Scotland's Low Pay Numbers

Nearly four in every 10 workers in Scotland earn less than £20,000 a year.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that 2.0 million adults across the country had been employed for at least 12 months in 2018.

Some 768,000 of those - or 38.6 per cent - earned less than £20,000.

Campaigners warned that people on low pay often have "nothing left" after they've paid for things like rent and bills - and said many will be going hungry and relying on high cost credit.

The human health and social work industry had the highest number of employees in Scotland earning under £20,000 - at 170,000.

Matthew Geer, campaigns manager at poverty charity Turn2us, said: “It is really concerning that the majority of people in poverty are in working households – 50% of people who came to Turn2us for help over the last year were in work.

“The myth that work is a direct route out of poverty is often based on Victorian perceptions of the deserving and undeserving poor.

“It is outdated and doesn’t reflect the economic issues facing millions in modern Britain.

“People stuck in low paid jobs often have nothing left once they have paid their rent, childcare and bills.

“Often this leads to relying on high cost credit, hunger, and at the worst end of the spectrum, severe poverty.”

Across the UK there were 8.7 million workers who took home less than £20,000 in 2018.

They made up 39.1 per cent of the country’s workforce.

The news comes as a report from the Low Pay Commission estimated that 439,000 people across the UK were illegally paid less than the minimum wage last year, with women and young workers most at risk.

Where there is hope, there is a future

Hope is an essential attribute to human existence. There's a saying: "where there is life there is hope" to which the converse might be added: and "where there is hope there is also life." The two thoughts are actually interconnected so that when a situation is declared hopeless it means we are done for.

Most people look forward to something: either a better job, more schooling for their children; in general, towards a betterment in life. Some even cling to the “American” dream of their "ship coming in”. Others look towards an early comfortable retirement. 

 Despite endeavours to dehumanise the people a new spirit of hope is abroad in the world, to the horror of the owner-rulers and their “liberal” apologists. Despite everything – and because of everything - workers condemned by a system of capitalism awakens. Their own living experience teaches them – teaches us – the urgency of reclaiming the world for the people. Revolutionary hope of the people, is once more found in the workplaces and the streets. The period of awakening, with its stirrings of renewed struggle, are upon us. The moment of opportunity must be seized or it will not be realised. If the hopeless system that dooms us to despair and impoverishment is itself to be buried, we must act now. The people’s needs require revolution. The people’s dreams demand revolution. But revolution needs organisation, an organisation of revolution – a revolutionary organisation which will unite the people in winning the future. Never say there’s no hope

But we do live in dark days. The right-wing feeds off wars, recessions, poverty, unemployment, hunger, bad housing, race hatred. Nations and peoples are at each others throats, crises and wars are a constant threat. Fear is everywhere. A world in economic decline, ridden with racial conflict and oppression, given to war-making, and saddled with a dysfunctional political system this characterisation of contemporary society would be accepted by many people who can project no way out and nowhere to go.

 It is in the light of this fact that the importance of the Socialist Party in politics must be measured. Its present strength counts for little. We are making a little progress — just a little progress every day, and we trust in the future, because we hold faith in the people. They are coming around to believe in the necessity of acting. Its ability to build for the future is of tremendous significance. Our membership is the preservation of the integrity and the effective instrument for the coming social reconstruction. It is vital and indispensable that our party be preserved as a socialist party in the true meaning of the term. Not a party of patchwork reform, nor a party of sham revolutionary phrases, but as a militant party, rooted in the working class movement, organising education in the economic and political struggle. More than ever today a strong organisation of the people is required in their fight for survival. Without an organisational form of the opposition to capitalism there is no hope. But the movement suffers from the absence of workers’ self organised politics. The tasks before us will not be easy, but we have shown in the past that we can rise to the occasion. We can and we must do it again. Otherwise the hate that surround us will conquer us.

 Can workers be drawn to a socialist alternative? The common-sense answer of the intellectuals to that question is no. Nevertheless, the Socialist Party would answer that there is everything to play for. The task for the Socialist Party shall be to ruthlessly reveal all those wrongs, which are inherent in the present state of society. We shall fulfill this task by showing the means and ways, whereby we can reach big goal: the working class liberation from the ball and chains of wage slavery, which restrain its development in social, political and cultural sense. We must educate. Only an enlightened and awakened working class is powerful enough to form a counter-weight to the ruling class. Without organisation nothing can be accomplished. The Socialist Party is thus organisation of the most numerous class in society, for the injured and suppressed working people.

