Onwards to World Socialism

This society, based upon artificial scarcity, in which there exists the capacity to produce for all has reached a point where we cannot be expected to tolerate it any longer. According to the food experts, there are 800,000,000 people between now and next harvest, who face malnutrition or actual starvation. The food shortage will, as always, hit the poorest the hardest. There are several reasons for this critical scarcity of food, and varied as are these reasons they are all the fault of the capitalist system, with its wars and its profit motivation. For the uncontrolled floods that ruined the crops, for the drought that blighted crops world capitalism must also be blamed, if its science and technology served a system dedicated to human needs and not to power and profits. Hungry people are the tribute we pay for continuing the capitalist system, the price for allowing the ascendancy of the power of money over the needs of man. What must be done? Feeding profits to the capitalists is hardly the way to feed people. Let working people send food to their sisters and brothers. But not through the medium of the capitalist government and the profiteers, while human lives hang in the balance. Let's organise send food to the stricken abroad, on the basis of humanity according to the plan and guidance of a socialist society. On this planet there is not room for both the capitalist system and the solidarity of mankind. Economic security under capitalism is impossible. One or the other must go. Let us end the profit system.

Capitalism has reaped fabulous profits yet the benefits have not accrued to workers who have not gained in an era of prosperity on the stock-markets of the world. Scarcity amid abundance is as striking a fact. Employed workers have fared little better than those on benefits. The process of lowering the wages of workers has been an accomplishment for employers. Strikes have either been prevented or, once under way, emasculated by legal injunctions. 

The world we are living in is shaken by heavy convulsions from end to end. There is the struggle of the people to make ends meet with frozen wages and rising prices. There is the shortage of decent homes, of doctors and hospitals, of teachers and schools. There is a new crisis of capitalism. The gravity of the environmental crisis afflicting all humanity is frightening many people and confirms how deep the transformation humanity has to carry out. Socialists oppose capitalism, period. We oppose capitalism with socialism. The continued survival of capitalism is contingent solely on our fellow-workers to permit it.

How is a socialist movement to be built? The bloggers at Socialist Courier do not pretend to have a formula but do believe that certain steps can and should be taken. Although the defeatism of recent years must be replaced by increased confidence there is no point in making pronouncements of invincibility at a time when few see a real possibility of victory. We need to stress the advantages that socialists have today. The capitalist class and its governments are having increasing difficulty coping with climate change and new opposition is appearing to provide opportunities to win large numbers to socialism. It is now clear to all, there is an awakening of resistance.

Marx formulated his theories not merely as a contribution to analysing the capitalism of his day but they were intended to provide the evidence for revolutionary replacement of the system. Marx was firmly convinced that capitalism would inevitably lead to increasing exploitation and relative impoverishment of the working class, that economic crises of growing frequency and severity would disrupt the reproduction cycle. By virtue of their economic status, workers would undoubtedly acquire revolutionary consciousness until, with circumstances revealing inexorably the obsolete and senseless face of capitalism, they would rise in revolt. These conclusions were premature but remain relevant for a long time to come. The capitalist system spells deprivation and misery for wide sections of the population, providing fertile soil for revolutionary ideas.

The struggle between master and servant seems never to end. As long as such excruciating social contradictions as those that are rending capitalism asunder can be found all over the globe, as long as there are such extremes between abundant wealth and the misery of millions, all sorts of solutions are going to be put forth. The workers show their best qualities in struggle, the bourgeoisie their worst. Socialists are appealing to the democratic, egalitarian and intelligent side of people, and not to the herd-like attitudes that have been greatly encouraged by the media and educational systems. Socialism may be possible, and even necessary to eliminate the evils of capitalism, but it is not inevitable. the future will be what we shall make it with greater participation, more activity, and more militancy. The next stage in history is socialism. This is a system which eliminates recessions, hunger and wars because it operates in a different way than capitalism. It operates them directly for the benefit of the people. It produces for use and not for profit. To be real socialists we should understand why capitalism is dying, and why socialism will inevitably be born.

For economic security and permanent peace – World Socialism.

