted. The only way forward is social revolution, in the sense of rapidly abolishing present-day society by a political act and establishing a new and different society in its place. Capitalism is an economic system which operates according to economic laws which cannot be changed by human action, and which human beings have to accept and submit to in the same way as they do to natural forces like the weather and the tides. As long as capitalism remains its economic laws will continue to function roughly like the tides. If people decided to end this system, then these forces would cease to operate.

We are talking about people being in charge of the production of the wealth they must have to survive. This is what socialism is about: subjecting production to conscious human control so that it can be directed to the single purpose of turning out goods and services to satisfy human needs. Why should this not be possible? After all, production for use — production to satisfy human needs — is the logical purpose of producing wealth. Production to satisfy human needs is possible, but it requires a fundamental social change to make it a reality. Basically, all that is in and on the earth must become the common property of everyone. In other words, there must no longer be any territorial rights or any private property rights over any part of the globe. The farms, factories, mines and all other places where wealth is produced will not belong to anybody. This means that a section only of society would no longer stand between the rest of society and the means of production. Social classes would cease to exist and all men and women would stand in equal relationship to the means of production as free and equal members of a class-free community.

In a socialist society democratic control will extend to all aspects of social life, including — and in fact in particular — decisions about the production of wealth. This is what production is about: bringing the production and distribution of wealth under conscious human control which, in a class-free community of free and equal men and women, can only be democratic control. Otherwise society would no longer be class-free: access to. and control over, the means of production would then remain in the hands of the minority. This is why democracy and socialism are inseparable. There is no choice about the matter. An undemocratic socialism is a contradiction in terms. Socialism is democratic or it is not socialism. If the means of production are commonly owned and democratically controlled, there is only one end for which they can and will be used: to produce wealth to satisfy the needs, individual and collective, of the class-free community.

When we say production for use we mean production solely for use. In socialism wealth no longer will be produced for sale; buying and selling and all that goes with it, money, prices, wages, profits, banks, and so on — will have no place; they will, in fact, have no sense in socialism. Since the means of production will be commonly owned, it follows that what is produced will also be commonly owned — that is, by the classless community of free men and women who will have produced it. In these circumstances the question of selling what has been produced just would not — could not — arise. For how can what is commonly owned be sold to those who commonly own it?

Since the turn of the century, we have left the Age of Scarcity and entered the Age of Abundance — potential abundance. that is. To the extent that scarcity survives today, as of course it very much does, this is an artificial scarcity maintained by the economic laws of capitalism, and particularly its basic principle of "No Profit, No Production".  The artificial barrier to the production of abundance (that is, the profit motive) will be removed and we shall be able to produce an abundance of the basic things — food, clothing, shelter — which people need to enjoy life. Material wants and poverty can be banished forever. Technologically speaking, there is no reason why any man, woman or child in any part of the world should starve or go without proper shelter. Socialism will allow this technological possibility to be realised, which will no doubt have to be one of the first priorities of socialism when it is established. Let people come and take what they need. Wealth could be produced in such abundance today that there is no need to ration access to it. People will simply take what they need from the stores as and when they need it. Ensuring that these stores are always stocked with what people need will be no problem given the technological possibility of producing in abundance. This will essentially be a question of stock control.

We either have common ownership or some sort of class ownership, private or state. We either have production for use or production for sale. The only way forward is social revolution — not in the sense of insurrections and street-fighting, but of a rapid change in the basis of society. This is what the Socialist Party is working for. But it is not us who are going to establish socialism. We could not do it. No minority can. How could a minority impose upon others a society based on voluntary co-operation and democratic decision-making? This is why all the efforts of the Socialist Party is directed towards helping to spread the idea that there is an alternative to capitalism with its waste and wars, its insecurity and anxiety. Our role is to inform people about this and get people to want to change society and to organise to do this.

Socialism, One World, One People

Socialist Party members can confidently forecast what 2019 has in store for our fellow-workers 

The working class will continue to struggle over their wages and other working conditions; in other words, there will be more industrial disputes. Employers will carry on attempting to hold wages in check and to persuade the working class that any rise they may have should be only a small one, and one related to their increased intensive productivity effort. There will be more tension on the international field—more conflicts and there will be more conferences on how to calm these tensions and how to disarm the combatants.  Very little will come of them. The working class, afflicted by the usual struggle to live, will become dissatisfied with whatever government is in power and may express this discontent by protest marches and demonstrations. This dissatisfaction is an inevitable part of capitalism because the problems which give rise to unrest are also part of the private property system.