The Socialist Party believes that capitalism can only continue to exist at the expense of the increasing misery of the working class. We also believe that only by loyalty and solidarity and organisation, can the workers triumph. 

Who controls my bread, controls my head

In the past few hundred years, capitalism has become the dominant form of production and of division of society into classes, i.e. the dominant mode of production. Its distinguishing characteristic is to have simplified class antagonisms by increasingly reducing them to the one opposing the proletariat (or working class) to the bourgeoisie, to capitalism.

The key to the economic and political power of the bourgeoisie is the private ownership of the means of production and exchange (land, buildings, factories, machines, stores, transportation, etc.) and the exploitation of the labour-power of the working class. The bourgeoisie is a class whose reason for existence is the accumulation of capital, i.e. the continual growth of its economic power; a capitalist who does not grow is, as a general rule, a capitalist condemned to disappear. On the other hand, the capitalist has nothing if he cannot find in society a large number of people who have no other means of subsistence but the sale of their labour-power in exchange for a wage equivalent to the strict minimum for survival. The secret of capitalist exploitation lies precisely in the fact that what the capitalist buys from the worker is not his work but rather his labour-power. If the capitalist had to pay for the work furnished, he would not be able to make the profit he does. Let’s look at an example to illustrate this.

Suppose that a worker produces 10 pairs of shoes a week which sell for $25.00, thus making a total value of $250.00 per week on the market. This worker receives a weekly wage of $100.00. Where does the value of the shoes come from? The raw materials – the leather, thread, and glue – along with the other means of production such as electricity, the machines, etc. alone account for $75.00 to which is added the value added by the worker’s labour, i.e. $250.00 less $75.00 or $175.00. This sum represents the amount that the worker added by his work to the value of the materials that he was given at the beginning. If the capitalist paid the worker according to the value of his labour, he would have to give him $175.00. However, this is not what happens because the wages paid to the worker do not correspond to the value of the work he furnishes; rather, they correspond, on the average, to what it costs the worker to reproduce this labour-power or, in other words, to recuperate his energies and ensure his subsistence given the cost of living and the living conditions at a given time.

There lies the essence of capitalist exploitation: the worker gives a certain value of work to the capitalist but his wages do not correspond to this value but to only a fraction of it. The value of the non-paid work is called the surplus-value; the capitalist appropriates this non-paid fraction which constitutes the source of his profit, the source of capital. Here lies the key to the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, the key to the enrichment of the bourgeoisie on the backs of workers.

The history of humanity shows that the exploiting classes are eventually overthrown by those whom they oppress. Capitalism is no exception. It also is condemned as the slave society and feudalism before it. Capitalism is undermined by its own contradictions. This means that, with the development of capitalism, the working class whose historic mission is to dig the grave of capitalism, develops and is strengthened. This also means that capitalism can no longer ensure humanity’s progress; on the contrary, it slows down this progress. It has thus become a reactionary mode of production. Capitalism's fundamental law is the search for individual profit, has reached the point where the development of the productive forces is incompatible with the search for profit. Corporations prevent the utilisation of a large number of technical and scientific innovations which although they would benefit the majority of people, would not be good for profits. Land speculation and the law of profit have had disastrous effects on agriculture which goes from the under-utilisation of arable land to the massive destruction of agricultural products. The quality of goods diminishes constantly. While the productive potential is enormous, capitalism slows down its development. 

Contrary to the other revolutionary classes of humanity’s history, the historic mission of the proletariat is not to substitute one exploiting class for another but rather to rid humanity of all exploitation. When the bourgeoisie drove out the feudal nobles and kings, it did so, of course, in the name of all the people; but, in fact, it only replaced the old oppressors with new ones. It couldn’t have been otherwise because the bourgeoisie was itself a class whose existence was based on the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the labour of others. Thus it only substituted a new form of class exploitation for an old one.

What characterises the working class, on the other hand, is that it does not own the means of production and that it is the object of exploitation. As a class, it has no other future but the total elimination of exploitation of Man by Man. This is why we can say that the movement for the emancipation of workers has to lead to the liberation of all of humanity.

