We Accuse…You

The productivity of labour has increased a thousandfold in the last 500 years, yet those who labour are in constant penury and want. Why is it?

We live in a world where toil for billions of' working men and women, purchased nothing better than squalor, penury, anxiety, and wretchedness—a world scarred by slums and disgraced by sweating, where unemployment through the vicissitudes of industry brought despair to multitudes of humble homes; a world where, side by side with want, there was waste of the inexhaustible riches of the earth. Oh, you ungrateful slaves, who would deny your masters their full pound of flesh! Your employers travel around in luxurious limousines, private jets and yachts take them to all parts of the world, so they can bask in the Caribbean sun, play in Alpine ski-resorts, shoot on Scottish estates, hunt on African safaris. They indulge their appetites at sumptuous banquets, revive their spirits at grand balls, and rejuvenate their interest in life at the races.

Capitalism creates poverty and it breeds wars, but it is you, our fellow-workers who support capitalism. It is you who build empires for your masters when, instead, you could take possession of the earth and build a cooperative commonwealth for yourselves — a socialist commonwealth, where profits no longer would be the object of production, and markets would cease to be a bone of contention for snarling groups of profit-hungry capitalists, but a system wherein free men and women produce wealth according to their needs.

Yet, fellow workers, you have turned away your heads from socialism, because your masters and their lackeys, fearing it, have lied to you about its meaning. They deceive in the media, from their political rostrums. They encourage mis-leaders to misconstrue, defame, and slander. Nothing but another tool of the master class pay to blind the workers as to their true position as wage slaves. You sacrifice your lives to the support of capitalism with its awful destruction and waste of the wealth which you produce, but do not own. Your masters appeal to you as "patriots" to save "your country" from the pandemic, they beg you to save "your country" from bankruptcy. 

Your masters’ desire is for more surplus-value, i.e., the difference between the wealth you produce and the wages you receive. All the wealth you produce belongs to your masters. Your wages are paid out of that wealth, and are determined by what it costs you to live. Your own insecurity and poverty has increased. Your wretchedness is plain to see as your masters snatch away what little you enjoy. You suffer poverty and deprivation while your masters live in luxury off the wealth you have produced. If you support the Left and dream that nationalisation will save you you will, when you awake, you’ll find yourselves under the rule of the bureaucrat and technocrat— wage slaves still, exploited in the interest of all capitalists instead of that of a corporation. You are already there by virtue of your poverty, and must sell your labour-power in order to live. There is not a reform within your reach that can save you from worse degrees of exploitation.

The means of wealth production are owned by the capitalist or master class, and you are only permitted to produce wealth for them while they can sell at a profit. With modern machinery and methods every nation can produce more wealth than it can dispose of within its own boundaries, and it must find markets for the surplus elsewhere. It was this need for markets that led to the war. But war could not solve the insoluble problem. The world's markets are for those who can sell the cheapest. In order that your masters may sell cheaply you must produce cheaply. The capitalists of other countries, realising this, are telling their workers the same fairy tales that your masters are telling you. They are inciting their workers in the name of nationalism to engage in new military conflicts, in the trade wars of factories and markets, in which the cheapest workers will win for their masters commercial supremacy, for themselves increasing impoverishment.

 Your masters tell you that this must always be your lot, that your share of the wealth you produce can never be more than the slave's portion, and that you must work ever more strenuously even for that. They tell you that industry will not bear the burden of higher wages and improved conditions for you. There is only one answer you can return them: they take two-thirds of the wealth you produce and perform no useful function in society; it is they that are a burden on society—and upon you—and you have no further use for them or their system.

Capitalism fails to give you, who produce all wealth, a secure and comfortable existence, then capitalism must go. With modern means and methods of production wealth can be produced to satisfy the needs of all; but capitalism, with is class ownership of the means of life, and the consumerist character which it imposes upon our labour power, stands in the way. The working class contains the only people who produce commodities and distribute them to the consumers, and they are the people who, relatively speaking, consume the least. The working class includes all employees, whether they be managers or office workers, scientists or mechanics.

