The Declaration of Arbroath.

The Declaration of Arbroath is to go on display next year. It will go on show at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from 27 March 27 to 26 April 2020 to commemorate the 700 years of its signing.

Stirring patriotic stuff yet after 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was quickly forgotten and only resurfaced in 1680 when it becomes influential, not as an expression of nationalism, but to support those who sought to curtail royal power. It was only later that the Declaration of Arbroath came to be seen in more nationalistic terms.

Scotland in 1320 was a very different country to the Scotland we know today and therefore we should not give to a medieval mind-set the interpretations of a modern age.

So what did the signatories of the document actually mean by "we" and "freedom"? The "we" who attached their seals to the document were all noblemen. And it was their freedom that the authors of the Arbroath declaration were solely concerned about. Certainly not the liberties of their serfs and servants. The common-folk of Scotland had no say in the matter. The idea that the peasant in the fields or guildsman in the burghs had any sort of say is laughable. The “people” of Scotland meant the nobles, the majority of whom were still culturally Anglo-Norman, despite inter-marriage. The Declaration signatories certainly had no concept of popular sovereignty of any Scottish citizens.

Those medieval signatories to the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath were merely feudal barons asserting their claim to rule and lord it over their own vassals, and most definitely not leading any "liberation struggle" as some left-nationalists would like to represent it as.

The oft-quoted section of the Declaration reading:

 “..if this prince [Bruce] shall leave these principles he hath so nobly pursued, and consent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of England, we will immediately endeavour to expel him, as our enemy and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and we will make another king, who will defend our liberties”

This should be read as a cautionary warning and a veiled threat to Robert the Bruce himself for he had switched his allegiance numerous times in the past.

The lesser-known earlier 1310 Declaration of the Clergy (the clergy being usually the younger sons of the nobles) proclaimed the Kingship of Robert. It begins by stating that John Balliol was made King of Scots by Edward Longshanks of England, but goes on to criticise Balliol’s status, because an English King does not have any authority to determine who will be the King of Scots. Such authority rests with the Scots themselves and alone, ignoring the fact that the Scottish nobles had given up that right in negotiations with Edward over twenty years beforehand.

The Declaration stated:

 “The people, therefore, and commons of the foresaid Kingdom of Scotland...agreed upon the said Lord Robert, the King who now is, in whom the rights of his father and grandfather to the foresaid kingdom, in the judgement of the people, still exist and flourish entire; and with the concurrence and consent of the said people he was chosen to be King, that he might reform the deformities of the kingdom, correct what required correction, and direct what needed direction; and having been by their authority set over the kingdom, he was solemnly made King of Scots...And if any one on the contrary claim right to the foresaid kingdom in virtue of letters of time past, sealed and containing the consent of the people and the commons, know ye that all this took place in fact by force and violence which could not at the time be resisted.”

Like a lot of such grandiose statements we've seen down through the ages, the Clergy's declaration was nothing more than misleading propaganda, which sought to disguise the facts of history.

In 1305, William Wallace was captured in Robroyston near Glasgow by John de Menteith, a Scottish knight and handed Wallace over to the English to be executed. Menteith put his seal to the Declaration of Arbroath. 

Why does Scotland need this affirmation of independence? The answer is Scottish nationalism is based on a myth: the myth that Scottish people are different from Englishmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, or Cornishmen. But differences in speech, dress, pastimes or traditions are too superficial to form the basis for any real distinction. Workers in Scotland and the rest of Britain share a common tongue, common values, common aspirations and common interests: they have shared and forged a common history, and should now be looking to a common future – the world socialist cooperative commonwealth of common ownership.

Socialism - "Associations of free and equal producers."

The Socialist Party declares class-war upon the wages system which cheats and enslaves working people, which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. We are the working class. Without us, nothing could happen, be produced, nothing grown or harvested, nothing fixed or invented. We must work for our living or suffer the consequences. As a class, as a community and as a people, we share the same basic needs and basic desires: to live in & be part of a healthy, peaceful and humane society. We must recognise capitalism as the fundamental cause of our social ills, and that the institutions it rests on must be replaced by social democracy where we work and where we live. 