In attacking the foundation of the capitalist system – the private ownership of the means of production and wage labour – the proletariat undertakes at the same time the elimination of classes themselves. In effect, to eliminate the private ownership of the means of production is to destroy the material basis on which all exploiting classes are founded. Consequently, it is also to eliminate classes themselves. This is why we say that the aim of the proletariat’s struggle is the class-free society, a community in which no person exploits the labour of another. After the proletariat, there are no classes to serve as the object of exploitation. To eliminate the exploitation of the proletariat is to eliminate all exploitation. The liberating task of the proletariat also comes from the fact that in order to carry it out fully, it has to attack the conditions which, historically, have made class exploitation possible.

Among these, most important are the State, the division between city and countryside, and the division between manual and intellectual work. The very existence of the State is an expression of the fact that society is divided into classes and that it is necessary to fix the relations between the classes. This is why the State monopolised violence by depriving the exploited and oppressed classes of the weapons necessary for their liberation. This is why the State seals in law the rules of the ownership system. Thus, to say that the struggle of the working class leads to a class-free society is to say that it leads to a state-free society.

The first act, the decisive act on the road leading to the total emancipation of workers, is the socialist revolution.

By the socialist revolution, the proletariat suppresses the private ownership of the means of production. It thus suppresses the material basis which allows the exploitation of labour by capital. By the socialist revolution, the proletariat puts in the hands of society the necessary means for the subsistence and development of its members. While under capitalism, production is done solely in order to make profits for those who own the factories, the railroads, the big chainstores, etc., in socialist society, production is planned according to the needs of all workers.

Thus, under socialism, factories won’t shut down because “their lordships, the investors” don’t think they’re making enough money from them. Neither will we see the economy of a country collapse because “their lordships, the investors” don’t have enough “confidence” in the social climate. Under socialism, it is the workers who dictate the rules of the game and their fundamental rule is the material and cultural well-being of the vast majority of the people. No more will working class houses be demolished to build luxury towers for a tiny minority of the population. And no more of capitalist anarchy which provokes crises of overproduction in some sectors while the essential needs of the labouring masses are not satisfied. All this is eliminated under socialism, because the production is planned. Production will no longer depend upon the wishes of a handful of capitalists whose only goal is maximum profits, but on the collective will of all of the workers. While the capitalist is interested in the product of labour only insofar that it makes him a personnal profit, the workers have, above all, a collective interest in that the product be the best possible and that it be adapted to the needs of the labouring masses. Under socialism, the private accumulation of capital, the profit system itself, will not be the motor of the economy.

Socialism means and must mean the elimination of the exploitation of one person by another in any form. The active and direct participation of the labouring masses in all affairs of society is an indispensable condition for successful socialist construction. 

Whether it be in a factory, a hospital, an office, in a village, town, or region, be it a question of material production or of culture,the workers must exercise their power everywhere. It is they who must determine what is to be done in school, the length of schooling, its relations to social labour, etc. The task of revolutionaries consists precisely in carrying out the work of preparing the camp of revolution. No matter how decadent and rotten bourgeois power may be, it will not crumble by itself. The Socialist Party educates the working class on the only demand that can really lead to its emancipation: the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production, the abolition of the exploitation of Man by Man, and the construction of a socialist society. It is the fundamental task of the socialist revolution.

Abolish the wages system

The Socialist Party has something to say to our fellow-workers because we are part of an international movement (albeit small) which is working to establish world socialism. There some men and women with a sincere wish to go forward to a better world. It is to these we are talking.

Socialism (or as others call it, communism) is: a world society based on common ownership with no production for sale, money, buying and selling, prices, wages, or profit. The Socialist Party declines to advocate reforms or join others in doing so. arguing that on the political field socialists should be aiming solely at the capture of power for socialism. This does not apply to the immediate and specific demands which arise from the concrete antagonism of interests between wage-earners and employers in the economic sphere. So, the Socialist Party has drawn a distinction between ’reforms’ and the day-to-day economic demands of the workers.