 It is the same old story of the capitalists' greed for profit the world over. Fellow worker, are you assisting the master class by supporting their system of slavery, which means hellish conditions for those of your class, or are you joining up with your fellows to abolish it? You must first understand the nature of the obstacle, and then organise politically to remove it. The longer you delay the worse does your condition become. The sooner you commence the task—which can only be performed by you, because you are the class that suffers—the sooner will you enjoy the fruits of your labour under a system where the means of wealth production are the common property of all, used and controlled by all, in the interests of all. 

Not until the workers acquire faith in themselves will they escape from this danger. Once they reach that stage in their mental development and understanding the days of "moderate," "wise," and "statesmanlike" leaders will be gone, and the workers will organise to take control of the means of life by retaining in their own hands the power to decide the issues before them. Then, instead of trying to find out how long they can live under austerity, while the masters roll in luxury, they will march to capture the power of control—the political machinery—and end the struggle over wages by abolishing the wages system and establishing socialism. 

Think it over.

Abolish the Wages System - End Wage-Slavery

In a capitalist society, where the ruling class not only controls the productive and state apparatus but also shapes and misshapes the ideas, attitudes and very sentiments of working people with remarkable success. The better the capitalist class is in ruling over us, the more deceived we will be by the false theories which conceal the self-interest generated by and essential to the operation of an exploitative society. Our fellow-workers must break free from the patterns of thought and conduct which help to maintain capitalist class dominance. Without such a break, we cannot emancipate ourselves and all of humanity.

The non-socialist reformists possess no concepts about how to change the system.  It is the historic mission of our class – the propertyless class of wage-slaves – to make revolution,  uniting all who can be united against the hated capitalist enemy. It is necessary to make revolution to eliminate the evils of this society and move society forward in a great leap for mankind.  It is possible to do so. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class.

Karl Marx said long ago:

“Trade Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla warfare against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

What every worker must realize is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which is capitalism but only its symptoms. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. We are fighting against the effects of the system as Marx points out, and not against the system itself. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. Every wage increase that is won by the workers is immediately offset by the employers by more intensive work, by increased productivity etc. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he or she started. Trade unionism  limits their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles.

The Socialist Party do not, of course, oppose trade unions and their  struggles nor do our members decline to participate in them. It is very essential for workers to organise and for them to defend their living standards. The trade unions are instruments of organised resistance, based on solidarity and mutual help.

 Capitalist production is a slave exploiting mechanism. It was not designed primarily to enable more wealth to be produced but to enable more profit to be made. The system is built expressly to exploit wage slaves, and it is becoming ever more efficient from that standpoint making the situation ever worse for the exploited. The wage slave knows this instinctively, but cannot understand why it is so; there is a developing dissatisfaction and a desire to kick, but not understanding that the system is at fault, in the main workers act blindly. Society cannot be free without every member of society being free. Capitalism is a system of production for profit only; there has never been produced at any time under capitalism sufficient to satisfy the needs of all. The object of capitalist production is not the production of wealth; the mechanism was not designed for that purpose; where profit is not visualised capital does not go; in other words, no profit—no production. Workers are compelled to revolt against the exploiting mechanism, not because they desire to possess it, but partly because of the workers' disinclination to operate it under the then prevailing conditions. They, the workers, will be driven to take control of the State machine and register the fact that the means of production are from then on to be operated exclusively for use. As a means of ending chaos the tools of industry will be made common property. The dismantling process can then begin.

 Socialism entails the abolition of the wages system. It may be difficult for some to believe they can dispense with it; they have got so used to it they cannot conceive of life without it, and so-called socialists often go out of their way to perpetuate the false idea that man is free from exploitation when he is still firmly riveted to the mechanism of capitalism. To make the machinery of production common property is not the whole of it. To establish a system of production for use through the operation of the present day machinery designed for exploitation is impossible. Many wage slaves vaguely realise this and once they comprehend that socialism means doing away with the tread mill that they now find themselves tied to, they will the better understand our message. The desire to produce what one personally wants will be intensified.

In the earlier forms of society every member of the tribe could do practically what every other tribesman could do. We are returning to the communal life of our ancestors, but on a higher plane. Socialism means freedom. To be free mankind must control the means of life. To be a cog in a machine is to be a slave no matter how well greased the system is.

