Understanding our world

Briefly stated, the Socialist Party proposes that workers use their huge numbers at the polls to outlaw capitalist ownership and to make the means of social production the property of all the people collectively. For our fellow-workers who is troubled by the disintegration of society and the multiple perils of armed conflict, climate chaos and class conflict there is no higher contribution to the cause of social sanity than a serious study of the principles of the Socialist Party to understand the abolition of the outmoded capitalist system and the triumph of the class-free, democratic socialist commonwealth.

The Socialist Party tells the story of a robbery so colossal that it defies the imagination. Compared with it the loot taken by all the pirates of history are a mere bagatelle. The robbery is continuous and unremitting, wherever society is divided into classes, wherever one class owns the means of production and distribution to which another class, owning no tools of its own, must have access in order to live. There is nothing illegal about this robbery. Under the capitalist system, it is considered the normal "way of life." But it is robbery nonetheless. For the capitalist class uses its ownership and control of the factories and land, in the same way that a highwayman uses his gun -- to extract a tribute from its victims. It is an insidious form of legalised theft, this capitalist exploitation.

Workers labour under the illusion that the capitalist supports them, whereas we support the capitalist. What goes on inside the workplace that conceals the true state of affairs? What happens is simply this: In the first few hours on the job the worker produces in the form of new values as much as he is paid in wages for the entire working day. The worker has little way of knowing this. When the serf of feudal times was forced to yield part of what he produced to the feudal lord, he knew he was being robbed. But capitalist robbery is more subtle. The worker may perform but one minute operation in the production of a commodity requiring thousands of operations. Nevertheless, the labour has created new value equal to a day's wages in the first hour or two on the job. and this new value -- together with the value added by fellow workers -- is embodied in the finished product.

Marx gave a name to the part of the working day in which the worker reproduces his wages. He called it necessary labour time. During the rest of the working day the worker produces values for which he is not paid, or -- let us call a spade a spade -- values of which he is robbed! This part of the working day Marx called surplus labour time. For purposes of simplification, take the case of a worker who sells his labour power -- to be expended in eight hours -- for the price of $15. The first two hours of his working day are necessary labour time. In these two hours a worker produces as much as the boss pays for eight hours of labour. During the remaining six hours -- surplus labour time -- a workers produces three times as much, or $45 worth of new values. In the science of political economy we call the wealth that the worker produces, but of which he is robbed, surplus value.

What in the degree of robbery, or exploitation? It varies as conditions vary in the different countries. In a country where more advanced techniques and methods of production are applied (such as the United States), the degree of exploitation is greater than it is in less advanced countries. At first blush this may seem contradictory. Why, you may ask, should workers who are more productive receive less proportionately of what they produce than workers who are not so productive? 

The answer is simply that wages are not determined by what the worker produces. Leaving aside their temporary rise and fall due to fluctuations of supply and demand in the labour market, wages are determined by what it costs the worker to live and raise a new crop of wage slaves to take his place when he dies or is thrown on the scrap heap. 

Everyone is familiar with the expression a "living wage." Our grandfathers got a "living wage"; our fathers got a "living wage": and. normally, we get a "living wage." Thus, in terms of food, clothing, shelter, etc., we receive substantially what our grandfathers did. Yet we produce vastly more than our grandfathers and considerably more than our fathers. Why, then, haven't we advanced beyond the "living wage" concept? The answer is that we cannot advance beyond this concept, no matter how much our productivity increases, as long as capitalism lasts. And the reason is that, under capitalism, labour power is a commodity, an article of merchandise, whose price is governed by the same economic laws that govern the price of any other commodity. 

COMMODITY STATUS OF LABOUR 

Price may fluctuate according to the supply of a commodity and the demand for it in the market. Just as a pendulum swings back and forth, but is always drawn toward the centre by gravitation, price may go up or down -- but always it oscillates around its value in accord with the economic law of value.

In other words, price, in the long run, coincides with value. And the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce it. In the case of the commodity labour power this means that its value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc., needed to keep the worker in working condition. He gets a 'living wage." 

THE TREND: INTENSIFIED EXPLOITATION 

But, note this: The more highly developed a nation is industrially, the less labour time is required to produce the workers' necessities. Hence, instead of the workers' share of their product increasing proportionately as their productivity rises, it is the other way around. As new methods and techniques -- such as automation -- are introduced, the articles workers consume are cheapened and wages fall accordingly. Thus the workers' relative wages (what they receive in relation to what they produce) tend to fall as productivity rises. In other words, as labour productivity rises, the necessary labour time grows shorter, thus lengthening that part of the working day when the worker produces surplus value. 