Make a Revolution

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, the working class must have a plan. Standing in the way of socialism is the capitalist class. The capitalists are our enemy. It is the ruling class. It holds state power and is responsible for the hardships facing working people. Against this minority stands the vast majority of the rest of the population. The conditions of life for 98% of the people cannot fundamentally improve without the overthrow of the ruling class of capitalists. The working class is daily thrown into conflict with the capitalist class. The capitalists are a powerful enemy and it will require protracted efforts to overthrow them. Only by winning over all those who are oppressed by capital to the banner of socialism can the working class succeed in overthrowing capitalism. Despite its huge numerical advantage, the powerful potential of the working class has been frustrated by divisions and lack of class consciousness. The majority of workers at this time do not understand the need for fundamental change to society. They have difficult lives but do not see how their problems can be resolved. They want an improvement in their lives and often struggle against their employers, but do not yet see the need for revolutionary change. Many are generally content with their situation or feel that, even though things could improve, monopoly capitalism is the best system. They do not favour change and many are affected by racism and chauvinism. It is a major obstacle to the struggle for socialism. Through well-organised struggle and education, workers will realise that their interests lie in the overthrow of capitalist private property and the establishment of socialism.

The state dampens down class struggle by promoting class collaboration. Although the capitalists rule, they do not do so through open violence and coercion. Working people enjoy a wide range of freedoms - we can vote in regular elections, we can organise in trade unions and political parties, we can set up pressure groups, publish newspapers and leaflets, go on strike, hold public meetings and protest march on demonstrations, and travel freely around the country. If we get arrested for anything, we are not held in detention without trial and we have the right to legal defence.These rights are vital for the working class to defence and promote its interests. Without the civil liberties and human rights we would be at the absolute mercy of every whim of the employers. 

But these rights have not always existed. Nor were they generously granted by the employing class. They have been fought for with great effort and sacrifice by many generations of working people in a struggle that goes back to Chartism. Neither are these rights in any sense eternally guaranteed under capitalism. Whenever a crisis develops in capitalism the employers attack democracy in order to limit the ability of the workers to resist. Despite the importance of the democratic rights that we have won over the years, the working class can never achieve complete political freedom under capitalism. In this society only the capitalists have the wealth and influence to use capitalist democracy to the full. Formal equality that exists for all citizens is undermined and restricted by the power of capital. Until the working class gains control of the means of production, democracy can never be more than a partial achievement. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of working people. No attempts to reform the system can do away with this exploitation. The only way workers can come to control society and create a society based on freedom and a decent life for all is through revolution.

The Socialist Party is internationalist. We are carrying out the socialist revolution in the UK to make our contribution to the struggle world socialism. Socialism must be worldwide system. Capitalism is global and it will do everything in its power to defeat a working class revolution. The only insurance of the victory of socialism is international solidarity of workers.

If we look at the production of wealth in present-day society, we find that that production of wealth can only take place through the co-operation of many diverse trades and industries interlocked one with the other. Within a given workshop, the whole variety of workers, manual and mental, co-operate together in order to produce a common product. Within society as a whole all industries co-operate together in order to produce wealth, the raw material of one industry being the finished product of the other. Without this co-operation of all the useful elements of society in production, there can be no society as we understand it to-day. Wealth to-day can only be produced and industry maintained through this co-operation. 

The vast industries in which men and women co-operate to produce wealth to-day can only be maintained by the co-operative labour. The technical knowledge, the science which is utilised by these industries is the common product of men and women co-operating together in society. This technical knowledge, this application of science to industry, is constantly increasing, and with it, the power to produce wealth quickly and efficiently. Within the lifetime of comparatively young men and women, we have seen tremendous progress in the application of new technology to industry. The ability to produce wealth grows every year, and with it, in a rational system of society, the welfare of the mass of the people should grow also. In capitalist society the opposite process is taking place. Alongside growing power to produce wealth there is growing poverty. The wealth which is produced by the co-operative labour of all active workers in industry is divided in most hopelessly unequal fashion. The cause of the unjust distribution of wealth lies in the nature of the capitalist order of society. Whilst wealth is cooperatively produced, while industries can only be maintained by the co-operative labour of millions of workers, these industries are not owned by the workers who operate them, but by a small idle class owning the land, the banks and the means of production. Because this class owns the means of life, it is able to dictate to the producers the terms on which they will work. These terms may vary for different classes of workers, in accordance with their scarcity, skill, or organisation, but they are always of such a character as to allow to the employing class the lion’s share of the wealth which is produced by the labour of others. 