We think that democracy is of vital importance to the working class and that only a democratic organisation can be used to establish socialism. That is why our party is organised without leaders or hierarchy. But we also say that political democracy as it exists in Britain and elsewhere is not enough, since it is constantly threatened by the encroachments of the capitalist state and is maintained only by working class pressure. We want to see a social democracy—and this will be achieved only when society owns the means of production and operates them democratically. In other words, only socialism can be a thoroughly democratic society.

Since we are working for world socialism we do not have a reform programme, unlike your parties. This is not because we are opposed to all reforms but because we say that the job of a socialist party is to get rid of capitalism and that it can do this only by recruiting members and seeking support for a socialist programme. This means that we advance slogans such as 'Abolition of the Wages System’ as our immediate demands. We also think that socialism must be world wide and that it can be set up only when a majority of working men and women (at least in the advanced industrial parts of the world) understand what is entailed, and are prepared to take conscious action, first to establish it and then to run it from top to bottom.

What stands in the way of the advent of socialism? It is also the ignorance of the majority of the exploited as to what socialism, and even what capitalism, is. We must understand the cause of this ignorance and remedy it. We must repeat that the economic system of production for profit is capitalism; that this system is inconceivable without the exploitation of man by man, without competition between individuals and between groups, without the robbery of; human labour by rich parasites. We must also admit that capitalism will continue to reign over the planet until it has been replaced by a more evolved, more human, economic system. The future system which Marx and Engels interchangeably called ‘socialism' and ’communism’ cannot be imposed by a group with any chance of success. It is essential that first it is wanted by the workers of the entire world and thus universally understood. This system in which there will be production to satisfy human needs is called Socialism.

If you agree with these ideas we want to hear from you — so that we can help each other to strengthen the world movement for socialism. But if you are a careerist or if you believe that capitalism can be made to work in the interests of the working class then perhaps you would be better off sticking with the status quo. There is no need for a minority to lead the working class. Revolution by an élite inevitably leads to government by an élite. The change from private capitalism to state capitalism does not free the working class. Those who produce continue not to own the means of production. Property changes hands and the exploited remain exploited. To put an end to private property is to end the very existence of the State, whether it is capitalist or alleged socialist. It is to organise society to provide for the satisfaction of the needs of mankind. It is to establish socialism.

THE WAY OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

People are beginning to speak more and more often of the ‘end of civilisation’, or at least of the ‘crisis of the capitalist system’. It is chaos and empty darkness that are now facing the world. Capitalism has nothing more to offer to people. Many people who describe themselves as socialists believe that socialism is about expanding the the state through nationalisation. The more left-wing they are, the more they promote state-ownership. What is wrong with the state is that it protects the ruling class, capitalism and private property. Reformists argue that the possibility remains that the state can be won to other, socialist purposes. It is an enemy in its own right; its existence is nothing but a barrier to socialism. State-free societies do not lack social regulation. For the longest period of human history, our species has managed without states. Those who oppose class exploitation must, necessarily, oppose the state. 'Socialists' who wish to maintain the existing state are simply not serious.

Necessity is driving them towards socialism. People need to choose between leaving the running of the planet in incompetent and incapable hands that have brought forth this disorder or taking power into our own hands. Necessity forces the working people to make their choice. There is a pressing need made the working class to stand up for socialism. We need to construct a kind of socialism where workers, consumers, and ordinary citizens make the decisions through both direct and indirect democratic processes at all levels. Do we really want to leave to our children and grandchildren a world that will still be controlled by corporations dependent upon such a private institution as the stock exchange where financial speculators control peoples welfare and well-being. Socialism deserves a discussion, because it is a debate about the issues that face our future generations. No rational discourse of socialism in mainstream media has been permitted. Having no socialism sort anywhere on earth, our movement is breaking new ground toward envisioning a new society of both economic prosperity and genuine freedom, that can protect the planet, ensure human rights, and raise the standard of living in a new world of peace.

The Socialist Party is opposed to the system of society in which we live today because knowing that there are millions of our brothers and sisters suffering for the barest necessities of life. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That theological question has now been answered by the Socialist Party. Yes, we are our my brothers (and sisters) keepers. It is that sort of society we are seeking.