HOW THE CAPITALISTS DIVIDE THE LOOT 

For purposes of simplification we have used a single worker as an example but exploitation is not the act of any individual capitalist, or set of capitalists, perpetrated upon any individual workingman or set of workingmen. Exploitation is a class act -- the act of the whole capitalist class-perpetrated upon a class -- the whole working class.

Apologists for capitalism sometimes try to refute the Socialist Party's charges of high-degree exploitation by pointing to the net profits of corporations. But socialists have never contended that the corporations pocket all the surplus value their workers produce. On the contrary, socialists point out that before a capitalist can count his net profits he must pay off the landlord, tax collector, banker, advertising capitalist, insurance company, and all the other parasites on parasites. By the time taxes, interest, rent, etc., are deducted, net profits of the immediate capitalist exploiter may be only a fraction of the surplus value of which workers are robbed. But this in no way disputes the fact that the working class is robbed by the capitalist class of wealth so vast that it defies measurement. 

CAPITALIST HEADACHE: DISPOSING OF THE LOOT 

Now, let us examine this thievery from another angle. We measure surplus value in dollars. But the workers do not produce dollars, they produce commodities -- and a commodity, Marx tells us, is an article that will satisfy some human want and that is produced for sale. Hence, before the capitalists can enjoy their plunder, they must first find buyers for it. If they don't get rid of their commodity loot, it accumulates the warehouses and production stagnates. 

First of all, it is self-evident that the workers do not consume more than they can buy with their wages. And, as we have shown, this is just a fraction of what they produce. What happens to the remainder of labour's vast product? 

A part is consumed by the capitalists in prodigal living. Some capitalists -- the plutocracy -- live in opulence surpassing that of kings, and often maintain not one palace, but many. In every city the capitalists form a community of super-consumers. They are the patrons of the night clubs, the purchasers of costly luxuries, the members of expensive clubs. Yet. despite their prodigality, the capitalists can use up in personal consumption only a fraction of the immense wealth created by labour and appropriated by their exploiters. 

Another part of this wealth -- a much larger part -- is used up in running a huge, bureaucratic, capitalist political State.

Still another part of labour's surplus product goes into expansion of industry. But while this tends temporarily to relieve the glut, its ultimate effect is to increase the capacity to produce commodities, hence to produce surpluses. 

CAPITALISM NEEDS WASTE 

Waste is another outlet for the wealth labour produces but cannot buy back. Some of the waste is incidental to the operation of capitalism. Take real estate transactions, for example. From the standpoint of economy these are pure waste. So is insurance. And advertising. None of these activities creates a penny's worth of value. Then there is the wanton destruction of surplus crops, and the fantastic waste involved in building hydrogen bombs and other weapons. And the waste of economic anarchy and duplication of effort.

Indeed, capitalism thrives best when waste is greatest. Floods, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes and other natural disasters may ruin individual capitalists, but they are a veritable tonic to the capitalist system, for they help to use up surpluses. 

COMPETITION FOR WORLD TRADE 

However, such is the tremendous productivity of the modern working class that, despite prodigious consumption and waste, surpluses tend to accumulate, glutting the home market. The only outlet for this surplus is -- the world market. 

Foreign markets are to capitalism what a safety valve is to a steam boiler. Continue to pump steam into a steam boiler that has no safety valve to release the excess pressure and, sooner or later, something will break. Similarly with capitalist production. Under a system of production for sale and profit, the foreign markets must drain off the surplus or it will pile up, cause economic stagnation at home, and, ultimately result in capitalist collapse. 

All industrial countries are competing for a world market that, instead of growing larger, tends to shrink as economically backward countries industrialise and establish their own systems of exploitation. Inevitably the rivals in this economic war encroach upon each other's markets and sources of raw materials, creating international friction and hatred. For a time the weapons of trade -- tariffs, barter deals, import quotas, etc. -- are invoked. But ultimately such weapons are inadequate. The struggle that begins in commerce ends in -- WAR! 

SOCIALIST SANITY 

Capitalist rulers have no ears for the voice of Socialist sanity. For Socialism -- not the phony "Socialism" of Soviet Russia, which is really a system of bureaucratic despotism, but real Socialism -- would not only put an end to the periodic wars for capitalist survival -- it would also put an end to capitalist robbery of the working class. By raising the worker out of his commodity status to that of a free human being with a voice and vote in the administration of industry, by guaranteeing to every producer the full social value of the product, in abort, by replacing capitalist anarchy and exploitation with Socialist cooperation and harmony, the world could be made into a veritable paradise of peace and plenty. 