For the first time in decades, dire economic and environmental conditions call into question the old assumptions about capitalism's ability to redeem or 'reform itself' . workers are robbed by the capitalists who buy their labour power for wages and who appropriate the product of their labour. Wages are determined by the price that labour power fetches as a commodity in the market, and this price fluctuates according to supply and demand. In the long run, however, the price of labour power (wages) coincides with its value -- and its value is equal to the amount of labour (measured in labour hours) that is embodied in what workers consume to keep themselves in working condition. In everyday language the worker normally gets a LIVING WAGE. This is the key to the robbery that goes on under capitalism. 

And it is precisely for this reason that the Socialist Party focuses attention on the worker's wage-slave status and the need to alter this status. When, with socialism, the workers cease to be robbed of the major portion of their product they will be enabled to consume in proportion to what they produce, but not until then. If the workers are deluded into thinking they are robbed as consumers they inevitably become victims of reforms and reformers, and the real robbery -- the robbery at the point of production -- goes on unabated. On the other hand, when the workers understand how and where they are robbed, the solution is clearly indicated. It is not reform, but revolution, the complete abolition of capitalism with its wage system and exploitation.

A state-run economic system is not socialism! Karl Marx and Frederick Engels clearly distinguished between state ownership of the means of production and social ownership. They opposed the very existence of the state. State ownership means the continued existence of a governmental power over and above the people themselves; it signifies continued class rule. Social ownership means that the people themselves, collectively and democratically, govern the use of the means of production. Marx and Engels described socialism as a society run by

The Socialist Party declares class-war upon the wages system which cheats and enslaves working people, which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. We are the working class. Without us, nothing could happen, be produced, nothing grown or harvested, nothing fixed or invented. We must work for our living or suffer the consequences. As a class, as a community and as a people, we share the same basic needs and basic desires: to live in & be part of a healthy, peaceful and humane society. We must recognize capitalism as the fundamental cause of our social ills, and that the institutions it rests on must be replaced by social democracy where we work and where we live. For the first time in decades, dire economic and environmental conditions call into question the old assumptions about capitalism's ability to redeem or 'reform itself' . workers are robbed by the capitalists who buy their labor power for wages and who appropriate the product of their labor. Wages are determined by the price that labor power fetches as a commodity in the market, and this price fluctuates according to supply and demand. In the long run, however, the price of labour power (wages) coincides with its value -- and its value is equal to the amount of labor (measured in labour hours) that is embodied in what workers consume to keep themselves in working condition. In everyday language the worker normally gets a LIVING WAGE. This is the key to the robbery that goes on under capitalism. And it is precisely for this reason that the Socialist Party focuses attention on the worker's wage-slave status and the need to alter this status. When, with socialism, the workers cease to be robbed of the major portion of their product they will be enabled to consume in proportion to what they produce, but not until then. If the workers are deluded into thinking they are robbed as consumers they inevitably become victims of reforms and reformers, and the real robbery -- the robbery at the point of production -- goes on unabated. On the other hand, when the workers understand how and where they are robbed, the solution is clearly indicated. It is not reform, but revolution, the complete abolition of capitalism with its wage system and exploitation.

A state-run economic system is not socialism! Karl Marx and Frederick Engels clearly distinguished between state ownership of the means of production and social ownership. They opposed the very existence of the state. State ownership means the continued existence of a governmental power over and above the people themselves; it signifies continued class rule. Social ownership means that the people themselves, collectively and democratically, govern the use of the means of production. Marx and Engels described socialism as a society run by "associations of free and equal producers."

Socialism, democratic workers' control of the economy, is an attainable goal. To attain the goal, however, workers must have a greater understanding of society and the social forces with which they must contend, and be better prepared and organised than any other revolutionary class in history. The more thoroughly the working class is already organized around a sound revolutionary program and principles during a revolutionary crisis, the better its chances for success. The crucial question is whether enough workers will organise for the socialist reconstruction of society before capitalism collapses into some more barbaric form of class rule or global warming or a nuclear holocaust destroys us all.

Socialism, democratic workers' control of the economy, is an attainable goal. To attain the goal, however, workers must have a greater understanding of society and the social forces with which they must contend, and be better prepared and organised than any other revolutionary class in history. The more thoroughly the working class is already organised around a sound revolutionary program and principles during a revolutionary crisis, the better its chances for success. The crucial question is whether enough workers will organise for the socialist reconstruction of society before capitalism collapses into some more barbaric form of class rule or global warming or a nuclear holocaust destroys us all. 