Are today's anti-capitalists moving towards a common vision of a new social system? The people were fighting for a new way of life. This is the capitalist world. This is the world of competition, of exploitation, of production for profit. The great mass of working people are its victims; the downtrodden and suffering people who have paid for the universal slaughter with their lives and labour, who suffer hunger, homelessness and disease; the exploited, harassed and suffering people – they are being made to pay the price of capital's expansion. People cry out for real freedom, security and peace. There will be no peace, freedom or security for the hundreds of millions of people. The capitalist ruling class main achievement is destruction. The capitalist world remains an armed camp awaiting only the passage of a few more years before it is ready to plunge into bloody carnage to determine which of the great powers shall dominate the world in the interest of profit. Capitalism outlived its usefulness long ago. It is no longer capable of progress, of raising the standards of living of the people. Capitalism is only capable of guaranteeing new wars, poverty and misery. World history shows that we live in a situation where devastating wars and exploitation and oppression of working people have become a daily part of life. Hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and all kinds of degradations make the lives of hundreds of millions of men, women, and children scarcely tolerable.

In our world, injustice and the denial of the most elementary rights have become common practice. More and more peoples are under the fascist heel of military regimes and police states. The number of victims of world reaction has increased to such an extent that they can no longer be counted. Billions of dollars are spent to perfect methods of repression and torture. There has been attempts at the systematic elimination of entire populations. Humanity’s resources are wasted in senseless adventures while people’s basic needs remain unsatisfied, land is despoiled, misery increases, and poverty spreads. The gap between rich countries and poor ones, far from diminishing, is increasing. There is an increasingly evident imbalance between humanity’s capacity for progress and the wretched reality that hundreds of millions of people must live under daily. In the vast majority of countries, moral and cultural decay, crime, alcoholism, drugs, and prostitution are spreading like a cancer. Prisons are being built at an unprecedented rate. Factories are closed down. Populism, national chauvinism, racism, and bigotry are developing at an alarming rate.

The Socialist Party asks why is it that we have to put up with these conditions? Who is responsible? What economic, political, and social system creates and perpetuates this situation? How can things be changed? Representatives of the ruling class respond that this situation is inevitable, that oppression and exploitation and economic, political, and social inequalities have always existed and will always exist. They invoke the laws of nature, divine laws, and all kinds of things over which people have no control. Reality, however, is quite different. It shows that these are the explanations of those who profit from this misery and whose power depends on maintaining the present conditions. The reality is that, despite diversity in political regimes, in language, and in culture and beyond differences in race and nationality, the vast majority of the people of the globe share a common condition: that of living in a society where the owners of the means of production impose their will over those who possess nothing or little. In other words, the vast majority of people live in a society divided into social classes where the propertied classes, the capitalists and landowners, dominate the classes who have little or no property, the working class and the small farmers. The economic base of this social regime is the capitalist system.

But the people of the world want an end to this system. They want jobs, peace, freedom, security. They want a new life; they want a change from the chaos of the profit system which has proved its incapability to maintain a high level of production in the interest of the people. The struggle of the peoples of the whole world will go on. Capitalism has brought civilisation to the brink of disaster. A new life, a new social, system, that is, socialism, is the only hope for humanity. When they fight for plenty for all, they are fighting for socialism. If more workers are to be won to the cause of socialism it is clear that we must greatly advance in our ability to explain the advantages of a socialist world and how we can achieve it.

Socialism – or perish!

The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production. It is therefore a question not of “reform,’ the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the socialist cooperative commonwealth. The enslaving and degrading wage-system in which we toil for a pittance at the pleasure of our masters must end. 

We hear it frequently urged that the Labour Party or the Democrats are the “poor man’s party", and “the friend of the worker” There is but one way to relieve poverty and to free labour, and that is by making common property of the means of production, the tools and machinery. Is the Labour or Democratic Parties, which we are assured possess “socialistic” tendencies, in favour of common ownership of the means of production? Are they opposed to the wage-system, from which flows a ceaseless stream the poverty, misery and wretchedness? If they are the “friends of labour" any more than the Republican or Conservative party, why is its platform silent about the shocking outrages—and crimes upon working people. Why do they not speak out? Between these parties socialists have no choice, no preference. They are one in their opposition to the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery, and every worker who has intelligence enough to understand the interest of his or her class and the nature of the struggle in which it is involved, will once and for all time sever relations with them and recognising the class-struggle which is being waged between the producing workers and non-producing capitalists, cast their lot with the class-conscious, revolutionary Socialist Party, which is pledged to abolish the capitalist system, class-rule and wage-slavery—a party which does not compromise or violate its principles in a dauntless determination to the goal of economic freedom. No sane person can be satisfied with the present system. We bring our message of hope to toiling humanity. We point out the road of salvation.

