Changing the World

Who said that capitalism was fit for sane human beings to live under? We should all be as active as possible in trade union work which is in working class interests. And we should all realise that trade unions should be the enemy of the capitalist class, instead of the docile puppy-dogs.

When the Socialist Party speak of the employing or the capitalist class they refer to that small class in current society which, enabled to employ and to exploit the workers by its ownership of the land, factories, mines, transport, etc., is, if necessary, able to live without working upon the proceeds. This, then, is the capitalist class: the class of employers, of masters.  

Simple as it may seem to expect the right to good housing, good healthcare, good food, and good education, for men and women, this simple demand cannot be met without the complete overthrow of our present competitive society, and the elimination of the profit-mongering class.

The problem that concerns capitalists in general is freedom to accumulate profits without economic or political hindrance either from economic conditions or from dissatisfied workers and impecunious sections of their own class. In each country each section of the capitalist class seeks to gain the lion’s share of the wealth plundered from the workers. The International interests of groups (large trusts for. instance) again cut across these other interests and produce further complications. On the main issue there is unity, but on sectional issues there is conflict.

The Socialist Party does not distinguish between “offensive” and “defensive” wars. In truth, no real distinction is possible. If defence and offense appeared to be separable a century or two ago, the changing technique of war has made it difficult to-day. Any Government can put up a plausible case to show that its military offensive is needed to defend “vital national interests.” “Aggression” is also merely the name applied to the actions of the late-comers to economic expansion by those who were first to collar the loot. The Socialist Party declines to  to distinguish between the relative merits of the conduct of capitalist governments at war with each other. We recognise as a fact that they are all of them defending by armed force the private ownership of the world’s means of production and distribution, i.e., forcibly excluding the mass of the population from entering into possession. Should the slaves take sides when the slave-owners fall out? Obviously, no. We repudiate this argument that certain wars should be supported by the workers because of their supposed revolutionary effects. First of all, there is the suffering for the workers which war brings in its train – both to combatants and civilians. Then there is the war fever and political repression which make socialist propaganda more difficult. 

The supposed progressive effect of war and defeat has been misunderstood. War may speed up the development of industry and may produce disturbed conditions leading to the overthrow of governments. In countries where democratic methods of electing and changing the Government have not yet developed, this possible result of defeat may appear to possess considerable importance. But the defeats in various wars which hastened political changes did not lead to Socialism. What was overlooked by those who put forward the argument was that the overthrow of a throne or an autocratic government cannot possibly lead to socialism where the working class are not fit to take on that task. Experience has taught us something it had not at that time taught our critics that they (and this includes Marx and Engels in their earlier years) had underestimated the extent of the knowledge and experience required to build up a solid and reliable socialist political organisation out of the unorganised workers. To them, the overthrow of an autocracy was but a step removed from the conquest of power by the working-class. The lessons of the past 100 years have shown how over-sanguine they were. Wars, revolutions, and ordinary economic and political evolution have destroyed numerous monarchies and autocracies, but because an organised socialist working class nowhere exists, every attempt to gain power for socialism has failed – including, of course, the Russian attempt. The Socialist Party opposes working class participation in war for reasons based directly on working class interests and the interests of the World Socialist Movement. In all countries the workers are exploited by the owners of the means of production and distribution. There are no differences between the conditions under which exploitation is carried on in the different countries sufficient to make it worth the workers’ while supporting war in order to defend their subjection to one national group of capitalists rather than to another. 

Many people, nevertheless argue in favour of supporting wars for national defence and to secure national independence on the ground that only in this way can the national question be thrust on one side. They argue that socialists ought to help others to secure national independence as a means of clearing nationalistic prejudices out of the way. This is an illusion. Every support of nationalism feeds it and encourages it. Nationalism breeds conditions in which socialist propaganda and organisation are made more difficult. For socialist propaganda to make headway, nationalistic prejudices have got to be struck it the roots, and that from the very beginning.

As a practical policy this means that socialists must carry on their struggle against the capitalist parties in their own country and must on no account allow it to appear, through political alliances or collaboration in capitalist Governments, that they associate themselves with their own capitalists against the rest of the world. It is only natural that the Labour Parties, believing as they do in associating with capitalist parties, should find themselves during war forming nationalist united fronts against the “enemy” country. There can be no sound socialist attitude towards war except where there is a sound socialist attitude towards capitalism at home.