In addition, capitalism wastes many of the advantages of science and technology because of the unplanned character of modern commerce taken as a whole. In a single workshop, or even within a single industry, production may be planned according to the most scientific methods, but in capitalist society as a whole there is no plan regulating the production and distribution of wealth. The whole system is based on the pursuit of profit by the owners of the means of production. The regulator of the whole system determining whether industry shall be expanded or shall go on short time is the rise and fall of prices on the market, reflecting the rise and fall in the possibilities of profit for the capitalists whose industries produce for the market. The unplanned nature of capitalism taken renders it incapable of completely utilising the results of modern invention or of overcoming the crises in the basic industries in this country. No capitalist will make any effort to reorganise an industry on more efficient lines, however, unless there is the prospects of a vast profit accruing from the expenditure on that reorganisation. Unprofitable industry is left to drift to ruin, while the capitalist class divert investments into the new areas of industry or export their capital abroad where the promise of greater profits lie. The scramble for profit leads also to the scramble for markets for sources of investment and raw materials on an international scale, and leads inevitably to military conflicts. 

Our media often concentrates our attention on economic growth and a rise in GDP. The idea behinds this is that the more capitalism produces wealth the better off everyone will become. This is not the case. A look at history and we see in the periods of the greatest expansion of capitalism, colossal wealth existed alongside the most heartrending poverty. The more wealth capitalism produces, the greater its difficulties as a functioning system; the more difficult it is to obtain markets, the more intensive international competition becomes; the greater becomes the danger of the antagonisms created by this competition ripening into war. A scramble all over the world is taking place for control of oil fields, mineral deposits and sources of supply of all kinds. The result of this scramble is inevitably military confrontation, sometimes directly but most often by proxy in various civil wars.

The capitalists have only one solution for economic recession, the increased exploitation of the working class. There are two ways in which the capitalists can increase this exploitation: (1) to reduce wages , and (2) to speed up the working class while continuing to pay them the same wages by intensifying working conditions to increase productivity. These methods are not mutually exclusive. Very often both of them are adopted by the same body of employers, one after the other. When workers agree to facilitate production by abandoning their safeguards, there is no guarantee that they would get a share of the increased production. The division of the increased product would be settled like always, by the relative economic muscle of the workers on the one hand and the strength of employers on the other. Offering the capitalists the certainty of increased profits, hold out no hopes to the workers at all. The idea that collaboration with the capitalist class, can overcome a recession is absurd. Britain is not the only country in crisis. All capitalist countries are engaged in the same policies. Thus those leaders who believe that a far-reaching improvement in the workers’ wages and conditions of life can be got not by overthrowing capitalism, but by co-operating with the capitalists to make their system more efficient, are simply surrendering to the capitalist class, misleading the workers, and creating conditions which will inevitably make the rich richer and the workers poorer. 

The more the workers unite their forces and commence to struggle against the capitalist offensive, the more the struggle becomes a political struggle, not just between the workers and any group of capitalists, but between the workers and the capitalist state representing the capitalist class as a whole. The Socialist Party, therefore, believes in the necessity for capturing political power. The question of whether the workers should attempt to seize power before or after obtaining a Parliamentary majority is entirely a question of time, place, and circumstance. The workers are engaged in a struggle with the capitalist class and cannot determine their policy without reference to the policy of their capitalist adversaries. The capitalist class grew up within the framework of pre-capitalist society and became an economically powerful class without any revolution. Their revolution was designed to secure for them such political control as would enable them to break down all restrictions and secure the fullest possible development for their industry and trade which they already controlled. With them economic power preceded political power. The workers, on the other hand, cannot get economic power without first, by a political revolution, breaking down the capitalist state machine, building up their political power and on that basis proceeding to secure control of the economic forces of society.

If the working-class desire to beat off the capitalist attacks on their present standards, avoid the danger of war and carry out a resolute struggle to achieve their emancipation through the overflow of capitalism, they must fight more and more within the workers' movement against the reformist policy of co-operating with capitalism. The Socialist Party exposes to the working class the futility of reformism and urges them to go forward to the complete overthrow of the capitalist class. 

Time is Short

It is the workers who represent the decisive force in our society. The capitalists, however, fail to recognise this elementary fact. They still hope to preserve the traditional position of class privilege when conditions have completely changed. They think their class system is eternal.

The Labour Party and its left-wing hangers-on pretend that because they were of us they will be for us, and for our interests.

Technocrats inform us that capitalism is on its death-bed. Modern technology, robots and automation has dealt “the price system” will shortly dispatch it entirely. The wonders of the computer and artificial intelligence will make poverty an anachronism. Meanwhile, we will continue to endure the mass misery. We all stand on threshold of an age of plenty, in which no-one need work more than a few hours a day and receive free money in the form of the Universal Basic Income. When it was just thought that they advocated the abolition of capitalism, we learn that the exchange economy and buying and selling will continue. In Silicon Valley and other places, they repudiate political action and announce that they are preparing for the automatic collapse of capitalism. The technocrats will take charge of production for the common good, instead of catering for the profits of the privileged few but contemplates no other alterations in the existing capitalist economy. At first sight the proposals appears to be a clever scheme for establishing socialism peacefully and gradually. Capitalism is not to be overthrown by revolution, but undermined by the current of cooperation until it crumbles to pieces. And will be supposedly financed by taxation. In other words, it is asking the capitalists not only to consent to its own execution but to pay for the rope that is to hang them.