Tax Fairness!.

Nearly a trillion dollars were moved by Canadian corporations to offshore places, including tax havens, through legal tax avoidance schemes in 2016. They moved as much as $25 billion from domestic tax coffers, according to a new study by the Parliamentary Budget Office. These findings which were released on June 19, by the Canada Revenue Agency that said uncollected taxes are about $26 billion each year. The PBO analysis focuses on legal tax avoidance, while the CRA focuses on illegal tax evasion. Together, the two studies suggest Canada is missing out as much as $51 billion in uncollected taxes annually. 

To quote, Toby Sanger, of Canadian's for Tax Fairness,'' Canadians are being robbed of investments to health care, child care, education and green infrastructure, all of which the government could afford if it were to get serious about cracking down on tax avoidance.'' 

The SPC have always said the capitalist class pays the brunt of taxes to administrate capitalism, but that doesn't mean they won’t try to get out of it.

Yours for Socialism, 
SPC contributing members 

Capitalism. “Conducive to Good Mental Health”??

On May 29th an all-party committee in Ottawa issued a report on the metal health issues facing Canada's farmers, many of whom are regular working joes. 
The report, based on testimony from producers, mental health experts, and government officials, said farmers struggle with many problems, such as market volatility, debt, long work days, the effects of climate change, loneliness, intimidation, cyber-bullying and threats from people who take issue with their occupations and practices. The committee made ten recommendations, including, ''Ensuring the government considers and mitigates any potential impacts from new policies on the wellbeing of agricultural producers.'' 

That's what I like about capitalism - it’s so conducive to good mental health.

Yours for Socialism, 
SPC contributing members . . .

Capitalism is the Cause, Socialism is the Solution

Today, thanks to capitalism, society stands divided into two distinct conflicting classes. Over two centuries of economic development under a system based on competition and production for private profit have divided society into a majority class of propertyless workers who must sell their labour power to survive, and a tiny minority class that owns and controls the means of life, lives off the labour of the majority and exercises virtual monopoly control over the reins of government. Through its control of the State and its coercive power, the capitalist ruling class subjects the rest of society to its private interest. At its behest, laws are written and workers are marched off to jail for any signs of opposition. With no solutions to its system and the problems it breeds, all the capitalist class can do is increase its political stranglehold and circumscribe individual rights and liberties. Politicians of all stripes jump at the opportunity to shore up capitalist rule.

The theft of time is important to the working class. The capitalist class steals more and more of the value of our labour, saps our energy and destroys our family ties, by confiscating our time. Now it wants to sell some of this time back to us -- at a profit, of course. What a scam! They steal our very lives from us and then try to sell it back to us, a piece at a time! This is such an old game -- to steal from a person and then sell the stolen goods back to the victim. Agents of the law used to hang people for doing exactly that. But in a capitalist society, the law is a servant of the ruling class, and such crimes go unpunished. 

What are we to do? If we managed to "reform" this particular bank, or even put it out of business altogether, the situation would not change. Another corporation, every bit as criminal, would take its place. What we need to do is to get rid of the capitalist system that depends on this type of theft to support profits. What we need to do is take control of the economy and design it according to socialist principles. Then we could all work much less than we do now, still produce enough to supply our needs and have time left over to devote to that neglected activity -- living. 

The democratically determined message of the Socialist Party is that it is still the only party educating and organising for the revolutionary self-emancipation of the workers, loud and clear. The Socialist Party stands fully vindicated today, having withstood every attack. Socialism constitutes the only hope of the world and we are privileged to play a part in bringing that hope to fruition.

A Conflict Waiting To Happen.

The capitalist class in Canada has made it's bid to be, ''top of the world.'' On May 23 Canada submitted 1,200 pages of scientific evidence to the U.N. in its attempt to prove the continental shelf from the high Arctic Islands extends more than 200 nautical miles from its shore. 

It includes a contested section of sea floor that stretches from the top of Ellesmere Island along the undersea ridge to the pole and more than 200 kilometers past it. The trouble is that Russia says the same undersea ridge originates from its continental shelf. Therefore it argues all of the sea floor alongside the ridge from the Russian coast to just past the pole belongs to it. The Danes say the ridge is part of Greenland so they have a P.O.V."

 All the countries involved recognize that there will have to be boundary negotiations at some future point,'' said, Michael Byers, professor of international law at the University of British Columbia. 