When we talk and write about socialism, we mean a class-free society in which the means of producing food, clothing, houses, and all the amenities of life, shall be owned in common and democratically controlled by the community. There will be an identity of interests, for no one will covet what his neighbour has if there is an abundance to satisfy his needs. This is the foundation which we claim will solve war and the major evils of the world. Socialism is the only sane way. All other methods have been tried and failed. It does not follow that socialism will succeed because it has never been tried. It requires thought and inquisitiveness on the part of workers, to understand why socialism will succeed.

With the basis of socialist society firmly established, it is not difficult to see that mankind will be free to enjoy life to the full. Men and women will give of their best to society, for they will know that society's resources will be there for the taking. They will produce the best and receive the best. They will be free to develop his natural desires and aptitudes. Production will be a task which men and women will enjoy, for they will be working in the knowledge that goods are actually being produced for the benefit of the community. Mankind will be free to enjoy the arts of the world.

No longer will people be assessed by their bank balance or property, for money would serve no function under socialism. Today, money in the form of wages keeps workers in subjection, and poverty, for they can only buy back a proportion of the wealth they produce. As all means of production would be owned in common for the benefit of mankind, war will be an impossibility, for a socialist society would not fight for something it already possessed.

Workers, do not attempt to escape from the problems thrown up by capitalism by ignoring the cold facts of reality. Face up to the situation that capitalism is now decadent, and that mankind can build a new world in which life will be a beautiful experience. The nightmares of yesterday will then gradually recede in the distance. When socialism is obtained the escape to freedom will be complete.

Your Future - Your Choice

Wars, poverty, slums and climate change cannot be solved in isolation. Capitalism produces these problems. Socialism alone can bring an overdue end to them. Through the abolition of this wage-slave system, mankind will finally master its affairs. The Socialist Party has untiringly persevered with its case for socialism, by the printed word, the street corner speakers, the platforms of public meetings and across the web—wherever the workers could be attracted, calling upon the world’s working class to end its problems of poverty, insecurity and mass slaughter. The Party’s irrefutable case, is based upon the materialist conception of history, and its analysis of the capitalist system with all its contradictions. We  have shown the synthesis of this out-moded economic system, which is the only inevitable road humanity can eventually take—in a word— SOCIALISM.

 It becomes more and more clear that capitalism has outlived its usefulness in social evolution, there accompanies it the hope that the workers will decide to speed the progress by understanding, desiring and determining to establish a socialist society. Only the world’s working class can establish this and ensure for the generations to come, a fuller, happier existence. Sadly, insufficient numbers of the working class have rallied together for this purpose. 

Now, time could be running out. The opportunity and ability of changing society may not last. Today humanity is fast coming face to face with an ultimatum—one which may be utter and final—the fact of an imminent environmental catastrophe. The choice is becoming oppressive, the decision vital; be politically active or become a casualty to the climate crises. Change the social system of monopoly and privilege for the few.

A capitalist society is one in which:

1) the means of production — factories, land, etc., — are owned by capitalists as individuals or corporate groups;

2) this class of capitalists holds political power by controlling the state apparatus;

3) production is regulated by the profit motive; and

4) exploitation occurs, in that capitalists live, partly or wholly, on the labour of others, i.e., of their employed workers.

A socialist society is one in which:

1) the means of production are owned in common by society as a whole;

2) production is planned

3) exploitation — the process of living partly or wholly on the labour of others — has been eliminated.

Should the world become socialist as a result of the difficulties and problems that our capitalist social order is unable to solve, people will discover that socialism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.

At present most people regard a socialist society solely in the light of the experience of the former Soviet Union. They fear it would produce the same result as it brought for the peoples of the USSR. They dread the bureaucratic tyranny and draconian red-tape in obtaining the necessities of life, the soulless standardisation in the arts and culture, the imposition of political repression and the suppression of freedom of expression. Such ideas are reinforced by capitalist media.

When private property rights and private profits are removed from the capitalist system there will be abundance and free access to the social wealth of the world. This system will be made to work not by bureaucrats and not by policemen but by cooperation and compassion. We will organise our society to produce for human needs rather than  profits. Money will no longer be necessary when there is more than enough of everything for everybody.