Without doubt, the world is ripe for socialism, so far as its objective economic development is concerned. What delays the coming of socialism is not the lack of carefully worked out schemes of socialist reconstruction, but the absence of the most elementary means for overthrowing the capitalist masters, first and foremost, a class-conscious working class majority in favour of change. Without this indispensable prerequisite, the most perfect paper plan cannot hasten the arrival of socialism by a single minute. The working class is as yet to appear upon the political arena as an independent agent. A revolutionary party aims at the overthrow of capitalism, not its reform.

Common among working people are a number of illusions preventing them from seeing the underlying cause of their problems and from looking toward a socialist solution. One of these illusions concerns the nature of the state. 

Many have allowed themselves to be fooled into believing that because they can choose between candidates (selected by money-dominated political machines,) they have a government ruling in the public interest. Because the people do not yet understand the class nature of state power they are unable to see through the lie that the government is above class interests. 

The first lesson to be learned – and a socialist movement has no greater responsibility than to instill this lesson – is that state power, for all its pretensions, is ultimately the ruling arm of the capitalist class. In a democratic state such as ours parliament serves principally to settle quarrels among the moneyed interests, although the people can use parliamentary forms to improve their lot in peripheral ways. Too many suffer from the liberal delusion that a parliamentary democracy in a society in which big capital dominates the political parties and communications media can somehow raise the working class to power. On the contrary, the great task of socialism is to destroy the capitalists’ power over the state.

The second widespread illusion is the capitalist notion of “national interest” which in reality is the interest of the native capitalists, not the people. Foreign policy is designed to protect the investments and property of big business, even if it means war on foreign countries.

 Too many people still believe that “our” government stands for peace and freedom. People are coming to understand things, but their understanding proceeds slowly in the face of the almost total control of the media by the capitalist class and those who prostitute themselves for the money and celebrity. People must take their lives and fortunes into their own hands. They must learn to distinguish between their own needs and the needs and interests of their capitalist masters. They must take a critical look at the political system which brings their leaders to power. Socialists must dispel the illusion circulating that the capitalists, out of a newly recognised self-interest, could and would change the predatory character of their system. The possessing class has continued to conduct themselves in accordance with the laws of their system: they have stepped up the drive for expansion in the world market and refused to cooperate with any movement, at home or abroad, that infringes upon their right to exact tribute from the entire human race. They reserve for themselves the power to decide how and where the accumulated profits are to be used – whether to bribe a section of the a nationalist movement here or whether to hire mercenaries there.

The Socialist Party aims to abolish the profit system and replace it by a system of production for use. The working class is beginning to awaken from its long slumber. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and is responsible for most of the depredation and suffering in today’s world. This decadent social system is daily threatening mankind with the incalculable climate change destruction and devastation of war. Consequently, the Socialist Party redoubles its efforts to organise and direct fellow-workers anger into revolutionary channels. Above all, by preparing the people to establish a democratic socialist society.

Will working people achieve their destiny?

Modern capitalist society rests on the relations between the two main classes in capitalism, the working class and the capitalist class. Marx discerned the clue to understanding modern capitalism and indeed all class society in the existence of the class struggle between contending classes, in modern times, the struggle between the two main classes of workers and capitalists. It is true that the working class is weighed down and kept in bondage by the capitalist class and that the capitalists spread backward ideas in the working class and use that as one of the methods of keeping them down. Yet, for the first time it becomes possible to see beyond the seeming labyrinth and chaos of events to their underlying cause, the class struggle. We are just at the beginning where socialism can be realised, and mankind can proceed to develop a class-free society. But it is a beginning. Class unity is the key to the future. Once again the working class will pronounce its contempt for the “condescending saviors” who really work to save capitalism, knowingly or not. Once again the working class is coming to recognise itself as the inheritor of the entire history of humanity’s struggle for a better world. Capitalism, although through the brutal means natural to it, has created the social and technical basis for future abundance. Through the working class, humanity will be able to rid itself of problems now unnecessary and insane — starvation, war, exploitation, racism, sexism, chauvinism and human degradation in all its forms. Our fellow-workers will be motivated to produce abundance not by the lash of the market but by a common consciousness of their common ability to build a human, egalitarian world in which creativity and culture can flourish. Only the working class by changing the social system can bring peace and undreamed of abundance for all.