But capitalist rulers, blinded by their class and material interests, reject this. Whatever betides, they choose capitalism with its inevitable struggle for world trade and raw material sources, with its inevitable war. Not even the hydrogen bomb with its threat of human annihilation can prevent this ultimate outcome if capitalism is allowed to remain the ruling principle of society.

What the capitalist rulers and bureaucrats are incapable of learning, the toilers of the world must learn.

There can be no peace without Socialism 

The capitalist system is the first in which a surplus of useful things is looked upon, not as a blessing, but as a curse. Below are depicted the various methods whereby the capitalists dispose of the fantastic volume of commodities the modern wage-slave class produces. It is impossible, of course, to determine accurately the proportion of labour's product used up in waste, or through expensive living by the capitalists, or in other ways, and the drawing is intended to convey this only in general terms. It should also be noted that the workers are many, the capitalists few,, and, though the working class may consume more in living, its per capital consumption is but a fraction of that of its exploiters.

The capitalist class, as a class, robs the working class, as a class. The individual capitalist exploiter does not pocket the whole loot taken from the workers. Out of the wealth the workers produce come rent, interest, fees for insurance, advertising, etc., taxes and the "pay-off" for corrupt politicians and other hangers-on of capitalism who in one way or another serve capitalist interests. When workers read of the net profits of corporations, small or large, they should always bear in mind that these represent only a fraction of the total plunder. The "pie" above is suggestive and does not pretend to convey the real proportions in which labour's product is divided.

Everything is Possible

The Socialist Party differs from other political parties in that it completely wants to change the present society’s economical organisation for the social emancipation of the working class. This can only happen through abolishing the private capitalist monopoly on the means of production and their transformation to common ownership, to all society belonging property, and the replacement of the unplanned production of goods with a socialist society’s real needs production.

 The Socialist Party therefore wants also the political organisation of the working class, to take possession of the political power and transform to common property all means of production — the means of transportation, the forests, the mines, the land, the machines, the factories - the Earth. The interests of the working class are the same in every country. The emancipation of the working class is thus something which people across the world must take part.

Marx worked to demonstrate that to live humanly, in a manner ‘worthy of and appropriate to our human nature’ (Capital, Vol. 3), would mean a free association of human individuals, an association in which ‘the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’. He showed that a human way of life is incompatible with private property, wage-labour, money and the state, and in accord with nature.

Marx and Engels shared a belief in progress in mankind’s ability to build a better world. Men and women as free and socially integrated individuals were the focal point of their politics. Their dream – a socialist society – was a free association of completely free people, where no separation between ‘private and common interest’ existed: a society where ‘everyone could give himself a complete education in whatever domain he fancied’. For ‘man’s activity becomes an adverse force which subjugates him, instead of his being its master’ when there is ‘a division of labour’; everyone must then have a profession, that is a ‘determined, exclusive sphere of activity’ he has not chosen and in which ‘he is forced to remain if he does not want to lose his means of existence’. 

In socialism, on the contrary, a person would be given ‘the possibility to do this today and that tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to go fishing in the afternoon, to do cattle breeding in the evening, to criticise after dinner’, as he or she chose. Socialism will have no need of the irrational remnants of a past age, such as prices. Marx spoke of the ‘free association of real producers’. It is through such a free association, when labour in all its aspects becomes controlled by the workers themselves that production will rest not upon decisions of the planners, but of the freely determined wishes of the producers themselves. 

Commonsense for a commonwealth of common ownership

To a person new to the ideas the Socialist Party holds, much of what we advocate sounds strange and not easy to accept. Some of our views are objected to because they seem extreme which others dismiss as being a mere “pipe-dream” that will never come true. There inevitably remains, to greater or lesser degree, a certain amount of “show me” skepticism, if not outright suspicion. Everyone likes to pride oneself upon the fact that he or she “makes up their own mind.” But the views which the vast majority of people believe on social issues are thought out for them through a lifetime of absorbing ideas from education and the media. Our minds are submitted to a process of shaping, that makes them fit the pattern of thought that accepts things as they are as the best possible arrangement. Did each person sit down and think things out for themselves, decide what ideas are right or wrong? Far from it. The ideas shared by the average worker are compounded of misinformation, disinformation, prejudice and lack of political education. Just as in modern society there is an increasing tendency towards a productive specialisation in which each man merely does one operation, apparently meaningless and without satisfaction in itself; so too in the intellectual world of capitalist society there has taken place the same kind of destructive specialisation, the compartmentalisation of human knowledge into pigeon holes. So much so that our fellow-workers end up being opposed to their own best interests. Such an understanding of the interests of the class as a whole we call class consciousness.