To conceal the true source of war, capitalist propagandists divide the nations into “aggressors” and “peace-lovers.” This is a lie. The people of every nation hate war, for they are its victims. They are plunged into war by the capitalist rulers, who alone profit from it. It contributes exactly nothing to an understanding of the profound social causes of war to say that Germany or Japan started it. The germs of war are STILL lodged in the heart of capitalist society. No trust whatsoever can be placed in the “peace-loving” declarations of the statesmen of capitalism in this or any other country. The Socialist Party warn that war was inevitable if capitalism is allowed to live. We have never ceased to proclaim this truth.

Today we also caution that because of the consequences of climate change, the fight for socialism is now more than a fight to end poverty and inequality, to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Today the fight for socialism is a fight to prevent the possibility of the annihilation of the human race. Mankind must now exterminate the capitalist system – or be exterminated. Time is of the essence. At an ever faster pace capitalism is rushing mankind toward the last abyss of environmental destruction. 

  Only the working class, which suffers the cruelties of capitalism in peace and war, can deal the death-blow to this foul system. The workers can rally together and can change the world. Having abolished capitalism, they can harness the productive forces and the wondrous discoveries of science to the service of human needs. New technological developments of automation and robotics holds the promise of eliminating all poverty and raising the living standards of all peoples to undreamed-of heights. Hazardous and unhealthy occupations can become things of the past. The drudgery and servitude of ugly and unnecessary toil can be ended. There can be leisure and comfort and cultural advancement for every man, woman and child on earth.

All on one condition – that capitalism, the strangler of human progress, is ended! Join with us in the great battle for a new world in which permanent peace and well-being will be assured for all.

TIMES ARE A-CHANGING

Capitalist society appears to be lurching towards catastrophe. There seems to be no longer any rationality. It becomes more unstable. The crises of capitalism on a world scale has given rise to a growing radicalisation among many of the population. We are confident that only the policy of Marxism can bring the workers to socialism. There is no other road, no middle road. Is socialism now on the agenda? In historical terms, yes. In terms of immediate, practical politics, it obviously is not. It is, nevertheless, the necessity to avoid a barbarian future and for the survival of civilisation. We must stand united, fighting together for the future. We will not turn our backs on the struggles of the past. Nor is it our future to sell. This planet belongs to the people. We must safeguard the future.

The Socialist Party conceives of socialism, not as an arbitrary scheme of society to be constructed from a preconceived plan, but as the next stage of social evolution which develops in succeeding stages foreseen, understood, and consciously organised by the revolutionary party, a forecast of the future already indicated in the present. The architects and builders of the socialist society of the future will be the socialist generations themselves. Marxists are quite sure of this and refrain from offering these future generations any instructions or blueprints. In the words of Auguste Blanqui, the great French revolutionist, “Tomorrow does not belong to us.” We can’t successfully deal with the problems posed by the present period unless we clearly understand the main features of our goal and why it represents the only real answer. Essentially, our task is to replace the bourgeoisie with the proletariat. Underneath its guise of neutrality and impartiality the State (which consists of all branches of government, the military, police, prisons and courts), exists because of the irreconcilable contradictions between the capitalist and the working class. Through repression, mediation, spreading of its ideology and economic intervention the State defends the interests of the ruling class.

 The eventual aim of the Socialist Party is to create a system where classes no longer exist, and the state withers away. In this era, each will receive according to their needs and give according to their abilities, there will be no need for a state or violence. Economic production will be developed to a point where each can give and take freely. The last vestiges of racism and sexism will be destroyed. The contradictions between manual and mental labour and between urban and rural life will be resolved.