In “Wages, Price and Profit “Marx insisted that if workers were to abandon their battles around wages and working conditions, then “they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation ... By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.”

But these battles are not ends in themselves. In the very next paragraph Marx also warned against exaggerating the importance of such battles and becoming “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ending encroachments of capital...”

Thus while this struggle is necessary if the proletariat is to resist everyday attacks and still more to develop its fitness for revolutionary combat, such struggle is not itself revolutionary struggle. Moreover, unless the economic struggle is linked to building a consciously revolutionary movement – unless, as Marx puts it, it is waged not from the view of “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” but under the banner of “abolition of the wages system” – then such struggle turns into its opposite, from a blow against the capitalist to a treadmill for the worker. A handful of capitalists control our world and make vast profits on the labour of the working people and the natural resources of the land. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farms, fisheries and mines are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists.

Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers and could not care less about their situation. Every bit of the capitalists' vast wealth was stolen from the working people. The capitalists get rich from the fruit of our labour. At the end of the week a worker collects their pay. The capitalists and their apologetic flunkies claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the hands of the capitalists and their flunkies. The bosses get rich, not because they have "taken risks" or "worked harder," as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and get fewer workers to do more work, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and throw the workers out on the street. People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. Capitalist society also callously mistreats people because everything is geared to the drive for profits

The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. There is only room for a few capitalists - at any time the great majority must work and be robbed. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it!

Capitalism is a global system of international exploitation. The corporations invest their capital abroad, penetrate foreign markets and plunder the natural resources of developing countries. They also attempt to dominate other countries politically and to a degree militarily. This international exploitation brings enormous profits for the big corporations, and wretched lives for the people of the developing world.

Capitalism is a system of economic chaos and crisis, plagued by periodic economic crises, such as recessions, which are becoming more serious and complex. It is the very nature of each business to try to maximise its profits by pushing production and cutting expenses, especially the pay of workers. Productivity tend to go up and wages down. The result is that companies find they cannot sell all they have produced, and they lay off workers. This only worsens the situation and the economy sinks even further until they have eliminated their surpluses. Economic crises are aggravated by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but their individual greed eventually throws the whole system into turmoil, leading the working class and people to suffer. Capitalists have always tried to put the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of working people. It has tried wage freezes, cuts in benefits, cuts in expenditure on health and education, and bail-outs to business. For working people the future is less and less certain. Wages fall or remain stagnant while hours and working conditions deteriorate. Working people make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. But in nearly every country they are the oppressed majority, labouring to support the luxury of a handful of exploiters.

This anarchic system wastes a great deal of social wealth. Capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive. This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds thousands hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air that we breath and water that we drink; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and social devastation. The problems of capitalism - exploitation, anarchy of production, speculation and economic crisis, oppression, and the whole system of injustice - arise from the self interest of the tiny group of capitalists.

The planet is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. But today the great majority of people are faced with poverty, deteriorating health, education and other social services. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today the whole system of production is socially interdependent, but it is controlled by private hands. In place of private control of social production there must be social ownership if society's problems are to be addressed. Socialism will be won through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Having overthrown the capitalist class, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests in society. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of peoples' lives. Because working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. The State serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. When the government intervenes in the economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism. What will not be developed in socialism are the massive government bureaucracy and repressive state apparatus (police, courts, prisons) which are used to control the people and defend the privileged. A socialist society would have no such needs.

The exact features of socialism will emerge as our struggle against capitalism develops but we can visualise some features. The means of production - the factories, mines, forests, big farms, offices, transport systems, media, communications, retail chains will be taken into common ownership. Private ownership of commercial enterprises will end. The personal possessions property people will be left alone.

The economy will be planned to serve human needs rather than simply profit and luxury consumption by the rich. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion in useful production and the wealth of society will become useful. Rational planning will replace anarchy. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people and steadily advance. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and experiments. There could be a combination of central planning, local coordination. Various policies might be used with changing conditions. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of social ownership, production for the people's needs, and the elimination of exploitation. Factories and other manufacturing facilities will be modernised to eliminate back-breaking labour and ecological damage. 

Transforming the main productive enterprises from private to social ownership will allow workers to manage democratically their own work places through workers' councils and elected administrators, in place of the myriad of supervisors and consultants today. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can serve their own interests as well as society's. Productivity gains will be used to shorten the working day and improve living standards, rather than create unemployment. Construction of housing, schools, medical, cultural and sporting facilities for working people will be a priority.