 Socialism is a society of common ownership and production for use: or an end to the exchange economy (buying and selling), classes and the state. 

WE Is A Charity, But Which WE Does It Benefit?

WE Charity is an International Development Charity which implements programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America focusing on education, water, health, food and economic opportunity. It also runs programs for young people in Canada and the U.S., promoting service learning and active citizenship, in other words a new Peace Corp. On May 22 the Federal Cabinet selected WE to administer a payment program for the Canada Student Service Grant Program: a contract worth $19.5 million. It was revealed later that Justin Trudeau's mother, Margaret and Brother Alexandre, received $250,000 and $32,000 for speaking at WE events, between 2016 and 2020. Furthermore two daughters of Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, worked at various times for WE, one in a paid position. Trudeau, has apologized profusely for his, ''mistake,'' but Morneau faces an ethics investigation for approving the contract. 

No one should be surprised about this: capitalism is based on dishonesty; all its propaganda are nothing but a pack of lies.

How then can we expect its main upholders to be honest?

S.P.C.Members.

A Money Saver. Only Report Half Of The Injuries.?

On July 2 the Toronto Star ran an article which focused on the plight of immigrant farm workers in Ontario. They come mostly from Mexico and Caribbean countries through the Seasonal Worker Program. Officially they are covered by health and safety laws and are eligible for workers compensation if injured on the job, which sounds fine, except that research conducted by Wilfred Laurier University shows a discrepancy of about 50 per cent between those injured and those reported. This is because the employers, who are responsible for reporting accidents, are fearful it will increase their premiums with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

 Since the workers rely on their bosses for transportation and translation, its hard for them to independently seek medical care and advice. So in the end it all boils down to money - and not the workers’ share.

S.P.C.Members.

For the benefit of mankind

The working class throughout the world blindly support capitalism. None of them can escape responsibility for the consequences. For the power wielded by the rulers of world capitalism is a reflection of the political ignorance of the working class everywhere. It is absurd to blame one man, when he is only the instrument of a policy supported by millions. As long as workers support this system, so will they be vulnerable to the racial theorists who, on nationalist grounds, gets support. Socialists do not have any bitter personal hatred for these few bloated individuals, who do not and cannot even control their own system. We have a far more ambitious and stimulating aim to work for: the world's resources for the people of the world.

Socialism is the only solution to the problem of poverty in the midst of increasing plenty. It is a form of society where all the natural resources, the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution, are owned and operated by and in the interest of society as a whole, where all forms, of exploitation of man by man disappears, where everybody able to work will give of his or her abilities, and where each and every person able to work or not will receive the highest standard of life society can produce. The vote, when backed by a majority of class-conscious workers, will enable them to capture the machinery of government and turn it from an instrument of oppression into an instrument of liberation. But first we must convince that majority. Political parties which win elections on non-socialist votes are committed irrevocably to the futile task of trying to administer the capitalist system. No matter what evasions and short cuts are sought, the inescapable truth remains that there will be no triumph for socialism until the necessary spadework has first been done of winning over the electors to socialism. While the worker’s immediate interest, under capitalism, can only be with his or her standard of living, there is a further and more far-reaching interest. That is to devote a little time to the study of past and present societies, and to ascertain whether there is not some alternative to the capitalism which provides him or her with poverty, insecurity, worry, unemployment, occasional wars, and a premature old age.

It is impossible to condemn too strongly the terrible brutality of the killing of millions of people. War is caused by the struggles between national capitalist Powers over markets and economic resources. This can only be cured by the abolition of capitalism. The next battlefield may be the last. And yet these conflicts do all have the same common cause, at root. The world-wide capitalist system itself is a daily battle, in which the economic conflict between rival national groups of owners can easily pass from economic to military warfare. And today, capitalism is becoming increasingly one universal battlefield as the distinction between "civilian" and "military" targets continues to be blurred. To remove the cause of this conflict in the world is to get rid of the capitalist system of class division between owners and non-owners. 

A great deal of abuse is heaped on the Socialist Party by our opponents. The basic argument is that you can't have socialism — a world money-free society of free access without the market and without prices — because such a society would have no way of allocating what will always be scarce resources. And even "superabundance" would not solve the problem since the possible lines of production are infinite and we cannot do all things at once. We could always be doing something else and only the market can tell us the correct economic thing we should be doing. Therefore, the practicalities of organisation make free access society impossible and what we should go for instead is a free market system operating throughout the world without states and with a single world currency. So, the argument goes on.