Only through the struggle for democracy can socialism be won and only under socialism can the working class achieve real democracy and peace. A vote for another political party, even if it goes by the name of “labour,” is opportunistic, is a disavowal of revolutionary principle, is sometimes downright betrayal of socialism and at all times in conflict with the best interests of the working class. The revolutionary socialist then frankly prefers not to vote at all, indifferent to the epithet of “Abstentionist!” because he or she is merely abstaining from playing CAPITALIST POLITICS, confining to utilising whatever interest there is in the elections to stimulate the interest and support of workers in the socialist programme for which our party stands. The rotten structure of capitalist society stands completely exposed before the eyes of the world working class.

People are taught not to vote FOR what they believe but AGAINST an individual. An unpopular policy once identified with an individual can be continued by replacing the individual, keeping the policy with modifications.

These corporate lobbyist funds are not really contributions. They are investments or bribes with an expected return of access and policy.

Poverty, homelessness, unemployment, alcohol and drug dependency, inadequate education and poor health care, and alienation have become facts of life for many people. Increasingly, people are looking for an alternative way of living. The Socialist Party rejects the idea that fundamental change can or should come about through a seizure of power by a vanguard party claiming to act in the interests of the working class and the majority of society. We do not believe that a single party can or should determine the direction, strategy and tactics of the working class. We reject the goal of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” We are opposed to dictatorship in any and all forms, and we recognise that the application of this principle has in every case meant that a minority acts for and defines the interests of the majority of society. We do not pretend to have a blueprint for a new and better society nor the road-map on how to get there. We do have a vision of a better society and general agreement on the principles of strategy. We believe that fundamental change will take the support of the majority of people who will demonstrate in some verifiable way (such as through voting) that they want such a change. The revolution, then, is the necessity of the times, and it is essential to get prepared now.

 Many things need to be done. Our only weapons are our words and deeds.

Scotland and crime and socialism

Falling levels of violent crime in the west of Scotland has driven an 89% reduction across the country over the past decade, a study has concluded. There were 1,872 violent crimes in Glasgow in 2008-09 compared to 914 in 2017-18. The study also found that serious assaults were now far less likely to involve a weapon compared to those recorded in 2008-09. But the study showed alcohol continued to be a factor in violence, with almost two-thirds of serious assaults in 2017-18 having involved drink. 

Findings included:

• the proportion of crimes occurring in a public or private setting has remained steady, with most (70%) taking place in public
• while most serious assaults (80%) are still against a male victim, the total number of these cases fell 41%, while there was little change in the number of female victims
• most male victims are seriously assaulted by an acquaintance (55%) or stranger (23%), while female victims are more likely to be assaulted by a partner, ex-partner or relative (52%)

A separate study over the same period highlighted the reduction in the proportion of younger offenders convicted of certain violent crimes, as well as the overall fall in convictions.

Marx on Crime

In Part 3 of his Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63, Marx noted just how productive the criminal is, just how many jobs his career creates:

“A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we take a closer look at the connection between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crimes but also criminal law, and with this also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures onto the general market as “commodities”… 

...The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc. ; and all these different lines of business, which form just as many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human mind, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them. Torture alone has given rise to the most ingenious mechanical inventions, and employed many honourable craftsmen in the production of its instruments…”

“…Thus he [the criminal] gives a stimulus to the productive forces. While crime takes a part of the redundant population off the labour market and thus reduces competition among the labourers — up to a certain point preventing wages from falling below the minimum — the struggle against crime absorbs another part of this population. Thus the criminal comes in as one of those natural “counterweights” which bring about a correct balance and open up a whole perspective of “useful” occupations. The effects of the criminal on the development of productive power can be shown in detail. Would locks ever have reached their present degree of excellence had there been no thieves? Would the making of bank-notes have reached its present perfection had there been no forgers? Would the microscope have found its way into the sphere of ordinary commerce (see Babbage) but for trading frauds? Does not practical chemistry owe just as much to the adulteration of commodities and the efforts to show it up as to the honest zeal for production? Crime, through its ever new methods of attack on property, constantly calls into being new methods of defence, and so is as productive as strikes for the invention of machines.”

“The earliest, crudest, and least fruitful form of this rebellion was that of crime. The working-man lived in poverty and want, and saw that others were better off than he. It was not clear to his mind why he, who did more for society than the rich idler, should be the one to suffer under these conditions. Want conquered his inherited respect for the sacredness of property, and he stole.”

