Changing the World

The employing class will fight bitterly to retain their superior position over the workers. The only class that can be relied on for the abolition of privilege and power to exploit, is the unprivileged propertyless working-class. The recognition of the class struggle is consequently the only effective basis of working-class action, for it is childish indeed to expect that the capitalists will of their own accord get off the backs of the workers. Obviously, the immediate interests of all except the working-class are opposed to the abolition of private property in the means of life.

The strife of today is, then, not created by socialists, but is the result of economic conditions maintained by the ruling class. Socialists seek to enlighten their fellow-workers on the causes of this struggle, and to show how utterly futile it is to expect the owning class to abolish the cause of strife, or abandon in any way its own interests. We wish to point out above all, that since the interests of all sections of the capitalist-class are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the workers, therefore the sane policy of the working-class must be in consistent opposition to all capitalist political factions however these may name themselves. The capitalist class have to get workers to do their dirty work for them. — workers are not only exploited in the interests of their parasitic masters but are also persuaded to tighten their bonds ever tighter about themselves. The struggle is already going on. The Socialist Party endeavours to give it definite and consistent aim, that the conflict may the more speedily end. The power to exploit must be wrested from the parasites. 

Clearly then, the cause of the present struggle (i.e., the private ownership of the machinery of wealth production and distribution), can only be abolished by waging war on the class which defends and maintains private ownership. And since the only class that, by its material interests, is unfettered to the maintenance of private property is the proletariat, on this class must fall the toil and the battle for freedom. Thus the only means of ridding mankind of conditions which now bind the mass in degradation and slavery, is the active opposition of the workers to the parasitic class as a whole; and what is this but the prosecution of the class war?

The victory of the socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the capitalist-class by the workers; it means the abolition of capitalism and an end of classes, for the great unprivileged masses cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling masses are fundamentally the interest of humanity. The workers are now the only necessary class in society.

The democratic ownership of the means of wealth production must necessarily abolish the economic basis of classes and of class antagonisms, and unite all in a bond of labour with identical interests. Under such conditions it must be unnecessary and above all unprofitable for the vast majority to exploit a few. Hence society will have but one aim, to lighten the toil and increase the well-being of all by the greatest possible economy of labour and life. In the society of harmonised material interests that must result from the abolition of class parasitism, the greatest well-being of the individual will only be possible by promoting the well-being of all. Thus will the welfare of all become, for the first time, the immediate interest of each.

The revolutionary makes a stand upon the same code that has served to carry so many exploiters, to power, and which last must help the workers to their emancipation. There is no right but might. We deserve nothing but what we can get with our teeth and our claws. Against the might of the strong few shall be put the might of the many weak ones. Before that might capitalism and private ownership will go down for ever. 

Then, when society founded upon common property in the means of life, has become one harmonious whole, the brutal dictum, might is right, will hold good only between the social organism and external nature, while among humanity a new ethic will arise that only the social good, the well-being of mankind as a whole is right.

The Capitalist Class Will Do Nothing Decisive About I

  In late July and early August the 4,000 year old Milne Ice Shelf, north of Canada's Ellesmere Island, broke up, with 43 per cent of it sinking into the Arctic Ocean. An ice shelf is a massive expanse of ice that is tens of meters thick. While it is buoyed by ocean waters, it is fixed to the shore creating landscapes that are unique to the polar regions. The shelf broke apart due to melting ice, caused by hotter air and warmer water. This was an event scientists predicted would happen in 2022. 

This follows a worldwide trend of global warming meaning its happening faster than predicted. 

The capitalist class will do nothing decisive about it, because their primary consideration is making profits and to heck with the environment.

S.P.C. Members.

Taking Sides Won’t Help.

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freedland, hit back quickly and bitterly at Trump, for his announcement, on Aug.7, that he would reimpose a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian raw aluminum, because Canada had broken a promise not to flood the U.S. market with the product. Freedland called the decision, ''Absurd, useless and unjustified.'' She said Canada would retaliate within 30 days with $3.6 billion in import tariffs on U.S. goods that contain aluminum, and that imposing trade penalties in the middle of the pandemic is, ''unnecessary, unwarranted and entirely unacceptable.'' Freedland added that, ''Any American who buys a can of beer or a soda or a bike or a car, will suffer,'' though that would hardly bother a big creep like Trump. 