 The best way to answer it would be to set out a blueprint for socialism showing exactly how resources can be efficiently planned and allocated without the market as an economic calculator. But this we cannot do.

Firstly because it would be quite undemocratic for the small minority we are now to think we can lay down detailed plans for how the majority must organise their democratically established society in the future and secondly we have no way of knowing what the level of technology and expertise at the time of a socialist majority will allow in terms of planning and organisation.

What we can do, however, and what we are doing is to put forward informed suggestions as to how a socialist majority, if it inherited the present level of technology and expertise, might decide to co-operatively organise the world's resources on the basis of production for need. It's probably true that we don't have enough data to do this with any detailed accuracy. However, this is not because the data can never be available but because capitalism, working as it does through the market, does not give the impetus for the large social task of assembling that data to be undertaken. A growing conscious majority anxious for socialism will have the impetus to undertake that task and will certainly make detailed democratic plans ahead of taking political power about how socialist society will be organised.

The speculative work we are doing at present on the details of socialist organisation won't of course satisfy our critics demand for a blueprint. But then it's not meant to be a blueprint. It's meant to be a move towards demonstrating in a practical way that it's well within the skills, the techniques, the intelligence and the powers of organisation of collective humanity to run the planet in its own common interest. It is about establishing a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use — a genuine socialist society. You owe it to yourselves to consider the case, not for the Labour Party, but for socialism.

It is central to the Socialist Party's position the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal and that reformist campaigns are futile and counter-productive. Many argue, nevertheless, that there are many worthy causes for the Socialist Party to advocate such as the NHS.

The National Health Service does not represent a step towards socialism: the 1944 White Paper proposing such a service was presented by Henry Willinck. a Conservative Minister of Health, because it was necessary to give credibility to the concept of "fighting for a better Britain '; a centrally administered service was more efficient; a fitter workforce was needed for post-war reconstruction; it was feared that workers' agitation would break out again after the war if concessions were not granted.

Although health care is centrally funded the supply of drugs, equipment, provisions and construction have remained in private hands and the state in its role as employer has been just as ruthless in holding down wages as any private business concern.

To suggest that privileges can be given up by abolishing private medicine, without removing the causes of privilege and the exploitation of one person by another, is to invite failure Like all institutions under capitalism health services facilitate business interests which explains their growth when labour is in short supply and needs to be conserved, and the cut-backs imposed when unemployment causes a surplus of labour. "Non-producers" such as the elderly, the young, disabled. mentally handicapped and long-term mentally ill are kept short of resources even in a time of prosperity and expansion because they no longer contribute to the profitability of capitalism which overrides social needs.

The incidence of ill-health and premature deaths are higher for the poor than the wealthy and health services, however sophisticated, can only treat the symptoms of poverty instead of tackling the causes. Therefore, to campaign for better health services while leaving the causes of ill- health intact is to collaborate in the continued, and often unnecessary, ill-health of the workers. The same objections apply the view, that a similar case could be made for the abolition of private education.

Indeed, once on the reformist road a case could be made for campaigning against destroying food; pollution; racism; sexism; nuclear weapons — all of which are doomed to failure or at best only limited success while we have a social system based on profit. Instead of enduring the frustration of trying to change a piece of capitalism we invite our fellow-workers to join with socialists in building a money-free society which puts people first.

For the Socialist Commonwealth, speed the day.

The Grand Swindle. Evictions Due To COVID-19.

There was, and still is a freeze on residential evictions in Ontario due to COVID-19, but, since we live under capitalism there has to be a catch. The above falls within the parameters of the Residential Tenancies Act, but for tenants who share a kitchen or a bathroom with their landlord, they have no such protection as they can be evicted under the Commercial Tenancies Act. Those who have. Lead actors in the Grand Swindle imply worker interests are the same as Capital’s . . . Not! Interest: Fire the parasites quickly as possible & organize the ‘means of life’ to serve the whole community! and are now in shelters have attempted to fight this legally, and were told to file a complaint with the Landlord and Tenant Board. Shaun Harvey, a paralegal with Riverview Legal Services in Kitchener, said he has been trying to call the governments attentions to the issue of tenants being exempt from the RTA for years and the pandemic has made the problem more visible. So if a tenant can't work because of the pandemic and therefore has no income yet comes within the parameters of the CTA, they can be kicked out onto the street. 