This doesn't mean it will be settled amicably. The melting of ice in the Arctic means it will be easier to drill down and get the mineral wealth there, which inevitably means the capitalist class of different countries will want as much as they can get. So it’s a conflict just waiting to happen.

Yours for Socialism, 
SPC contributing members 

A Day of Worldwide Celebration. A Day To Look Forward Too.

Two million people thronged the streets of Toronto on June 18 to welcome home the victorious Toronto Raptors who had defeated Golden State 114-110 to win the NBA Championship. This was the greatest outpouring of joy Toronto has ever seen, far eclipsing VE Day and the Blue Jays win in the world series. It will seem petty and pretty bad that is, if anyone should carp or criticize such happiness, but the point is to understand it. Such fantastic joy could not merely because The Raptors had won or because it was the first time a Canadian team had won the NBA, or even that it was a victory over Canada's neighbours to the south, who not everyone likes. No Siree, there’s more to it than that. 

We live in very uncertain times; just about every one of those Two million has his or her worries, whether it be the fear of a layoff, a rent or mortgage default, the car being repo'd, getting accepted into college, paying the tuition fees if you are, health problems etc. etc.

 So let them forget it all however briefly in one wild delirious day and look forward to the day when we can see it all again, when Socialism is established.

Yours for Socialism, 
SPC contributing members.

We are the exploited

The vast majority of industrial magnates did not get there by working their way up by their own efforts but by piracy, robbery and fleecing the public. The “divine right” of management was not acquired through Providence but through the unholy exploitation of the people. Capitalism is outlived. It has submitted us to recurrent crises, each one worse than the previous one, with another just around the corner. Wealth should belong to those who do the work of society. Let the organised working people manage industry, eliminate private profit, plan production to suit the needs of the people – for peace, prosperity and plenty for all.

The Socialist Party hopes that clarity about the aims of socialism shall soon become so universal among our fellow-workers that the human family will avert the catastrophe looming before us and enter upon a splendid era of harmony, tranquillity and freedom. The Socialist Party's case for socialism is no utopian scheme, no fanciful creation of one person's imagination. The State cannot be bent to socialist purposes for the fundamental reason that the political form of government was not designed to serve as the instrument of the popular will. On the contrary, the origin of the State traces to the desire and the need of a ruling oligarchy to destroy the ancient influence of the people in communal affairs. And down through the centuries the State has, by a process of adaptation, continued unfailingly to perform its essential function, that of being the organised power through which the majority has been oppressed and a minority's self-interest imposed as the social law. Such has been its role, such will be its role as long as it survives, for such is its central principle. Socialist society can make no more use of it than of the slave-master's whip.

Socialism is not the rebuilding of society from scratch, it is the rebuilding of society from wherever it happens to be when the time to rebuild is upon us. The cooperative society can be attained only by the enormous project of changing the consciousness of our class, until the majority will have reversed their present opinions, no matter how long this shall take to accomplish. Then the population as a whole, acting democratically, can remake our institutions. Any other programme is vanguardism.

Ignorance and misery, with all concomitant evils, are perpetuated by this system, which makes human labour a ware to be bought in the open market, and places no real value on human life. Science and technology are diverted from their humane purposes and made instruments for the enslavement and the starvation of men, women and children. We stand for socialism, a new system in which the people own and control the the economy, through social and administrative institutions of the widest democracy. We stand for a socialism policy which is completely independent of and opposed to both of the reactionary systems of exploitation of man by man which now divide the world. 

Capitalism is an outlived system whose lifeblood is private profit and oppression, whether or not represented as the “welfare state” and whether or not its government is administered by liberals or self-styled “socialists.” it perpetuates poverty, unemployment, racism, and warfare. To our mind the working class integrity of the Socialist Party is of primary importance. All the votes of the people would do us no good if our party ceased to be a revolutionary party, or only incidentally so, while yielding more and more to the pressure to modify the principles of the party for the sake of swelling the membership numbers and gaining votes.

Desperate Dundonians

Folk from Dundee have the highest personal debts in Scotland after turning to credit cards and loans to survive.

The average debt is an astonishing £20,000 and money experts blame a combination of the controversial Universal Credit system plus poor pay packets in the city.

Overall, in Scotland, the national average debt is £17,631. It is predicted the situation will only worsen as the summer holidays kick in with childcare costs, kids looking for fun days out or even just a meal that would have been provided at school.