We are living in times that require radical solutions to burning problems, problems really of life or death. Politicians tied to a faith in capitalism cannot give such solutions despite their superficial “progressiveness.” Their attitude of class collaboration, the bootlicking of capitalist politicians and of capitalist society is the curse of the working class. They do not have the confidence of the working class. The formula of the reformists is the belief that capitalist society and capitalist democracy are precisely what they are said to be by the defenders and benefactors of capitalism, that there can be no significant difference between the exploiters and the exploited, between the owners of property and the property less, between those who hire and those who are hired. To be sure there are “the poor” and “the rich” but the reformists always obscure the fact that such distinctions are not what is basic to an understanding of the main problem facing the working class. They obscure the fact that “the rich” are one class in capitalist society and “the poor” are another, that not only are “the poor” and “the rich” separate classes but, also, that those separate classes will remain so long as capitalism remains, that the interests of the two classes are in irreconcilable conflict, that there is an incessant class struggle between the two classes, that the toilers must press this struggle everlastingly under capitalism. They obscure the fact that this struggle between the workers and the owners of capital can only end successfully for the toilers when capitalism has been replaced.

Despite the best efforts of the media indoctrination to convince the working class that capitalism is the best of all systems and that socialism is bad for them, the workers are no longer swallowing the capitalist propaganda hook, line and sinker. They are beginning to free their minds from capitalist control. The Socialist Party is firmly convinced that even such a small party as it, with a principles and a case for socialism that coincides with historic development, can and will re-make the world.

Workers Unite

The Glasgow Mardi Gla Pride march has been organised by the LGBT Co-op.

The parade of walkers and decorated floats is set to leave Kelvingrove Park at 11:30 BST.

They will make their way from Kelvin Way to Sauchiehall Street, Blythswood Street and West George Street before ending up in George Square.

As they reach the central square, they will see the distinctive rainbow flag, adopted by the Pride movement, flying above the Glasgow City Council chambers.

The future is bright

Every day workers drip their sweat on to production lines and, in capitalist society, experience the life-killing exploitation on which the system is built. They take part in struggles, together with fellow workers and others, against the outrages of the capitalist system. For over 200 years the battle between the classes, the working class and the capitalist class, has raged. It has ebbed and flowed according to the strength, understanding and contradiction between these two classes. The working class never ceasing, never surrendering but neither remaining true to its revolutionary origin nor ever totally pursuing that aim without reservation.

 In order to become conscious of itself as a class, and to know and change the world in accordance with its interests, the working class must have its own socialist party consistently which points the way forward toward the goal of overthrowing the rule of capital and building socialism. The working class in each country needs only one socialist party. The capitalists usually have more than one party, because of their need to compete with each other and to deceive the people. 

Different sectors of capital seek to advance their own vested interests by competing both through and within these parties. The working class has no interest in competition among themselves – it is the rule of capital that pits worker against worker to compete for jobs and for survival. The working class has no need for masks but openly proclaims its intention to overthrow the exploiting minority. The working class needs a single party to unite it as a mighty fist, to build its understanding of the historical mission of ending all class society. The working class needs a socialist party to draw up a battle plan against the enemy. One socialist party, representing the interests of one class, and through these interests, the great majority of humanity.

Class struggle has always existed since there were classes to struggle. The interests of the classes – those who sell their labour power and those who exploit the labour of others – are so opposed as to make struggle inevitable. Instead of exposing the bosses, the media have put the blame for the crisis on foreign countries, foreign-born workers, women and minorities—anything that serves to divide the people and hide the real nature of the problem. The government is nothing but the tool of the bosses. 

The Socialist Party declares that the blame for the crisis lies exclusively with the capitalist system, and that the only real way out of the crisis is working class struggle and socialist revolution. No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. Reformists stand exposed for their total inability to meet the people’s needs.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class. It is a part of the working class against the ruling class. It has no interests apart from the interests of the working class. It is the very reason for its existence to bring to fellow-workers an understanding of the laws of capitalism and enables them to consciously change the world and make a socialist revolution. The working class are bound to overthrow the capitalist class, socialise the ownership of the means of production and remove all social chains on the development of the productive forces, by advancing to class-free society. Socialism promises peace because it offered a society with no cause for war, that is to say, in which capitalist contradictions and national rivalries are overcome.

Today, the people live under the capitalist class. The working class is the only class that stands diametrically opposed to the capitalists. The working class stands at the head and unites all those exploited by the capitalist system and has as its goal the emancipation of all humanity from wage-slavery. The working class can make no revolution without its own socialist party.