Towards the Revolution

Members of the Socialist Party are not motivated by greed for money or envy of power but by the yearning for a full and free life. As socialists we are out to destroy the present intolerable capitalist system, and to substitute a better. A socialist revolution, then, is the necessity of the times, and it is essential to get prepared now. The Socialist Party has always stated that the future belongs to socialism despite its present dim prospects when the very idea of socialism has almost disappeared from working people’s political agenda. For many of our fellow-workers socialism has sadly become synonymous with state tyranny. What an unfortunate fate for an ideal linked always with freedom and liberty. However, there are promising signs of a re-awakening of interest in socialism. Many working people deep down realise that there is something very rotten with this system and are beginning to look elsewhere for an alternative that makes better sense. The political parties of the status quo are being rejected. The Socialist Party’s purpose is to show our fellow-workers hope and that it is possible to build another sort of society. It is ironic that nowadays many people no longer deny the likelihood of a global catastrophe, but are yet dubious about the prospect of a better society coming about. Maybe this is measure of our failure to explain our ideas adequately. Maybe we spend too much of our time calling for the end of what is, and not enough time explaining what might be. Working men and women seek assurance that instead of an imminent, apocalyptic collapse of civilisation there will be a speedy creation of the new socialist society. 

This is our time.

Capitalism has brought us disaster. Yet right-wing, populists and nationalists never stop telling us that they have make “us”“ great again, feeding on fears and anxieties, spreading racism and xenophobia. World socialism will protect and nurture our natural resources for future generations. To achieve our goal of creating socialism we need to resist all power. We cannot defeat global warming and a global pandemic with a divided world. If our planet is not to succumb to catastrophes, humanity must engage in revolutionary change.  

Many find aspects of capitalism morally repugnant: the degradation, misery and exploitation that continually flow from a class society throw-up impassioned voices of protest. People have two choices. They can go beyond the promises of politicians and the hollowness of reformism and organise politically to abolish capitalism. Or they can resign themselves to a lifetime of wasted effort working in charities, signing petitions, attending marches or writing harrowing books exposing this or that acute social problem. To do so will condemn us to stumble from one crisis to another and brutalise, degrade and maybe even kill us in the process.

Except for perhaps war It is not profitable to prepare for future catastrophes. Warning signs for a very probable coronavirus pandemic should have been heeded years ago. Medical experts outlined various ways to tackle it but neither pharmaceutical corporations nor government departments acted on it. The coronavirus pandemic has brought the tyranny of our economic system into sharp focus. There will be an eventual recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic but can the same be said for global warming and climate change. The threat of the survival of civilisation is intensified.

Today all the contradictions in society are sharpening, here and throughout the world. The world today is a very good place to make socialist revolution. It is precisely at such a point in history that the need for working class unity is greatest. Racism has long been a bulwark of all political reaction. It is a weapon systematically used by the capitalists to try to divide the workers of different races and nationalities and thereby to weaken the workers' movement and keep down the entire working class. The history of capitalist rule is a history of the most savage racial oppression. The capitalist rulers and their state are racist to the core. Their much-vaunted 'freedom' and 'democracy' stand exposed as nothing more than hollow and hypocritical lies. Brutal racism has been the way of life in capitalist America. However, the people have never taken their subjugation lying down.  U.S. history is filled with examples of the valiant struggles of the long-suffering masses. The reformist policy of tokenism has long been encouraged by the capitalist rulers of the U.S.A. It was promoted through a variety of programs, such as the promotion of 'black capitalism'. But while some African Americans are relatively well-off, at most, the black bourgeois have grown to become millionaires, but are not included in the list of billionaires.  In brief, the well-to-do African Americans have been given some crumbs.

 The aims of the capitalist drive against foreign-born workers are plain. First, the exploiters want to lower the standard of living and the conditions of employment of millions of our workers who happen to be foreign-born. Then they will blame and attack these worse oppressed and more ruthlessly exploited foreign-born working people to the native workers for the degrading conditions they themselves have forced upon these laborers. The capitalists are thus hoping to sow dissension in and divide the ranks of the working masses in order to crush more easily all the workers — native and foreign-born alike. The workers are divided amongst themselves into foreign-born and native. We must pit the unity of the labouring masses against the unity of the exploiters and oppressors. We must match the solidarity of the working class whose ideal is freedom, with the solidarity of the employing class whose aim is exploitation and tyranny.