With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. No longer will employers, investors, landlords and speculators live off the labour of others. Every person will get the opportunity to contribute to society as much as they are able. To administer socialism, the people will establish a social democracy, for the people by the people. The people will elect officials and representatives at all levels of government and the economy. There will be the right of recall and referendum. The voices and the will of the people would be heard, not simply those of the rich. 

Nationalism: A Step Backward, Not Forward

The “nation” and nationalism” are very deceptive notions. The “nation” to the nationalist parties designates everyone without exception: firemen, hospital workers, politicians, police, judges, industrialists, housewives and unemployed as citizens. But once the nationalists prevail, at the first important conflict we see the “national” police clubbing the “national” workers by order of the “national” state whose legality is maintained at all costs by the “national” judges: the “national” housewives and their children go without basic necessities, the “national” industrialists, maintain their profit level and the “national” financiers do great business.

Nations and the concept of nationhood are not eternal phenomena that have always existed: their appearance on the stage of history is the result of particular and concretely identifiable factors, occurring at specific historical periods in specific historical contexts. The creation of Scotland was no different. Feudal states were united by virtue of who ruled them, regardless of “national” considerations. The power was vested in the king, not in the nation and in Scotland there were bitter bloody struggles about who ruled, the clan chieftains or the king in Edinburgh. In today's world the struggle is now about mobilizing of the working class against the capitalist class, and the problem of socialist revolution. Rather than overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism nationalists throw their lot in with the bosses.

The essential character of nationalist movements is that it is negative and opportunistic. It feeds on the justified dissatisfaction of the workers but only to divert their revolutionary potential up backwaters. It dare not strike at the roots of the wage-system. In a office or factory, there is always an owner (or shareholders) who lives off the work of others: these are the ones who really hold the power! The foremen and superintendents are only their watchdogs; they apply the rules the capitalist owners dictate; they “direct” the workers in such a way as to insure as much profit as possible, and when the industry is facing difficulties, they are charged with the laying-off, or they do the “pushing” to raise production; they also try to create division among the workers as they fight against their union or try to buy off their representatives. That is but one aspect of the capitalists’ power. As masters of production and of the economy, they control the state and the mass media. All the big newspapers, radio and television defend the outlook of those who invest in them, and they try to turn the people away from the true problems. If a party does not want to abolish capitalist exploitation, it can only serve capitalism – its role is that of the foreman in the plant. All the things that are tied to the state, the army, the laws, the injunctions, the taxation systems, are according to the needs of the capitalist class, not according to the will of the parties.

No one is going to hand workers socialism on a silver platter least of all the nationalists pretending to be revolutionaries. They want to rally the working class behind the nationalist cause. But nationalism weakens the workers. Shall we fight only to have Scottish bosses instead of English ones? Shall we unite with these small local-based exploiters in order to defend the country against the bad English? That is pure folly and very dangerous. Nationalism is a vain attempt to rally the working class behind the cause of a section of the ruling class who are seeking a better place in the sun. Nationalism does not oppose capitalism. Furthermore it is used to divide the workers among themselves so they can ignore their real enemy. In order to overthrow capitalism the workers need to unite – their main interests lie in such unity. Scottish separatism would divide the workers of Britain. We must oppose nationalism. There are no shortcuts to the socialist revolution, and those who follow the nationalist path retard the revolutionary movement. Through our work awe are showing working people that the only way to end oppression and exploitation once and for all is to unite in the fight for socialism. Our fellow-workers should unite for the goal of workers all over the world – for socialism!

Has the ruling class been weakened by the establishment of the Holyrood Parliament? Have we workers moved ahead in our struggle against the rotten boss system and for socialism as a result? NOT A BIT! Workers are still in the same fix. There has never a real gain for the working class. While workers have been fighting year after year, and needing better organization and class unity more than ever, the nationalist left-wingers has spent its time marching up and down streets, waving their Saltires. It’s up to us to organize our forces for a fight to the finish against the bosses. Nobody’s going to do it for us. The Left talks a lot about workers. It says that it wants to “liberate” the workers. But are they presenting the case for socialism? In reality the nationalists tells workers: “Don’t organize with your class brothers and sisters around the country and let yourself be led by the same people that screw you. Stay separate and isolated from workers in the rest of Britain who have the same enemies, defend the national culture of the bosses with your lives.” All of us have the same iron heel pressing down on our necks: the bosses’ state. The capitalist system crushes us. The bosses’ class is the root of all the problems in our society, and workers are always first to pay the price. To get rid of it, we need to unite in a single, fighting organization. Scottish separatists are workers’ enemies. With workers fighting together we can win.