That's one thing about capitalism: IT’S ALL HEART!

S.P.C. Members.

Canadian Premiere Doug Ford tells Trump "Economically We're going To War"

Ontario Premiere Doug Ford, used to talk about Trump in flattering terms, like he was smooth, suave and sophisticated, but now that Trump is threatening tariffs against Canada Ford ain't so sure. On July 10 he urged the American President, (or what passes for one), to think again. To quote, ''We're the number one customer to 19 states, we're number 2 to nine others. We were instrumental in employing nine million Americans and then they want to start talking about tariffs against us? Folks let’s stick together, because economically we're going to war.'' 

If there is one it will be like all others; one in which the working class of both countries have no stake in.

S.P.C.Members.

Solidarity

Nurses from across Scotland have protested over pay at demonstrations in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.

Hundreds of protesters attended the "NHS Workers say No!" event at Glasgow Green. It was one of dozens across the country over a UK government pay rise which campaigners say excludes "a massive number of healthcare workers".

NHS medical and dental workers, GPs and general dental practitioners in Scotland will receive a 2.8% pay rise, backdated to 1 April.

However, nurses and junior doctors were not included because they agreed a separate three-year deal in 2018.

NHS charge nurse Brenda Brown, said colleagues "can't exactly feed our families on a round of applause."

Only Socialism Will Do

When workers are unable to get employment, they are barely able to survive.  The state now makes sure that they do survive — just — which at least prevents the streets being blocked by destitute people. This is the pressure upon workers to practise thrift, to put something by for a rainy day, to organise their budget, to accept the rightness of their place on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Put in another way, this is the pressure on the subject class under capitalism to comply with that social system with its private property, its degradation and its insecurity. Most workers view the stigma of their class uncomplainingly, even cheerfully. Most of them regard their exploitation as natural, when in reality it is inhuman and distorting. Day to day, year to year capitalism goes from one crisis to another crisis. And it is the workers, the majority of people in this world, who suffer. As capitalism survives it will continue to cause hardship, anxiety and stress to the working class.

Modern states exist because of the conflict of interests in modern society. This conflict is due to the capitalist ownership of the economic resources of society. The international capitalist class is divided into competing groups endeavouring to secure control of the raw materials, trade routes and markets of the world. The most powerful of these groups use the machinery of the various states as weapons in the struggle. 

The solution of the conflict lies not with an ‘amorphous’ people but with a working class organised to emancipate itself, internationally. In the place of capitalism, with its economic chaos and political strife, it will establish a social order based upon the common ownership of the means of life and their democratic control in a class-free community.

Capitalism will always bring problems to the working class. Although the other parties claim to be able to do something about them, experience tells us that these problems are insoluble within capitalism. We live in a social system which is based on the class ownership of the means of wealth, production and distribution. One effect of this is that the wealth we turn out is made, not to satisfy human needs, but to serve the interests of the class who own the means of production.

The interests of that class are in the production of wealth to be sold so as to yield them profit with which their capital can be developed and expanded, and so buttress their privileged position in society. This process takes place through the exploitation of the other class — the working class, who do not own the means of production and who have to sell their labour power in order to live. The lot of this class is one of exploitation and poverty. 

Whatever the wealth they consume it is always restricted to what they can afford from their wage. And it is always inferior, sub-standard, made so that it comes within the purchasing power of a wage packet. This is what is meant by working class poverty. At no time under capitalism will the working class have the freedom to enjoy the best that society can produce, and have unrestricted access to it. Yet without that freedom, they must always be said to be living in poverty.

Housing, for example, is a continuing sore which the parties of capitalism cynically aggravate in their drive to pick up votes. Yet inadequate housing afflicts only those who can afford nothing better; it is not a problem experienced by the capitalist class. Medical and social services are also restricted when they are applied to the working class (not that the capitalist class need the attentions of social services; they have their own ready-made version). But the point is that the workers must always rely on the less-than-best, and very often the downright shoddy. Yet they are the class which produce all the world’s wealth; they make the very objects and services to which they are denied access. The outcome of all this is disillusionment and despair. At one election after another, the working class turn to various parties in blind faith that their promises mean something and that somehow capitalism can be made to work in their interests. When these hopes are shattered, there is often a deeper disillusionment, with democracy itself or with the principle of political action to change society. The only reason some governments seem to be more successful than others is that some have the luck to come into office when a depression is lifting. The unlucky ones come in at the start of a depression. 