 Our aim is the class-free society of world socialism. The Socialist Party is aware of the fact that today the overwhelming majority of the working class is not yet sufficiently class-conscious or convinced of the necessity of socialism.

Homophobic Attacks Increase in Scotland

Official figures have shown that homophobic hate crimes have reached their highest level on record in Scotland.

According to annual statistics from the Crown Office, there were reportedly 1,486 crimes motivated by sexual orientation in 2019-20, up 24% from 1,194 in 2018-19.

The increase in areas such as Aberdeen and Dundee was even greater, with a 68% increase in the former and 41% increase in the latter.

The 1,194 figure is a significant increase from the 452 homophobic attacks in 2010-11, when hate crimes were included in legislation. With the exception of 2014-2015, hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community have increased year on year.

Statistics also revealed that sexual orientation aggravated crime is the second most commonly reported type of hate crime in Scotland after racially-motivated attacks.

Deejay Bullock, founder of Aberdeen-based LGBTQ+ support charity Four Pillars, told Press and Journal that he was “very alarmed” by the increase of homophobic hate crimes in Scotland.

“I don’t believe this can be attributed to increase reporting, which means there is a current increase in hate crimes on the LGBT+ community,” he said.

Almost half of the hate crimes committed on trans people were violent, with 46 per cent being offences like assault and grievous bodily harm. For homophobic hate crimes, 40 per cent were violent in 2018.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/07/20/homophobia-hate-crime-record-scotland-dundee-aberdeen-transphobia-crown-office/

Wake Up Fellow-Workers

We have always said that socialism can only be established by a conscious, participating working class organised not only politically to capture and dismantle the State machine but also outside parliament ready to take over and run industry and society generally. The Socialist Party case is that a politically conscious working class must use political means—that is through parliament —to take over the state machine, and convert it to an agent for the establishment of socialism. Once that has been accomplished the coercive state machine will cease to exist; in the words of Engels (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific): “The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’, it dies out.”

Modern capitalist society is broadly based upon one central fact — the dominance and enslavement of the many by the few. This is the Socialist Party position. Not all of it, but its essence. The reason we have to repeat it many times, is because the bulk of the working class have never heard it, and few are moved into action. At the risk of wearying those who do understand, we have to iterate and reiterate the one central truth that matters. Our task would be easier if those who do understand, in all cases squared their actions with their belief and did the logical thing — joined the Socialist Party. Socialism is essentially a movement of action. Action, and organised intelligent action at that, is vital to its achievement and yet, there must be thousands of workers, perfectly convinced of the desirability, and of the inevitability of socialism, who have never lifted a finger to bring it nearer. None of this is to deny the value of the ballot-box. The right to vote, on the contrary, constitutes a potentially revolutionary instrument which the majority of workers, once they understand where their true interests lie, can use to take over the state, preparatory to the changeover from capitalism to socialism. 

Is it not time the workers awoke and proceeded to inaugurate a social system wherein all the physically fit adults contribute their quota of labour for the social good—where all engaged in healthy work and none were overworked?

The tactics necessary to achieve socialism is the understanding of, and acting in accordance with, the class struggle—the recognition of the fact that in present-day society two classes exist whose interests are diametrically opposed: the employing class and the employed class.

The employing class own all the wealth produced, and as there is a limit to the amount of wealth that can be consumed by wage-earners—a limit imposed by the limits of the purchasing power of their wages—so there is a limit to the amount that the markets demand. The greater the speed of production the sooner this limit will be reached. The employed class produce the wealth, and the individuals who compose this class, by the necessities of their existence, are compelled to compete with each other for jobs, and so keep wages down to a certain average level.

 Our loyalty is to the working class as a whole and not any one section of it or, rather, any organisation offering to provide a service for any one section of it. Capitalism serves capitalists first and foremost.” That’s why recovery from the COVID19 pandemic and the climate crises require changing the economic system to one that puts people and the planet above profits. If there was ever a time to build a different world, that time is now. It is time for economic democracy, an economy that serves the people, not the wealthy. The reformers must recognize how the state will try to co-opt and water down their demands. Change is coming. What it looks like is up to us.