What we said in 2014

The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the 2nd August adopted the following as a statement on the Scottish Breakaway Referendum on 18 September:

“Most of us don’t own a single square inch of Scotland.

It doesn’t belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. In or out of the Union, that won’t change.

In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scotland will remain dependent upon their whims and interests whatever the outcome of the referendum.

They’ll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs (or the promises of crumbs) but we’ll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests seen to.

The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and grant the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in free and voluntary association of equals.

Though the outcome of this referendum is irrelevant, it is an opportunity for us to tell our fellow workers that this is what we want. We don’t have to suffer in silence, we can go to the ballot stations and write “neither yes nor no but world socialism” across the voting paper. Then, join The Socialist Party to fight for an independent world.”

The nationalist smokescreen

To advance toward socialism, the working class must develop its consciousness of being a class with common interests radically opposed to those of the capitalist class. It must also understand that nationalism serve the interests of the capitalists, not the interests of the workers. To hang on to the shirt-tails of nationalists and drag workers along behind the Left Nationalist have once again come up with classic reformist ideas that oppose real political education, education and the propagation of socialist ideas. It is a strategy that capitulates totally before the task of education is carried out. A newly empowered Scottish capitalist class would certainly have no interest in raising workers’ wages, nor improving working conditions. On the contrary, they would call on their workers to tighten their belts even more in the name of the new nation. The Scottish workers would have, for all intents and purposes, won the right to self-determination but at the cost of strengthening the Scottish employers and putting off the socialist revolution far into the future. Our enemy is the same as that of the British working class as a whole: the capitalists. Independence, instead of uniting the working class against the bosses, divides them from the rest of the working class. It delays the socialist revolution by advocating unity with the Scottish employing class.


Scottish independence pushed by the Left is shown up for what it really is, a mirage and an illusion intended to attract Scottish workers to tie them to the interests of the native ruling class. Looked at concretely, one by one, the so-called advantages that workers would gain from separation go up in smoke. And the disadvantages are great: holding back the achievement of the working class’s basic aim, the capture of political power from the current ruling class. The working class would be sacrificing its struggle for socialism, which is the only way to do away with exploitation, in return for a few crumbs obtained by a change of constitution. The present debate over the constitutional status will result in no substantial solutions to the pressing problems of the daily life of the working people. The chief promoters of nationalism have no intention of changing the relationship of class forces. They will act to protect the interests of Big Business on which they ultimately rest, and they must move against the struggles of the exploited class. Separatists will not offer a challenge to the power of the corporations. A sovereign Scottish government will be unable to develop policies genuinely independent of the capitalist class. The working class are fated to be shoved aside. There are no grounds to believe that the working class, by adopting independence, would advance its interests in any way, in terms either of its class consciousness or of its ultimate objective of building socialism. The Left Nationalists are totally incapable and unwilling to provide such a revolutionary socialist alternative, for pursuing its policy of peaceful collaboration with the SNP, it has in fact given up the perspective of struggle for the socialist transformation. Their tactics are foredoomed to failure.


What progressive ends would be achieved by the secession of the Scots from the Union? The answer is obviously none. The Scottish people have everything to gain and nothing to lose by rejecting the line of nationalism. We must refuse to become the cannon fodder for nationalists. The ravings of the Left Nationalists contribute little but division and confusion among workers. They ally with the bosses yet don the garb of socialism in order to appear radical. For sure, many Scots are fed up with present-day conditions. But a good portion, though, are geared towards the forward march of labour. They see there is no other choice, that the best possible future for them is to ally themselves with other members of the working class in order to carry on a common struggle with them. Only the working class is capable of overthrowing the capitalist system and only a solid working-class base can accomplish the social revolution.


Whatever twists and turns lie down the road in the fight for socialism, one thing is certain: the success of that struggle depends on achieving the greatest possible unity of the working class, it is utterly ridiculous to argue that the working class ought to divide itself into two different countries in order to accomplish this unity. It is completely absurd to justify this with the false argument, disproven many times, that the battle for socialism would be easier if it were led by a more nationally “pure” and homogeneous working class. Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the crisis measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up against all the attacks on our democratic rights. Unity is the key in putting an end to the discrimination suffered by the oppressed nations. The working class faces a powerful and aggressive enemy which is solidly united despite the real contradictions within its ranks. The people’s forces are not going to win by dividing themselves. Those gentlemen who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the objective allies of the capitalist class. The left nationalists find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class.


