One World, One People

Representatives from the Indian Workers Association in Scotland will be staging a peaceful protest outside the consulate in Rutland Square against the Indian government’s controversial Citizen Amendment Act (CAA). The protest is also being supported by the Central Gurdawa, Scottish Asian Christian Fellowship, The Guru Nanak Sikh Temple and other organisations in Glasgow with buses leaving from the Sikh temple in Glasgow’s Albert Drive.

The CAA will fast-track citizenship for religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians – but does not include Muslims.

Paramjit Basi, president of the Indian Workers Association Glasgow branch, who is leading the fight for democracy in Scotland, said: “Regardless of religion, it is important to support secularism rather than dividing a country.

“Most Scottish Indians feel very strongly about this and we are showing support in Edinburgh alongside other protests taking place across major cities including London and Birmingham.”

The Socialist Party: Sticking to Principles

There are some men and women who accept socialist ideas but who rejected the position of the Socialist Party. They do so for reasons that seem to them convincing. They agree upon the fundamentals and the need for social change, that there must be a majority for socialism politically organised to gain democratic control of the machinery of government, taking it out of the hands of the capitalists.

However when faced with the reality of the millions of men and women, ignorant of socialist principles, faced with the immediate problems of getting a living, supporting the pro-capitalist parties, bedazzled by nationalism and patriotism, awed by the power and privileges of the rich, they despaired at turning their fellow-workers into a political party for socialism. They sought an alternative quicker way and chose to ease the hardships of the poor and improve capitalism to gain the gratitude of the people who would turn be more readily receptive to socialism.

They said to us in the Socialist Party: “You mean well and your case is logical, but logic is not enough. The slow, hard progress on the direct, uphill road to socialism is theoretically right, but impossible in practice. People being what they are we must leave the straight road and come back later on.”

Those well-meaning, good-intentioned one-time socialists  re-planned and revised their political platforms. While retaining the socialist ideal they placed it as a far-off objective and instead concentrated on the immediate day-to-day bread and butter practical issues, like minimum wages, protecting the Welfare State. Naturally this takes up a lot of energy permitting less time for advocating socialism. It also meant being side-tracked from the socialist path and making opportunist alliances with pro-capitalists but only for a time, they said. The working class freed from the worry and misery of the extremes of capitalism would express interest in further social evolution and prove that the reformist way was the better way. 

We have had over a century now to evaluate that strategy and examine it under the light of experience.The promised reforms we have in profusion, though without weakening capitalism. The Labour Party is now wholly absorbed in task to win still further reforms, many of them the same ones that they promised to introduce quickly at the beginning. If the aim was to keep capitalism goingand to dissuade working people from demanding socialism, it has worked out very well. But some supporters of the Labour Party genuinely aim at socialismand the once attractive appeal of social reform has led only into the muddled mess of capitalist politics and now they are hopelessly bogged down in it. They have forgotten all about the road to socialism and the objective of putting an end to capitalism.  

Now the Labour Party is back where it started, looking for another cure for the social ills within capitalism. Reformism has not brought us any nearer to socialism  and it has exhausted whatever socialist interest there was originally in the minds of those who joined the Labour Party to reach a socialist society. So much so that the politicians inside the Labour Party have re-defined what their forebearers believed what socialism meant.

If all the energy devoted to chasing after reforms had been used instead to build up the socialist movement then the propertied class would have rushed forward all manner and shape of reforms in the hope, though a vain one, of buying it off.

The Hunger Game

Almost 600,000 emergency food parcels were handed out by food banks in Scotland over 18 months, according to new figures. The Scottish charities which distributed the packages between April 2018 and September 2019 said more people were "reaching crisis point". The organisations warned the figures represent the "tip of the iceberg" for those struggling to buy food or feed their family.

They said the number of food parcels handed out during that period was 22% higher than the previous 18 months. More than 1,000 emergency food parcels are being handed out each day in Scotland. There are 52 food banks in Glasgow, compared to 18 branches of McDonald's.

The new figures were collected by the independent A Menu for Change group, a partnership between Oxfam Scotland, Nourish Scotland, the Poverty Alliance and the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland and the Independent Food Aid Network.

It found that:

• More than 278,000 parcels were handed out by 91 of the the country's 101 independent food banks between April 2018 and September 2019

• A further 318,214 parcels went out through the Trussell Trust's 135 venues

"A weakened social security system, low pay and insecure work are tightening the grip of poverty and forcing people to crisis point," said project manager Margaret MacLachlan. "The long-term solution to food insecurity is not food banks, it is ensuring people have secure and reliable incomes."

She added: "Today's statistics are shocking, but experts also warn that data on food parcel distribution only provides a partial picture of the number of Scots struggling to put food on the table, with many choosing to skip meals rather than use a food bank. No-one in rich Scotland should run out of money to buy food and political leaders must act now to prevent more people being dragged into poverty."

In Fife, the number of parcels distributed by independent food banks has risen from 25,798 to 40,409 in 18 months.