On the one hand we could say that it’s just another stupid trade war between rival capitalists, or their political stooges. But on the other hand, workers will, as Freedland pointed out suffer; nevertheless taking sides won’t help. There is only one way out of this mess and that is to get rid of its cause.

S.P.C. Members.

For a world socialist society

Capitalism, putrid and stinking, has long ago been only fit for the grave. There is no way out but the workers’ revolution. The Socialist Party is dedicated to the task of promoting this revolution.

 The workers’ revolution can and will eliminate war be-cause, by overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with a socialist economy, it will remove the causes of war. Under socialism there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. Artificial economic barriers based on national boundaries will be removed. The expansion of the means of production, under the ownership and control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Socialism will remove the limits on consumption, and hence permit the scientific and controlled development of production. Thus, under socialism, war will disappear because the causes of war will be done away with.

Under capitalism the ownership of land and the means of production and distribution is in private (individual, state or corporate) hands. The distribution of the means or instruments of production under capitalism puts the possessors of capital in command of society, and of the proletariat, which is divorced from property and has only its own labour power at its disposal. Utopians who still dream of developing socialism right in the heart of capitalism by means of “producers’ cooperatives  but working class acquires economic supremacy only after it has seized political power. Under state-ownership the workers still has no property. It remains a propertyless class.

It is in the best interests of the working people that the  struggle for political power should be carried through by peaceful means, without civil war. Political power must be won; and in the struggle for power, the winning of a majority in Parliament, supreme organ of representative power, is one of the essential steps. When a socialist majority in Parliament is won it will need the support of the mass movement outside Parliament so it can be made into the effective instrument of the people's will to replace capitalism by socialism. It is necessary for workers to support this party, to vote for it, to be actively involved in it. Our primary purpose, what have always said as the necessary first step, is the launching of the whole working class, and getting it moving forward as a class in the right direction towards socialism.

We claim our ‘Right to Live’ and to live well. Let us scorn all these decoy ducks and organise to bring about the common ownership of the means of life, which alone will enable us to secure the only Right we are concerned about. Then and not till then shall we recognise our social obligation to perform our share of the necessary work.

The Socialist Party is not the evangelists of a new revelation. We do not believe in the permanence of capitalism. We aim to build – and we invite you to join us in building – a party which will be a worthy of the Marxist tradition. We are a party that honestly tells the truth to the workers, a fully democratic party,  united with one goal, the victory of humanity. The strength of the mass movement will be felt in Parliament, and the strength of the socialist movement within Parliament will strengthen the movement outside. The one supports the other. The real movement is to end a social system that imposes unnecessary suffering on the majority of people as part of the everyday normal life. 

How comes it that the men and women who till the soil, who dig in the mines, who tend the machines, who toil in the factory and the houses, and, in a word, who create the whole of the wealth, receive only sufficient to maintain themselves and their families on the border line of bare physical efficiency, while those who do not aid in production – the employing class – obtain more than is enough to supply their every necessity, comfort and luxury?

To find a solution to this problem is the task to which the Socialist Party applies itself. We see clearly that only by studying the economics of wealth-production and distribution can we understand the anomalies of present-day society. We see, further, that having gained a knowledge of the economic causes of social inequality, he must apply this knowledge through political action – through the building up of a socialist organisation for the capture of Parliament and the conquest of the powers of the State. We ask you, therefore, to study the principles upon which our party is based, to find out for yourselves what socialism is and how socialism and socialism alone can abolish class society and establish in its stead a society based upon social equality. Socialism is, then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary economic foundation of a rational code of morality.