Workers in Scotland have a difficult task ahead of them. It is to unite to resist the attacks of the employers with greater and greater strength and eventually to oust them from political power. The problems of workers will not be solved in the framework of any form of the nation-state. The fate of Scottish workers is irrevocably bound up with the fate of the rest of the British, European and World workers. Socialism is the order of the day. Workers all across the world can be united against their common enemy, against the bosses’ class and their state We can end their rotten system and build a new system for workers – socialism. A divided international working class, split and shackled by nationalism can never build its strength to challenge the ruling class world-wide, and crush the entire capitalist system of exploitation, racism and war, once and for all. Independence, for Scottish workers simply spells increased exploitation. Separation will weaken the struggle of the entire British working class for socialism by dividing its ranks. Supporting Scottish independence in the name of socialism is a monumental hoax. It flows from the same kind of logic that leads others to preach nationalisation as the cure for all our ills.

The Nationalist Charade

TARTAN TROTS

Can Scottish separatism be part of a strategy for socialism? Can a sovereign Scotland be a step forward in this struggle?

Left nationalists, those radical patriots demanding Scottish sovereignty, believe that it is necessary to achieve independence from England first, and then socialism. This kind of argument channels the efforts of progressives into support for the SNP, an openly pro-capitalist party. Socialism is put off until “later”. We have learned by bitter experience that the struggle for socialism is never to be started right away. Later...later...those nationalists on the left keep telling us. These reformists hide behind a socialist mask. The “radical” image of the independence and socialism line is nothing but a charade, putting the interests of the nation ahead of the interests of the working class. They end up supporting the SNP's independence schemes, allying directly with the Scottish elite, faithfully serving its interests.

The reality is that Scottish independence will not change conditions for the better the struggle for socialism. Such a change would in fact be nothing but a re-division of power between various groups of capitalists. The two states that would result would be just as capitalist as today’s United Kingdom. All that would be put in question is the division of power between sections of the ruling elite. But the power structure of the capitalists over the workers would be unchanged. Perhaps separatism might harm a section of Scottish business, but the capitalist system itself would not be hurt by it.

Once the capitalist class in Scotland achieved an independent state, it would be no more welcoming to a working class revolution than was the ruling class of Britain as a whole. It would be ready to suppress any workers' struggle. Today, despite a very vocal nationalist left-wing, few people still believe that separatism is a step forward in the struggle for socialism but rather as an opportunity for extracting perhaps a few more beneficial reforms. An independent Scotland would be dominated by an emboldened national bourgeoisie that would demand social harmony in the name of national interest. All opposition to exploitation will be branded as betraying the nation. In an independent Scotland the SNP would try to integrate the unions into the state apparatus. If that strategy failed, the SNP would show its true face by repressing workers’ struggles.

Independence is not in the objective interests of our fellow-workers. The Scottish working-class movement cannot stand alone in its confrontation with the employing owning class that dominate the country from Lands End to Lerwick. Who will benefit from the introduction of less unity among English, Welsh and Scottish workers? The very class we are trying to fight. The separation of Scottish workers would weaken the entire British working class. Its forces would be divided and diminished, and in facing the class enemy, its ranks disorganised. It will not be able to react to the employers' attacks with a unified fightback, and it’s exactly that class unity, rising above national barriers, which strikes the capitalists with fear.

The task of workers is to attack the root of the problem not tinker with the constitutional status. Workers must reject all compromises, all proposals of alliances with their masters for the sake of the unity of the nation. It is not the task of the Scotland's working class to unite the nation around any kind of battle for independence whatsoever. The struggle must be waged against the entire British and global bourgeoisie. It must be waged against those who have suppressed us for decade after decade. The Scottish workers will continue to carry out this task by rooting out the basic cause of national oppression – capitalism. To do so, workers must unite with the only class whose interests lie unreservedly in eliminating capitalism – the workers of all lands. It is capitalism that gives birth to national divisions and the oppression of one nation by another. By eliminating capitalism, workers create the conditions for the unity of nations. If the working class divides its forces, this can seriously retard its progress. But if it remains unified, it can triumph. This unity can only be forged in the struggle against national chauvinism and nationalism which only serve the interests of the ruling class. The separation of Scotland from the UK will not weaken the ruling class as some of the Left Nationalists claim. On the contrary, Scottish sovereignty would weaken the working class by dividing it and by binding Scots even closer to their bosses.

CLAYMORE SOCIALISTS