Joyce Leggate, Chairperson of Kirkcaldy FoodBank said: “Increasing numbers of people in Fife are being forced to turn to food banks in order to put food on the table. We have seen a month on month increase in people coming to us because of inadequate benefit payments, problems with the social security system and low wages. We are very concerned by today’s figures which show the vital role independent food banks have been playing throughout Scotland by offering emergency support for those who are no longer being supported by the social security safety net.”

Mary McGinley, from Helensburgh and Lomond Foodbank, said: “It is hard to believe that in modern-day Scotland, more and more people are being forced to rely on foodbanks to feed themselves and their families. But until we see a significant change in direction, inadequate and insecure incomes make this continued rise in food parcels sadly predictable. While it is heartening that people are willing to donate to and volunteer at food banks, there is a real need for change. Politicians must address the underlying causes of rising food bank use rather than relying on charitable organisations and goodwill to respond to food poverty.”

Ruling by Fooling

When leftists advocate independence they surrender any socialist identity in order to merge with a nationalist movement. The need for socialists is to explain patiently where the electorate was being misled by nationalist idea, not reinforce them.

The Socialist Party holds that neither race nor nationality should separate the workers of the world.

The Socialist Party adopts a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism, patriotism, and xenophobia.

The Socialist Party gives no support to any nationalist group, and in place of their opportunism and hypocris echo the rallying cry of Marx and Engels, "Workers of All Countries, Unite!"

The Socialist Party holds that the only real divisions which exist in the world are between different social and economic groups. In capitalist countries this consists in a division between the capitalist class, which owns and controls the means of production, and the working class, which owns none of them and which has to sell its mental and physical labour-power to the capitalist class in order to live.

Feelings of loyalty to a nation are purely subjective, having no basis in reality. Nationalist ideologies and movements represent the interests of the capitalist class.

The rivalries between nations are an expression of a struggle between rival ruling classes using the nation in waging their disputes. National boundaries may be altered — may even disappear— but such re-arrangements of things geographical can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. Nor can constitutional changes, re-defining sovereignty.

Our place of birth is accidental, but our obligation is to our class worldwide.

Towards The New Cooperative Commonwealth

A world community without money, without prices, without wages, without classes and without countries has long been feasible. Capitalism itself created the material preconditions for such a society. Mankind has proclaimed the necessity and possibility of a superior economic and social system and even sketched its outlines: a society based on people’s complete equality and freedom, a society based on collective creative work to satisfy human needs, a society in which means of production belong to people collectively. The claim that capitalism is the best economic system is the biggest lie in human history.

 This system is drenched in blood. While hundreds of millions of people have no home, no healthcare, no education and even no food, the means to produce and satisfy these needs lie idle and unused. Economically, this society cannot stand on its two feet without children put to work while it discards the aged. It can’t produce without killing, maiming and wearing people out. It can’t carry on without dehumanising the majority of the people of the earth and without ignoring their basic needs. The basis of capitalist society is the despicable fact that the majority, in order to live must sell its bodily and intellectual powers to a minority. It is a society where the production of people’s essentials has been tied to the profitability of capital. 

Under capitalism, with its wage slavery, working people are nominally free; but the land, the tools and all the product of labour belong to the employing class. The workers are at liberty to change their individual masters, if they can, that is all.“Free” sell their labour power, which is the only commodity they possess, to the capitalists who own or control all the means of producing wealth, including the tools, raw material, land and money. So long as wages are paid by one class to another class, so long will men and women remain slaves to the employing class. Goods, are produced, not directly for social needs, but in order to create a profit for the capitalists. The only way to solve the growing antagonism between the two great classes of modern society is, by substituting cooperation for competition, in all branches of production and distribution. This involves a social revolution.

We regard economic growth, technological progress, development of the productive capacities, and the raising of the level of consumption, welfare and leisure of human society as vital. Sharing scarcity is not our solution. The Socialist Party intends to build a system which is based on economic justice.

Socialism is a society in which human beings gain control over their economic lives, are freed from the chains of blind economic laws. Socialism is the movement for freeing human beings from economic necessity. A socialist society is an open and informed society. In socialism it will be a routine procedure to constantly inform people about the needs and problems in the various areas of human life worldwide. In the socialist system it is the citizens and their institutions that constantly inform each other of the economic, social and human needs, as well as of the scientific and technical advances of the different sectors. Given the present technology, the organisation of such information interchange and of everyone’s constant access to it is feasible even right now.

In a socialist society not only all are consumers, but all are also producers. Everyone works and everyone consumes. To carry on production "for the benefit of the community" means, in a socialist society, for the benefit of the community both as consumers and as producers. The wages system, under which workers has been reduced to a commodity is to be supplanted by the socialist system, the fraternal commonwealth. By uniting at the ballot box, political control of the State can be secured, and the cooperative commonwealth established. The common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new economic system ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. 

The socialist commonwealth, liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression and provides the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the person, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of all. 

The time has come for social regeneration, and this progress is only possible through a new and worldwide change of system, and to inaugurate that change will be the purpose of the Socialist Party. Can the day of change be hastened? Without a doubt. Every worker who helps the propaganda, votes the socialist platform, and encourages others to do likewise is speeding the day of the new commonwealth.