A NEW CLARION CALL TO ALL WORKERS

 

The most depressing aspect of identity politics is the claims of “who is the most oppressed”. Oppression cannot be quantified. The result is increasing fragmentation and confusion, at a time of major attacks on working class living standards and individual liberties. Class struggle is a unifying force. It is the one thing that all workers have in common, whatever their country, their industry, their gender, colour or sectional interests. Identity politics and single issue campaigning, on the other hand, divides by its very nature. Particular privileges will continue to be defended and even enforced by capitalist ruling classes for as long as they have power. That is, until they are overthrown by a working-class revolution. Divided and at each others’ throats by many forms of discrimination we will not take up the fight against our masters. We strive for the complete social, economic and political equality for minority people. The Socialist Party’s role is to strengthen the class movement against capitalist exploitation. We will struggle for the revolutionary unity of all working people. The division of society into the exploiting and exploited are rooted in the same social development – the private ownership of the means of social production. In primitive communist society hierarchal oppression did not existed. 

Only the socialist revolution can lay the basis for the complete emancipation. In socialism, men and women will not be oppressed. It is only a socialist, planned economy that can provide full employment for all who are willing to work. This lays the economic basis for equality among men and women. It is the capitalist system that is the main cause of oppression today. The principal contradiction in capitalist society is between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie tries in every way that it can to sabotage the struggle for socialism. It tries to divide the workers through a system of national privileges and by spreading the poison of nationalism and racism. The capitalists try to justify, in the minds of white or native workers, the oppression of nations and peoples by saying that other nationalities are “inferior.”

Only the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of socialism will guarantee the liberation of all oppressed. Working people are the ones who built this world, its industries, farms and cities. Our planet is rich in natural resources. It is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. But today cut-backs in health and other services. The two basic classes in our society, the working class and the bourgeoisie, are locked in a bitter struggle. The bourgeoisie represents the old system of exploitation and oppression. The working class represents the fundamental progressive force, the most consistent social force in the struggle to eliminate capitalism. A handful of capitalists control our country and make fabulous profits off the labour of working people. All the major means of production - the factories, the mines, telecommunications and transportation – are concentrated in the hands of a few capitalists.  They control whole  sectors of the economy. All the misery we suffer is created so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can continue to line their pockets.

For workers, their lives and their future is less and less certain. An alarming number of working families are in debt. Every bit of capitalists’ vast possessions was stolen from the people. It’s the capitalists that get rich by appropriating the fruits of our labour. At the end of a work week the worker collects his pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, a worker gets paid for only a small part of the value he produced. The rest, the surplus value, goes straight into the boss’s bank balance. The employers get rich, not because they have “taken risks” or “worked harder,” as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and reduce the number of employees with speed-ups, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. And if the boss thinks he can make more profit somewhere else, he just closes his factory and moves elsewhere or another industry. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system is a lie invented by the rich themselves.

 Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it. Capitalism is a system based on exploitation. A handful of parasites live off the backs of the workers and could not care less about their situation.  

 

Day Care? Sorry. Can’t Commit.

 Day Care? Sorry. Can’t Commit.

On Aug.1, Doug Ford said he could not commit to providing nursing-home residents with 4 hours of day care. This was in response, (if one can call it that), to a report about the lack of staff in these homes, made worse by the pandemic. Already 5,900 patients in Ontario nursing homes have caught the virus and 1,844 have died. Ford also said he needs to take a closer look at the report. Considering his foremost consideration is the needs of capitalism, you bet he is reluctant to commit, especially since the additional cost will be $1.6 billion!

S.P.C. Members

One Law For The Rich Another Law For The Poor.

An analysis compiled by CGLytics, a compensation analysis company, revealed findings which should surprise nobody. When the pandemic forced companies to fire workers, some executives decided to show some solidarity,(what a joke), by taking a pay cut. The survey of 3,000 companies showed that the cuts were tiny compared to their pay last year. Their total pay includes bonuses and stock awards, which more than compensates for the salary cuts. On the one hand, very few companies cut salaries for their senior execs., but on the other, many companies laid off workers. 

There's no getting away from it - One law for the rich, another law for the poor.

S.P.C. Members.