The only solution to this calamitous muddle is the establishment of socialism. It is simply not possible for any leader to make glamorous promises about that because the key to socialism is the knowledge of the people who will set it up. In the election campaigns of the capitalist parties, knowledge is an alien word. How many people, among the mass who are mesmerised by the rituals, the pomp and ceremonies will stand out by understanding and supporting socialism? 

As far as the Socialist Party is concerned, capitalism has no acceptable face. Everything about it is unacceptable. Its accumulation for accumulation’s sake. Its exploitation of wage-labour. Its putting of profits before satisfying people’s needs. Is it acceptable that capitalist firms should direct their investment to producing what is the most profitable, while essential human needs are left unmet?

The heart of the socialist idea is self-government in every sphere of life, including production. And the state, in its very, essence, is nothing but a series of massive impediments to that self-rule. The aim of all those who want working class self-emancipation has to be the destruction of the capitalist state. Its existence is incompatible with the development of socialism. Those who want to preserve the existing state machinery in the struggle for socialism are not simply arguing for a different road to socialism; they are arguing against socialism itself. The struggle for socialism is revolutionary. It involves a war between two opposed classes: one against the centuries-old system of state exploitation and oppression, based on the principles of the most complete democracy possible.

The Socialist Party is up against the fact that our fellow-workers has to be convinced that socialism does in fact represent a superior system for the people. Marx’s idea of the eventual withering away of the state is not a pipe-dream, but a realistic if very rough sketch of the future state of human society.  We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind.  It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of less developed countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment.  Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity.  The hour is late and urgent action is necessary.

The capitalist class live out of the difference between the value of the goods produced by the workers and the amount paid to the latter as wages. The capitalists are able to do this because they own and control the means of production and distribution and can, in consequence, compel the workers to accept employment on these terms—the alternative being unemployment. It is interesting to consider how these fortunate property-owners came to be in the privileged position which they occupy and to consider what hope members of the working-class have of climbing up beside them. Apart from the rare proverbial rags to riches self-made success story they were rich mainly because their families were rich. We see, therefore, that the way to get rich is to choose your parents wisely, failing which your chance is small. If you are born into the ranks of the privileged class you have an excellent chance of living well and dying with more wealth than your father before you; if you are born a worker you will live hard and die as poor as you began—unless you join with us to get socialism.

The very basis of society today is a struggle between two classes, the capitalist who own all the means of production, and the property-less class who are only allowed to use and operate these means of life when it is in the interest of members of the capitalist class to allow them. It is the historic mission of our class, the property-less class of wage-slaves to make the socialist revolution. It is necessary to make revolution to eliminate the evils of this society and move society forward. It is possible to increasingly raise the consciousness of the mass of workers and others ground down and degraded by this system, to develop and strengthen their revolutionary understanding and sense of organisation as this system. The common interests of the property-less class of wage workers whose historic mission is to abolish private property at its source, the means of production, transcends all national boundaries and differences.

In socialist society, not only will we have free access to the products and services of human production and to life itself, too we’ll get free access to all the human support, kindness, affection and love from all our fellows all year round, instead of for just a mean two weeks.  In free society this behaviour will become the norm in our human world.  Why would you want to pay, when you can have free access?  In addition, we will be free of the drudgery and stressful life that is our everyday experience now, that which we are glad to see the back of for a skimpy two weeks of partying at the end of the year.

The only viable way forward is revolutionary struggle to achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create a socialist world, it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution.  The working class must depose the capitalist ruling class and establish socialism, a system of real, popular democracy that sets about the reconstruction of society. People know that capitalism is no good but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. It is essential to generate interest in socialist ideas. The class war is won not with guns, but with words, with argument and persuasion. The old motto of class-conscious workers goes beyond the present wage fights, and indeed should be a guiding goal of all socialists: Abolish Wage Slavery.

Remember that ever since capitalism came onto the scene political parties have lied and swindled their way into and out of power. The people who have been tricked have always forgotten the lies and the broken promises and have continued to vote for capitalism.