47% of Scottish people in work run out of money before pay day at least once a year. The YouGov survey found that about 25% of Scots 18 and over find it difficult to cope on their present income, resulting in some needing to use credit to pay ongoing expenses such as shopping or utilities.

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/dundonians-have-highest-personal-debts-in-scotland/

Potential Plenty For All

Have you had enough of this so-called capitalist “prosperity” that keeps you grinding away in a life of wage-slavery? 

Are you fed-up with the left-wing who plead for the opportunity to make this wages system operate better, when you have had enough of wage-slavery itself, and refuse to buy the lies of state ownership as a way out? 

Are you sick and tired of following and cheering this great leader or that great leader, in the belief that leaders of one sort or another can save you from a life of poverty and insecurity? 

Aren't you aware of the tremendous potential of technology and knowledge in these times that can lift all of mankind from a economy that sets worker against worker?

Don't you know that the possibility exists today, for producing so much of the goods and services for all of mankind to live a decent life? 

You have been aware of the brutalities of the system for a long time and perhaps you may even have tried to resist it, or at least contemplated that the System might be beaten, by joining together with others in some sort of co-operative. You yearn for a chance to enjoy what is termed an adequate standard of living, and despite the potential abundance you are still far from acquiring it. 

Well, there is a way out - world socialism. 

Capitalism has created a gigantic system of socialised production that could end poverty, insecurity and warfare forever, given one factor: Capitalism itself must be abolished throughout the world and a system of world socialism established. 

The reason that the potential abundance of modern industry cannot be realized is the profit motive of production. Think of what would happen today if the restraints were removed and the plants of capitalism operated to their full capacity with modern systems of computerization and automation. The markets would be glutted overnight. Why? Because production, under capitalism, must be geared to the possibility of profit, and the glaring contradiction is that, with private and state ownership of the factories and workshops, the vast sea of humanity that works for wages cannot buy back more than a small precentage of what is produced. The capitalist class and state capitalist bureaucrats, on the other hand, cannot begin to use up the huge surpluses, and so production, from time to time, must slow down, and millions of workers must be removed from the chance to make a living other than through some sort of dole or unemployment insurance. 

But that is how things work under capitalism. They could not work that way in a socialist world because production will not be carried on for sale on a market, but simply for use, for the use of all mankind. The problem, of course, is that capitalism vests ownership in the industries in a minority of the population. The vast majority own nothing much more than their abilities to produce, and these they must sell for wages. That is why capitalism must be abolished before a system of world socialism becomes possible. You can help to bring about such a system. But not by supporting parties that advocate anything short of this goal. We urge you to join us in organising for a socialist world.

Scotland needs newcomers

Scotland’s population will be half a million smaller by 2040 than it would be if control of immigration policy was devolved, restricting economic growth and harming public services, the SNP has claimed.

The party said current projections show Scotland risks being overhauled by smaller European nations such as Ireland and Norway within 20 years because of its “missing half million

The country’s birthrate continues to fall, with just 12,580 births registered in Scotland in the fourth quarter of 2018, the second-lowest 
figure since records began in 1855. Scotland’s population is expected to grow by just 4.4 per cent between now and 2040, slower than Scandinavian countries and Ireland. The number of people of working age went into decline in 2018, and Scotland’s population is ageing faster than the rest of the UK. 

“Scotland urgently needs to grow our population – or we face a demographic timebomb over coming decades that could make it seriously challenging to fund public services like the NHS,” SNP MSP Linda Fabiani said.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-s-population-half-a-million-short-in-20-years-claim-snp-1-4960752

What is the difference between "socialism" and "communism"?

The answer is Nothing. The two terms are interchangeable: both describe the class-free, state-free society of equal producers advocated by the co-founders of scientific socialism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Initially they used "communism" to describe the future classless society because of the popular association of "socialism" with the Utopian "socialists" of that time.

 As Engels explained in his 1888 preface to the English translation of The Communist Manifesto:

"When it [the Manifesto] appeared, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. Two kinds of people were regarded as socialists in 1847. On the one hand were the followers of the various Utopian systems, especially the Owenites [followers of Robert Owen] in England and the Fourierists [followers of Charles Fourier] in France, both of which at that time had dwindled to mere sects that were already dying out. On the other hand were the numerous social quacks who, with their various panaceas and every type of patchwork, wanted to do away with social evils without, in the slightest, harming capital and profit. In both cases they were people outside the labour movement and looked far more for support from the 'educated' classes. 