THE ENEMY IS CAPITALISM; THE GOAL IS SOCIALISM

The world revolution which is destined to wipe capitalism off the face of the earth and to establish the class-free society of socialism. The Socialist Party analyses capitalist society and projects a vision of socialism from the clues found in capitalist society. We aim to make it crystal clear where we’re coming from. If we were not for the goal of revolution, then this party would have no reason to exist.  There are a thousands of petty reformers running around preaching about how the system can be patched up. Who needs any more? The Socialist Party aims to puncture the lies and help peel off the illusions that their system encrusts us with. We see events every day which show the rottenness of this system and the need for revolution. We need to hasten it along to its grave. We are not talking about any old vague idea of revolution. We are talking about working class revolution— the socialist revolution, by the people who are the enslaved class under this system, forced to sell their ability to work in order to live and who really and truly have nothing to lose but their chains by overthrowing this system. There is only one class, the working class, that can create the revolution, and can go on and build socialist society and pave the way to socialism. The kind of revolution we need is a socialist revolution.

In capitalist society, the solution to the oppression and exploitation of the working class is socialism, the ownership of the factories, mines, fields, offices and shops by the working people. Why hasn’t there been a socialist revolution? The basic problem is the class consciousness of the working class. The ruling class has two very powerful sets of tools to oppose the spread of class consciousness and action based on it – fraud and force. Force is exercised by the capitalist state to suppress all working class action that goes too far for the capitalists. But their more powerful long term weapon against revolution is fraud – the whole collection of institutions and ideas to fill the minds of the working class with misconceptions of capitalist society, of the workers’ own interests, and of how to change society. If force and fraud are the two weapons of the capitalists, it is clear what we must do to speed up the socialist revolution. We have to overcome fraud with class consciousness and capture the political power that legitimises the force of the capitalists.

Our strategy for revolution is to recognise that the enemy is capitalism and the goal is socialism. The Socialist Party alone cannot create a revolutionary situation by its educational and agitational work alone. Revolutionary situations arise independently of the will of the party and even of one class. Objective factors, basically the contradictions in capitalist economy, create revolutionary situations. Wars, recessions, can lead to revolutionary situations in certain countries at certain times. In a revolutionary situation and the working class has been aroused to question the capitalist system itself, the party must already have been built. 

We who have joined together to form the WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT organise towards electing MPs as socialist delegates to overwhelm parliaments and declare the annulment of all property and territorial rights whereby all the resources of our planet will become the common heritage of the whole humanity.

The necessary objective condition for socialism -  productive abundance - has been achieved since about the beginning of the past century. What's lacking is the other condition, that is the subjective class conscious majority of people who agree and seek socialism. Our task is to facilitate understanding and disseminate knowledge. In view of that, we hold to the idea that we are able to achieve socialism right here and now. We are not gradualists. We are real radicals. We are not reformists. We are revolutionaries.

The Radical War Martyrs

Andrew Hardie and John Baird went to their beheading 200 years ago this week, the 8th of September, 1820, with composure, according to accounts. 

Hardie, 28, and Baird, 32, were executed in front of 2,000 and 6,000 members of the public for high treason and sedition following Scotland’s short-lived Radical War. A fellow rebel, James Wilson, had been put to death a week earlier.

Both were arrested after the Battle of Bonnymuir in early April 1820, where around 30 radicals marched to the Carron Iron Works at Falkirk to steal cannons but were seized by troops on the way.

In a letter written in Stirling Castle to his uncle three days before his death, Hardie wrote:

 “No person could have induced me to take up arms in the same manner to rob or plunder. No, my dear friends, I took them for the good of my suffering country; and although we were outwitted, yet I protest, as a dying man, that it was with a good intention on my part.”

Paisley around 1820 with the textile town at the heart of the working class unrest as better rights and conditions were demanded by skilled artisans, some who were prepared to use force to secure them. 

Archie Henderson, social history research assistant at Paisley Museum working on the Paisley Re-Imagined Project, which is looking at the town’s role in the 1820 Radical War, explained, “The opinion of the people was that they died as martyrs and there was a feeling that they were executed unfairly. They were martyrs.” He said the legacy of the radicals lived lasted. “The right to vote we enjoy today was in part paid for with the blood of John Baird and Andrew Hardie, who from the moment of their execution became martyrs to the suffrage movement. The fight continued after their deaths and lead towards the Chartist movement, the Reform Act of 1832 and, ultimately, the 1928 Representation of the People Act that gave vote to all men and women on equal terms."