Socialism, in contrast, is the idea of hope. Socialists do not offer themselves as leaders, putting forward a better version of the same old discredited policies. Our case is that the working class can get rid of their problems; to do this they have to abolish capitalism and replace it with a society based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. We go further, and say that the working class can and must do this for themselves; no leaders can drag them by the nose into the new society.

Until that is a reality, socialists have no interest in the drab machinations of capitalist politics, except to offer them unremitting hostility and to expose them for the sham they are.

We Must Change

For those working for a fundamental change in our social system, clarity is important. we need to be clear about what we’re trying to leave behind (capitalism) to have greater clarity about what it is that we’re moving towards socialism. We can understand those who seek a just and sustainable world and hope such a goal can be achieved by reforming capitalism. We, however, disagree that it is possible. Transferring control or ownership of the economy to the State or to co-operatives does not serve the needs of all the people. It is not the door to a better future beyond capitalism.

One characteristic alone does not make an economy capitalist. For example, markets pre-date capitalism by thousands of years. The same goes for commodity production—production for sale, rather than use.

Capitalism’s mode of production lies in its division between the class ownership by the capitalists of the means of production (land, buildings, technology, transportation, etc.) and the non-owning workers who sell their labour power to the capitalists to produce goods and services. Capitalists maximise profits in many ways by squeezing the workers. Capitalism’s drive to “accumulate.” The failures of capitalism—from blind growth to the increasing concentration of wealth and power around the world to the destruction of the environment—are becoming more and more evident. The climate crisis is perhaps the greatest challenge humanity is facing. it threatens civilisation’s existence. The present pandemic has left the market and many governments badly shaken. COVID-19 has shown us the fairy tales of mainstream economics, exposit it as serving the interests of the 1%. The outbreak of Covid-19 brought havoc for all sectors of economy and ushered unprecedented and unpredicted disasters.

We need a bold transformation of our politics and economics and that requires a far greater imagination. The “lesser evil” argument is a pervasive poison which inevitably leads to a vicious and continuous election cycle. We must once and for all reject the false notion of a lesser evil. The United States is essentially a one-party state, the business party, with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Likewise in the United Kingdom political power is shared by the Tories and the Labour Party. The media is complicit in denying the depth of their unity.

Capitalism to-day must answer to the charge of acting as a brake upon the wheels of progress. The class which benefits from its continuance must prove that it is any longer of social service or produces what it receives. The Socialist Party is able to show that it does not do this and that it is this fact that is sapping the social organisation,

Socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history. Socialist society is the first society that no longer proceeds in chaos, but based upon the planned fulfilment of genuine human needs. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The ownership of the means of production will be held in common and private property will be eliminated. Private property offers a choice illustration. At one period there was a justification for the individual ownership of property. When each worker took the raw material and made his or her tools, and then with these tools manufactured cloth or shoes or tilled the ground, each thing that was produced was to a great extent the product of individual work. To-day this method no longer exists. All things are produced collectively, and still there survives the idea of the sacredness of private property. It is to-day the corner stone upon which rests the whole superstructure of capitalist society and class rule. Private property for the worker is but a farce, since the class that preaches most of the virtues of private property is the one that takes from the producing class all that it produces except a scanty subsistence.  

As pointed out by Marx and Engels the whole history of civilisation has been the history of the rise and fall of classes. The interests of each dominating class while it existed made for social progress. Each class fulfilled its function, became useless and disappeared from power. Further, a most significant fact, different ideals of right and wrong have at all times prevailed for the ruling and subservient classes. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear. The conflicts of interest between workers and farmers, town and country, manual and mental labour will disappear. As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away.  The subservient class has been lulled into acquiescence in its enslavement through the persistent inculcation of the “virtues” of self-sacrifice, humility, reverence, docility, frugality and patriotism. The abolition under socialism of these warring class interests would necessarily carry with it the abolition of these contradictory codes of values. In a socialist society all are equally able to exercise their self-interest. The reconciliation of the individual and society, ever discussed and never answered, because of their blindness to the fact of class antagonisms, will at last be solved by the abolition of these antagonisms in the co-operative commonwealth.