Capitalism's day of reckoning approaches

It gives members of the Socialist Party no pleasure in conceding that presently there is no organisation of the working class in this country that can bring revolutionary change. It is becoming increasingly evident that we are living in a world of conflict inseparable from the existing social order. The opponents of Socialism must shut out the thought that revolutionary change is necessary. The supporters of capitalism have nothing to offer mankind beyond the continuous existence of a system of society which totters from crisis to crisis inherent in that very system. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of the working people as the creative force in society. Socialism meets the desire for freedom innate in every human being. With the end of class oppression the state disappears. Parliament has lost much of its prestige but its control over the forces of law and order, the armed forces, education and a, number of other services means that it cannot be ignored. It is possible to forget the fact that the full picture of what is happening is concealed from the public, and even Members of Parliament.

Socialism is the first social system in the history of mankind to be introduced by the conscious action of its collective creators and not, so to speak, behind the backs of the actors in history’s drama. It is no accident that socialist thinkers failed to sketch out in any detail the new socialist society, as distinct from the many seekers of utopia down through the ages. Instead of blueprinting the new society, they study the society in which we now live — capitalist society — the society out of which the new is destined to come — seeking the laws governing its motion. They learned that the class struggle was the lever of social change. They recognised that the workers, out of painful experience, overcoming their divisions and out of necessity, need to take the power from the hands of the capitalist class who now possess it, abolishing the whole state structure that they have developed to serve their interests and forming organs of workers’ power. The many prejudices which are deeply rooted in the past have been fostered and whipped up by the ruling class to divide the workers and pit them against one another and away from their common enemy.

With the release of the capitalist fetters on the productive forces, the planned obsolescence, socialists see the availability of plenty for all. Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but with its victory will come almost instantaneous benefits for all. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created across this land, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policing to supervise who gets what, and no bureaucrats acquiring special favours that would allow them to become a privileged elite. We would see our wealth as part of mankind’s common heritage, binging its unparalleled natural resources and productivity, to the well-being of humanity. Solidarity in the working class as a whole, coming from below, is an urgent necessity if we are to further the cause of socialism.

Subscribe to the Socialist Standard. Courage and determination is required, but it is also necessary that everything possible be done towards spreading education among as many workers as possible. The greater the knowledge and understanding we possess, the greater will be our confidence in victory over the class enemy.

Fake Solutions and False Signs

The Socialist Party differs from most anarchists with its insistence that the working class can only abolish the State by first capturing control of it. Therefore, the working class requires organisation on the political field and the Socialist Party engages in electoral activity and contests elections. The ballot box permits the possibility for the peaceful reconstruction of society. A socialist political party has but one thing to do upon winning control of the political machine, and that is to abolish all political forms of power, including abolition of the socialist political party itself, without delay. Our aim is truly a class-free society that must also be state-free with no coercive power that is distinct from and ruling over the population. What the alternative system self-management will vary in form and depend upon circumstances but will mainly consist of delegates elected by the people in their communities and their work-places. Socialism is possible only if the working class creates a structure through which it can wield the economy democratically.

Workers today face a host of challenges undreamed of by previous generations. Outsourcing, downsizing, buyouts, mass layoffs, job cuts. The list goes on and on. Workers have nowhere to turn when the chips are down. An organisation based on working-class principles, and organised, and administered by the workers themselves, is needed, will bring together all workers, men and women, young and old, across artificial racial and national boundaries, into one powerful and irresistible force. But organising is not be an end in itself but the beginning of a bigger plan which will one day bring forth a system that will benefit everyone, a system that will see the end of forced unemployment, an end to poverty and war, and all the other miseries that follow in the wake of the so-called "best of all possible systems." Capitalism today may pretend otherwise, but it, too, relies on terror, or the threat of it, to uphold the economic order. Workers cannot look to the capitalist class or its state to protect them from the social forces unleashed by capitalism.

An increase in exploitation on the job, whether in the form of lower real wages and in greater workloads, hurts workers immediately and directly. But the workers themselves aren't the only ones who feel the increased pressure. Their families are also affected. If we as workers controlled production and distribution of goods, the wealth we created with our labour could be used to meet all of our needs. We could allocate our resources to the areas we considered most important. We could surround our children with the love and attention of entire families, without fear of want. The profit motive, which defines capitalist values, are incompatible with human values. Creating the social environment for humans to live and behave as human beings is a task reserved for socialism.