"On the other hand, that part of the working class which was convinced of the inadequacy of a mere political revolution and demanded a fundamental transformation of society -- that part at the time called itself communist.... In 1847 socialism signified a bourgeois movement and communism a working-class movement. Socialism, at least on the Continent, was respectable enough for the drawing room; communism was the exact opposite. Since we were already then definitely of the opinion that 'the emancipation of the workers had to be the task of the working class itself,' we could not for one moment be in doubt as to which of the two names to choose. Nor has it ever occurred to us to renounce it since then." 

Subsequently, as the Utopian "socialists" faded into oblivion and were largely forgotten, Marx and Engels generally preferred to use the term "socialism" in their writings.

Today, both "socialism" and "communism" have been wrongly associated with false and pernicious definitions. Thanks to the so-called social democrats, or reformist "socialists" (for example, the Socialist Party of France, the Labour Party in Britain, the Democratic Socialists of America, in the United States), many people have come to equate "socialism" with any industry or program that is administered by the capitalist political state, be it a nationalised healthcare system, the postal service or a welfare program. 

"Communism," meanwhile, has come to be associated with the system of bureaucratic despotism, the state-capitalist command economy run by the so-called “Communist” parties, that unraveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but which still prevails in China and Cuba. 

Further adding to the semantic confusion is the false concept that the Communist parties and other Leninist organisations have promoted for many years -- the concept that a post/capitalist society first goes through a lengthy "socialist" stage, before arriving at the classless society of "communism."

This is a distortion of Marxism, invented by Lenin in his work, State and Revolution. Marx did describe a "first phase" and "higher phase" of "communist society" in his Critique of the Gotha Program. But he was not describing a "transitional" stage in which classes and the state would still exist, and a "higher" stage in which they would disappear, and he did not describe the "first phase" as "socialism" and the "higher phase" as "communism." Rather, he was describing a development that would occur after the classless society, based on social ownership and democratic workers' control of the means of production -- a society that could be described as either "socialism" or "communism" -- was fully established. In the "first phase," some measure of labour time would still be needed to govern the exchange and distribution of the workers' product; in the "higher phase," distribution could be conducted according to the principle: "From everyone according to his faculties, to everyone according to his needs." 

Lenin described Marx's two "phases" as "the scientific difference between socialism and communism." Subsequently, in the ideology of the Soviet Communist Party and its progeny, "socialism" became associated with the state-ruled society of bureaucratic state despotism, and "communism" with the classless society that somehow would arrive some day in the distant future. But these false and confusing definitions of "socialism" and "communism" have no basis in Marx's writings or in scientific socialist thought. 

Naturally, the capitalist class and its leading propagandists in the United States have been all too happy to seize upon any and all of the false definitions of "socialism" and "communism" in order to confuse the working class and discredit both words in workers' minds. 

Standing against such misinformation, the Socialist Party have a well established history of fighting to uphold the correct, scientific, Marxist meaning of socialism or communism. In defending and advocating Marx's and Engels' conception of the future class-free society, though, we have focused on winning over workers by using the term that Marx and Engels preferred in their later years -- socialism. You've heard bad things about socialism. It's because the capitalists who own the industries don't want people to know that there is a better and fairer way for society to be organised. They don't want socialism because socialism would mean that they would have to give back all the wealth they've made off the backs of working people. So they spread a lot of lies and confusion about socialism. 

If you want to know what socialism is really about, get in touch with the Socialist Party. Take a look at what we have to say, learn the truth about socialism, and give it a fair chance in your mind. 