We can add to Marx’s list the many advances in policing and criminal detection since 1863 and which Marx could never have envisaged: forensic science, the training of police dogs, the 3 million plus security cameras in Britain today, biometric ID cards, security marking pens, burglar alarms, tasers, tagging and spy-chips.

 The list is endless. Moreover, the criminal justice system – from prison personnel and police officers to security guards and lawyers, judges and magistrates involves many times the numbers than when Marx was writing. 

2008 figures for the number of police officers and sergeants, special constables, traffic police and PCSOs is 184,119 

Add to this every person employed in the law enforcement game, all the workers in factories producing security equipment, whether it be uniforms and handcuffs for the police or security cameras and locks and keys, and all the workers employed to maintain the same and you’re looking at an enormous workforce centred on the crime industry. 

 Imagine the mountain of unemployed if, by some miracle, crime within capitalist society were to vanish overnight. Seems capitalism very much needs criminality. If anything it provides the master class with a perfect pretext to hone their surveillance techniques on the rest us and thus maintain their hegemony.

John Bisset

Marxism is what?

What Marx meant and what Marxism means has been debated by literally thousands of writers on the subject, supporters as well as opponents. The validity of Marxism is far more widely rejected than accepted. The “failure” of Marxism has been the prevailing message. And even proponents of Marxist ideas squabble about the correct “party-line.”

Marx saw the theft of the peasants’ lands as the birthmark of capitalism. Marx opposed slavery, and chose as his favourite hero Spartacus, leader of the slaves’ revolt. Marx thought that, with socialism, the state would wither away. Marx explained the whole social world rests on the labour of working people. Marx argued that humanity needs to take back, collectively and democratically, its own power to shape the world. To do that, it must destroy the power of the ruling classes. Marx described a divided social system across the globe, driven by competition between rival capitalists and rival states, as a system out of all control where misery and poverty continues. It is subject to immense convulsions and crises, which alternately promote expansions of exploitation slumps, when workers are cast on the scrapheap. Marx insisted that capitalists have ‘despotic’ power over workers at work, and called the workers ‘wage slaves’. Marx once wrote that the choice for humanity was between socialism and barbarism: the truth of that observation is more obvious and chilling today.

Marx said that it’s no good just wishing for a different world, or drawing up schemes for social regeneration. Socialism only becomes really possible on two conditions.

The first condition is that human productivity should have developed sufficiently to make communism practicable. A poverty-stricken world, where men and women can barely produce enough for their own needs, could not sustain a genuinely democratic society: everyone would be at each others throats. This is why Marx praised capitalism for its achievement in creating the material conditions for socialism where everyone could have enough to eat, adequate clothing and decent housing, with ample leisure time. Today everyone knows that not a child needs to starve, that not a single sick person needs to lack medical care.

The second condition is for socialism to be more than an Utopian dream, there needs to be a social force to bring it into being and according to Marx, that agency is the working class. Workers are unlike previous exploited and oppressed classes in history. Capitalism itself shoves them together, in cities and workplaces, endowing them with collective power; capitalism forces them to cooperate with each other; capitalism, precisely in order to exploit workers better, must educate them and raise their cultural level – far above, indeed, the level of previous ruling classes. And capitalism compels them into a life of permanent struggle, whether they like it or not. What distinguishes the working class, therefore, from all previous exploited classes is not its misery as they live on average better and longer lives than chattel slaves or feudal serfs. But crucially, the working class has immense power and capacities. It is the first class in history which is capable of overthrowing class society entirely. The very heart of Marxist ideas is the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves, their aim was the abolition of all class rule and the end of all servitude, misery, degradation and political dependence across the world. Always and everywhere he opposed those who preached ‘socialism from above’. For Marxists, the working class alone has the capacity to free the new society that lies, waiting to be built, within the present chaotic and divided world of capitalism. No one need starve in a world where food surpluses are produced every year. No one need be homeless, or tortured, or bossed about by bureaucrats and leaders.

The job of socialists to spread these ideas and to organise themselves, showing the way forward to working class solidarity and power. It is not surprising that at this moment the capitalist intellectuals reject Marxism. But the authentic tradition of Marxism and the real Karl Marx can again be discovered. The genuine socialists have some very marvellous ideas that need spreading far and wide.