The capitalist system is inherently nationalistic. Society has reached a point where capitalism is increasingly incompatible with freedom and democracy. To save capitalism, freedom and democracy must eventually be destroyed. To save freedom and democracy, capitalism must be destroyed. To reverse the trend toward repression, to defend our rights from attack and to make democracy a reality in every sphere of life, the working class must organise to end capitalist control over the means of life and with it the political supremacy of the capitalist class. The only cure for the authoritarian threat inherent in capitalist-class rule is the forging of a class conscious workers' movement for socialism that successfully establishes a socialist economic democracy -- a rational social system that can provide fulfilling economic opportunity for all and production for human needs and wants rather than for the profit of the minority capitalist class. Capitalism, with a pathological focus on profit before people, is fertile soil for human miseries. The brutal and reactionary response of the ruling class and their servants who shape social policy is to put people in cages.

Every class-conscious worker who can see what is at stake had best heed the alarm, rouse themselves and join the struggle to educate and organise our class for socialism -- while there is still time to do so. Only the Socialist Party can bring a society characterised by compassion. Socialism will free human beings from prisons, class rule, the profit motive, despair, alienation and addiction.

Socialism will change our way of life

Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class. The ruling class is composed of the owners and CEOs of the huge multinational corporations that control the economic life of the planet. They control the destinies of billions around the globe. The capitalist class is a powerful enemy and it will require protracted efforts to overthrow it. But there is a potentially much more powerful force opposing them: the unity of the vast majority of working people. 

The working class is the class that is most systematically and brutally exploited by capitalism, and is the most revolutionary class. The working class is composed of all wage earners – mental and manual, urban and rural – whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public, or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. The vast majority of people belong to the working class. The working class produces the wealth appropriated by the capitalists and its basic interest lies in the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. There is a lot of confusion about class. Politicians, academics, media pundits and even trade union leaders, have obscured the issue. As a result many think the main classes are the rich, poor and middle class. This view has problems. It pits the employed section of the working class against the unemployed sections of the working class, by suggesting that the working class is the middle class and has different interests from the unemployed sections of the working class. Another variant is to think that everyone who lives in the suburbs is "rich." The effect of this kind of analysis is to pit the working class against itself, confounding friends and enemies and deadening class consciousness.

 Marxists approach the matter differently. When socialists look at the issue of class we see that every kind of society, from ancient times until now, is organised around its tools - it means of producing things that satisfy people's needs and wants. Ownership of the means of production is basic. Classes are large groups of people, who have a defined relationship to the means of production, such as ownership. They also have a defined place in the social division of labour, for example some people are supervisors or managers. The result of the these differences in who owns what and where one fits into the social division of labour, means a difference in who gets how much wealth. For revolutionary change to take place our fellow-workers workers who are held down by the capitalists - need to arrive at the conclusion that they are unable to live in the old way, and need to be willing to fight to bring the old order to an end.

The government today serves the interests of the ruling monopoly capitalist class. The state suppresses and controls opposition to capitalism. It maintains social order to provide a stable environment for big business. It does this through the massive state apparatus, including the courts, police and army. In times of crisis the repressive functions of the state become more visible. The teeming millions face two choices – either accept misery and murder or set out to overturn this system. Our principles are based on the revolutionary potential of those who have to fight this system in order to live. The decisive step today is to broaden and intensify the activities and influence of our party educate and organise fellow-workers to wage class war on the capitalist system.

Our aim is to reorganise society and to put an end to poverty and injustice once and for all. To change society and end oppression, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. We need to turn things upside down. This means revolution. Identifying our real friends and our real enemies is a first step.

The only way that the majority of people can survive is if the marvellous means of production belong to society, the resources of society are distributed by need, and the individual contributes to society whatever he or she is capable of. Reality demands that we take over the economy and run it in the interests of the people. It can no longer be done on the level of private property.

Glasgow Doldrums

Its annual “happiness index” asks thousands of Scots how happy or unhappy they are in their local communities, before assigning them a score between -100 and +100, with zero being neutral.

People living in Glasgow have the lowest levels of happiness in Scotland. The average happiness level in Glasgow was just 38.5, leaving the nation’s biggest city lagging a long way behind the Highlands and Islands, which topped the table on 55.6.

Scots with a household income of more than £60,000 were by far the most happy, with an average score over eight points higher than those on between £40,000 and £60,000.

Defend Civilisation from Capitalism

Keep capitalism and we'll face the certain prospect of further environmental destruction, new wars, mass hunger - the graveyard of civilisation. Our world is a world of economic exploitation, inequalities, lack of political freedoms, material emptiness, a world of misery, hunger, hatred, war and fear. Old problems are joined by new ones. 

Capitalism poisons our lives everyday. 