Organising socialism sustainably

Marx was fond of quoting the 17th century writer Sir William Petty’s remark that labour is the father and nature the mother of wealth. Marx’s materialist conception of history makes the way humans are organised to meet their material needs the basis of any society. Humans meet their material needs by transforming parts of the rest of nature into things that are useful to them; this in fact is what production is. So the basis of any society is its mode of production which, again, is the same thing as its relationship to the rest of nature. Humans survive by interfering in the rest of nature to change it for their own benefit. That humans have to interfere in nature is a fact of human existence. How humans interfere in nature, on the other hand, depends on the kind of society they live in. Humans are both a part and a product of nature and humans have a unique significance in nature since they are the only life-form capable of reflective thought and so of conscious intervention to change the environment. It is absurd to regard human intervention in nature as some outside disturbing force, since humans are precisely that part of nature which has evolved that consciously intervenes in the rest of nature; it is our nature to do so. True , that at the present time, the form human intervention in the rest of Nature takes is upsetting natural balances and cycles, but the point is that humans, unlike other life-forms, are capable of changing their behaviour. In this sense the human species is the brain and voice of Nature i.e. Nature become self-conscious. But to fulfil this role humans must change the social system which mediates their intervention in nature. A change from capitalism to a community where each contributes to the whole to the best of his or her ability and takes from the common fund of produce what he or she needs. Competitive pressures to minimise costs and maximise sales, profit-seeking and blind economic growth, with all their destructive effects on the rest of nature, are built-in to capitalism. These make capitalism inherently environmentally unfriendly. Attempts to “green” capitalism, to make it “ecological”, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth. The only framework within which humans can regulate their relationship with the rest of nature in an ecologically acceptable way has to be a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, freed from the tyranny of the economic laws that operate wherever there is production for sale on a market. Humans are capable of integrating themselves into a stable ecosystem and there is nothing whatsoever that prevents this being possible today on the basis of industrial technology and methods of production, all the more so, that renewable energies exist (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and whatever) but, for the capitalists, these are a “cost” which penalises them

Another important point not to overlook is that we are seeking a "steady-state” economy or "zero-growth" which corresponds to what Marx called “simple reproduction” - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilised at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniques. And we can set out a possible way of achieving an eventual zero growth steady state society operating in a stable and ecologically benign way. This could be achieved in three main phases.

First, there would have to be urgent action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. There would be need for an immediate increase in the volume of production of many kinds of goods to relieve those people who were suffering from the effects of the old system and to supply the needs of those who were in the process of transferring themselves from obsolete to useful occupations. For example, the agricultural parts of the world, freed from the restraints of the present money-based system would pour out the abundance of health-giving foodstuffs to feed the half-starved populations of the world. Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems and for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. For the first time, the conditions would exist for turning into reality the beautiful plans for housing people in real homes instead of the sordid slums which the present social system has called into existence. These plans exist today - on paper - and will remain so, while it is necessary to have money to get a decent home. Released from the money-necessity, architects, builders, designers, artists, engineers, and scientists would be enabled to get together to build towns, homes and work-places which would be a joy to live and work in, a job at which even today their fingers are itching to get. How long this period would last depend on the size and mess left by the present system. We don’t think it would take very long since we have seen how quickly even the obstacles of the present social system can be overcomed and how backward countries can be developed by modern industrial methods. It should not, therefore, take very long for those parts of the world which are already highly industrialised to turn out enough goods to make the whole of humanity tolerably comfortable as far as the fundamental necessities of life are concerned. Thirdly, having got rid of the worst relics of the old order, production would then be adjusted so that there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode, making due provision by storage for the possible natural calamities such as earthquakes.This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could live in material well being whilst looking after the planet. Socialism will seek an enviromental friendly relationship with nature. In socialism we would not be bound to use the most labour efficient methods of production. We would be free to select our methods in accordance with a wide range of socially desirable criteria, in particular the vital need to protect the environment. What it means is that we should construct permanent, durable means of production which you don’t constantly innovate. We would use these to produce durable equipment and machinery and durable consumer goods designed to last for a long time, designed for minimum maintenance and made from materials which if necessary can be re-cycled. Many consumer goods are used occasionally. Perhaps sharing them in a neighbourhood will replace the idea that everyone needs one of everything. This will reduce the number of these items required. That means reduced production. In this way we would get a minimum loss of materials; once they’ve been extracted and processed they can be used over and over again. It also means that once you’ve achieved satisfactory levels of consumer goods, you don’t insist on producing more and more. Total social production could even be reduced. This will be the opposite of to-day's capitalist system's cheap, shoddy, throw-away goods with its built-in obsolescence, which results in a massive loss and destruction of resources.