Capitalism is running riot throughout the land. The private ownership of the means of production is doing its deadly work. The millions of wage-earners do not own themselves, they are wage-slaves, and their masters control their lives and subject them to conditions as degrading as those which existed in times of chattel slavery. 

Capitalism, the rule of the rich minority, is the enemy. This alone should suffice to condemn this system in the eyes of every one concerned with the salvation of the human race.

Capitalism is destroying itself and from its ruins will rise the cooperative commonwealth. 

Socialism is the only way out from the difficulties in which mankind has entangled itself. The antidote to capitalism is socialism, a democratic system of society where the wealth is owned and controlled by the people who produce it. In a cooperative society we can pool our abilities and resources to create more for everyone, and to share it out fairly.

There is no principles involved in the politics of the other political parties. For them it is simply a question of capturing political office and dividing the the spoils. The same old speeches are made and the same old promises are pledged. Whatever politician, it is all the same. They will exhort in favour of anything, or declare their wrath upon anything, if it gains them extra votes. The Tories and Labour are at one in their allegiance to the City of London and capitalist supremacy. A vote for either of these parties is a vote for misrule and wage slavery.

Why should workers become a member of the Socialist Party? 

The Socialist Party is the only party dedicated to the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery. 

The Socialist Party is the only party that stands for social democracy. 

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class, the only class without which society could not exist. Its emancipation will follow the abolition of the wage system, will mean the freedom of humanity, based upon a cooperative commonwealth which will mean the beginning of the first real civilisation the world has ever known. 

The Socialist Party proposes to transfer the sources, means, and machinery of production and distribution from the private hands to the all people, so that wealth may be produced in abundance, not to enrich a small class, but for the comfort and enjoyment of all. 

The Socialist Party wants working people to want everything. 

Our patience is equal to their persistence.

The goal of the Socialist Party is the liberation of humanity from all forms of oppression. 

To achieve that, it is essential to carry out a socialist revolution throughout the world to overthrow the capitalist system. 

Members never forget that the cause for which the Socialist Party fights for is the most worthwhile of all to which human beings can dedicate themselves.

Glasgow Branch Meeting (17/7)

July 17, 7:00 pm

Maryhill Community Central Halls,

304 Maryhill Road,

Glasgow G20 7YE

We, the working class, run the world for the benefit of our capitalist masters. Why not run it for ourselves?

The political and labour leaders who are constantly exhorting or cajoling you, do not possess superior brains. In fact, the opposite. It's obvious, that they are merely parroting the things that reflect the interests of their capitalist bosses.

We, the working class, run a complicated, world-wide economic system, from top to bottom. But then we give the bulk of the wealth we create and distribute to the small minority who own the means of wealth production—the land, factories, transport, etc.

There exists a constant struggle between you and your employer over your wages and working conditions. Never would you dare to think that as wealth is produced from the resources of nature, by the application of human labour-power, it should wholly belong to those who, as a social class, produce it. In other words, you accept the class ownership of society; you are prepared to let a minority class own and control the means whereby you live. As a consequence of their favoured position the capitalists can live in any part of the world they choose; they can sell, barter, or gamble away, the very means whereby yo live and survive.

Fellow-workers, let us study of the social system under which we live. Let us all learn what a bountiful world this could be, if we start producing wealth for the benefit of all mankind, instead of the profit of a few.

To us of the working-class, capitalism means the continuation of all the rotten, miserable conditions under which the mass of the people suffer. No amount of reforming can change the basic nature of the system, and its effects are not mollified by a change of flag. It matters not which party administers capitalism. Each may apply the screw of policy; bless it, curse it, nationalise or de-centralise; the effects, as far as the working-class are concerned, are the same—poverty, insecurity, slums, ignorance, depressions, and wars.

We, in the Socialist Party, affirm that there is but one solution to the problems confronting the working-class; that solution is SOCIALISM. No wages system, no exchange, no buying and selling, but instead, the application of the principle; from each according to ability; to each according to needs. That is socialism, and the way out for the workers of the world.

Contact the Socialist Party's Glasgow branch, and join them in discussions. The socialist case is not heard in Labour Party or its left-wing hangers-on and if there was a person to put it, he or she would not be taken seriously. Far from being influenced by socialist persuasion those within the ranks of the Labour Party have now forgotten what little they once knew. They no longer know what socialism is. It is now a political machine for handling the affairs of British capitalism in between Tory administrations. Knowledge is the answer— understanding our present economic system. Then, and then only, can we change it, for the benefit of all. Capitalism, with its wages-system, and its class structure, is the common enemy; our common weapon is socialist consciousness.

'Something now'

The Socialist Party is concerned with the future of the whole of humanity. To save humanity, a different system is needed, one based on cooperation where there will be production for use not profit, and democratic self-management of all aspects of society. Only a few of all fellow-workers are for this now and in fact there is an actual growth of authoritarian, nationalist, populism world-wide and but they vote for right-wing political parties but it is for the World Socialist Movement to fight for this goal. The only way out is struggle and we, the working class, must organise. We must build solidarity across borders to defeat the power of global capitalism. We have to build a movement that has the power to create a better world. We can make a socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism worldwide. We must rebuild the imagination of the working class and combat the capitalist narrative that has made it easier for us to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Emancipation from wage slavery, and the indignities it heaps upon working people, will free the entire human race and put an end to classes and class divisions.

If the working class is ever to succeed in establishing a free and democratic society in which all will enjoy peace, abundance and security, it must first have a proper understanding of its class status in capitalist society, a correct class perception of the opposing forces it must contend with on the road to its goal, and a precise knowledge of the meaning of the social, economic and political terms of the age. It is correct to say that the capitalist system will destroy itself. It does not follow from that with equal logic that socialism will be the successor. One could go on at length citing examples of liberals who pose as champions of the downtrodden by attacking the evils of the system, yet who remain adamant that the system is to be preserved - reformed if possible, but reformed or not, retained. The differences among them are limited to questions of how best to preserve the filthy and contradiction-ridden capitalist system and protect the basic profit interests of the plutocracy at home and abroad. In their shedding of crocodile tears over the inequities of the present system, in their pious advocacy of relief for the most deprived and oppressed victims of capitalism's ruthless exploitation, in their selective and pretentious condemnation of the intensified onslaught against constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, and in their unctuous lip service to the nation's traditional concepts of democracy, the reformists have often been guilty of the highest degree of hypocrisy. Whether the reforms proposed are direct aids to capitalists in exploiting the workers, or in perpetuating the capitalist system, or in deceiving the workers into believing that their fate can be improved under the capitalist system, the fact remains that their reforms are generally contrary to the interests of workers. They invariably are props for the use of the plutocracy in consolidating its power and stranglehold on society. It does not require any profound insight to realise that the hope for a sane and decent society do not lie with the ruling class. Nor do they rest with men and women "of good will", no matter how sincere or commendable such sentiments may be. Our hope lie with the working class. There is but one plank in the Socialist Party's platform to -- the abolition of wage slavery and unconditional surrender of the capitalist class.

Reforms are a danger in that they operate as bait. The theory that socialism can with safety depart from the hard and fast line of its ultimate goal and follow the lure of "something now" batters itself against the hard fact that "something now" is not obtainable by it, and the logical consequence of such departure would be the degeneration of the movement into a "something now," or reform, movement. If the aim of socialism were to be made the getting of "something now" and socialism later, socialism would have to be sacrificed to immediate progress. The only something worth striving for now by Socialists, because it is the only thing obtainable now, is the laying of as solid a foundation as possible on which to move forward to the conquest of capitalism. Then, too, the more attention that Socialists pay to the ultimate goal, the more will the capitalist class endeavour to stem the tide and check its progress by offering "something now" schemes galore; so that, granting that "something now" is desirable, the way to get it is not by bothering about it but by working steadily for the goal. The Socialist Party clearly recognises the dangers that lurk in the swamp of reform. It keeps uppermost in mind the need to promote among the workers it reaches a clear class-conscious understanding of the nature of capitalist society. Nor does it hesitate to point to the inevitable limitations of any movement that fails to address the capitalist cause. The Socialist Party seeks to tie all the immediate struggles and problems of our class to the essential task of creating an organisation capable of accomplishing a fundamental social change to socialism. 

The Socialist Party's interpretation of socialism is very different from the one put forth by Leninists, Stalinist and Trotskyists as well as all those who describe themselves as social democrats or democratic socialists in various countries. There is no advocacy of state ownership. There is no belief that a government should rule under the leadership of a supposed working class party. The goal, rather, is direct democratic control of all of society by the people. The Socialist Party seeks to abolish all political forms of power, including the abolition of the socialist political party itself, without delay. The Socialist Party's case for socialism differs from most anarchists and syndicalists in its insistence that the working class can only abolish the State by first capturing control of it. The working class must control the offices and the machinery of political government in order to dismantle it. Therefore, the working class requires to organise on the political field. Without use of the present constitutional method, it argues, the social transformation would have to be violent. Marx had written that "socialism casts off the political cloak", and Engels had written that, with socialism, "the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things." Such comments reflect the state-free character of socialism.