Liberation and Emancipation

Private ownership and control of the means of production demonstrates over and over again what a menace it is to workers, their families and to society in general. Capitalist production, with its all-consuming drive for profit, has proved unable to halt or even appreciably slow down its damage to the environment. The failure of our present form of government to solve global warming is a matter of record and is being demonstrated again and again. Hence, lies, distortions and falsifications in the service of profit-making is "freedom of speech." Joining the ever swelling chorus of voices dissatisfied with present-day society are those of the many men and women active in the climate justice movement expressing the growing rage at the destruction of our environment. Sadly most of their demands are for reform measures within the capitalist system. Nothing short of the elimination of the profit motive as the basis of production amounts, will protect the environment. It is time that workers begin taking matters into their own hands and begin building a movement for socialism -- to save our families, our children and society's future.

Transnational agri-capitalists corporations, sometimes collaborating with local landowners, have dispossessed peasants from subsistence farming. They have turned much of the best land over to producing cash crops for export to American and European markets because profits are higher than in producing foodstuffs for local consumption. Compounding this capitalist-produced underdevelopment of the Third World, displaced peasants can't find jobs as wage workers. Millions starve, not because food isn't available, but because they don't have the income to buy it. To a lesser degree, the spectre of hunger also haunts exploited workers in the advanced capitalist countries, especially the growing numbers of permanently unemployed. Starvation amid plenty strikes many people as an absurd paradox. However, under a system in which commodities -- including food -- are produced for sale with a view toward profit, it is perfectly logical. 

Why are things this way? It is because of the very nature of capitalism. Capitalists control the entire economy, and capitalists care about nothing except what is profitable to them. They care about the well-being of their workers only if this well-being leads to production and profits. They care about the nurture of working-class children only as new workers to replace a spent generation in the years ahead. Today, however, capitalists are caught up in the current "downsizing" phase, and apparently care very little whether the workers reproduce themselves. As automation and productivity rise, the number of workers needed to produce a certain amount of goods diminishes, and the number of available replacement workers increases. Thus, individual workers become disposable because it is so easy to replace them. It is not necessary to keep an employee who is less than satisfactory in any way because another worker can be employed instead. And it certainly is not necessary to support a worker who is spending time and energy on a family, because that worker is easy to replace with a worker who will spend this time and energy on the job. 

The whole system is quite insane. OUR MAIN REASON FOR EXISTENCE is to produce goods and services that our capitalist employers can sell for profit. It is not even meeting the basic needs of people. In a sane society, things would be different. Production schedules would be determined by needs, not by profits. Workers would no longer have to support these parasites that make up the capitalist class, and so plenty of material goods would be available for all workers and their families as well. The necessary work would be shared by everybody, spread among a large number of workers. The workload would be lighter and the working week would be shorter. All workers would have time to spend with their families.

Since its inception, the Socialist Party has been concerned with identifying the cause of society's evils, and with developing and presenting policies suited not only to eliminating that cause, but also to rearing in its place a viable and equitable society. Based on Marxist ideas, we recognise that the social relationships between people and the institutions they establish are basically determined by economic relationships. The Socialist Party calls for unity. On the political field, the working class must express its revolutionary will, via the ballot, to put an end to the private ownership of the means of wealth production and to make them the collective property of all of society to be democratically administered in its own behalf. 

Production will then be carried on for use, rather than for profit. Exploitation will no longer be possible, for we, the useful producers, will retain the full social value of our labour. Class division and class rule will come to an end. Government will again be an administration of "things," rather than of people over people. The day-to-day decisions affecting our lives, and the power to carry out those decisions, will once more be put into the hands of all of the people-the only safe place for such power to reside. Men and women will once again be free and equal because the solid economic base for their equality will have been established. 

A socialist reconstruction of society is required to eliminate the cruel and preventable absurdity of people going hungry and starving in a world choking on "too much" food. In a sane society, with a socialist economy, workers could enjoy all the wealth they produce, because they wouldn't have to support themselves and the capitalist class, too. It would take only a fraction of the time now spent to obtain the material goods a family needs to thrive, because the necessary work would be spread out over the whole population. There would be plenty of time for everyone -- men, women, young and old -- to exercise their talents, fulfill their potentials and grow to be all they could be. Sane and sensible social relations and economic conditions do not exist under capitalism, and they never will. That day will not come until the working class wakes up to these facts and organises its political and economic power to take over control of production and reorganise the economy on socialist principles. The first step is for those who already understand this to act on their knowledge by coming forward to help spread the Socialist Party's message.