Socialists Must Protect the Planet

 Since our existence the Socialist Party has fought consistently and steadfastly on the side of the working class against the capitalist class. On this point we have never hedged – we have never posed as “impartial” in this struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor. We do not expect you to accept our ideas on our say-so. We do not believe that just because something appears in print it must be accepted as gospel truth. That is a concept which the capitalist press tries to inculcate in our minds. We invite you  join us in the fight for socialism, the hope of humanity. We believe that capitalism threatens any hope for humanity.

We look at the global crises of capitalism with its mass poverty, its hunger, disease, wars and environmental destruction. Capitalism threatens the survival of civilisation on this planet. Nothing short of revolution and socialism can answer this threat. The challenge is ours to apply the lessons that we have learned from the body of Marxist knowledge to build a better socialist movement. We exist to organise for social revolution and the cooperative commonwealth. Capitalism is a system centred on capital accumulation and profit and is inherently a system of inequality, injustice, and war. Capitalism is a system of coercion. We want a social system where social wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but owned and controlled by the people, where human needs replace profit. To combat exploitation, the working class needs to struggle for its own interests. Our enemy is capitalism. Under capitalism, a handful that own the factories, the mines, corporate farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority produces. We are fighting this system. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power. The state, the government, and the legal system were set up and developed to serve the interests of capitalism, to uphold the rights of property over the rights of people. Electoral politics are the arena of the working people’s class struggle

 

The absence of a viable socialist movement today is an indisputable and depressing fact. Some blame sectarianism. Dozens of alternative explanations abound. In the meantime, socialists remain ineffective. Obviously, history has not unfolded as Marx envisioned. What can motivate working people to struggle against injustice, exploitation and oppression? Some on the Left naively view each new economic downturn as evidence of an impending collapse. We do not  argue (as do some mechanistic Leftists) that an economic catastrophe will create the necessary “objective conditions” for a revolutionary upheaval. The capitalist system has proved to be extremely resilient to economic crises. An economic crisis is not sufficient to create auspicious conditions for socialists. It could so easily foster a reactionary nationalistic movement in the absence of socialist consciousness. There is no innate leftward direction to human nature.

Politics is perceived as the ritualistic act of voting yet the overwhelming majority of citizens are apathetic and do not want to get involved in politics. The notion of class itself is regularly challenged by the intellectuals. A frightening sort of class amnesia increasingly prevails. And the result is that the worst of bourgeois ideology – consumerism, individualism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. permeates all facets of cultural life. Trump’s victory was not an aberration. He won in 2016 and retained his electoral base in 2020 because a majority of citizens embraced his populaist ideology - “friendly fascism,” authoritarianism at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable, couched in the slogans of anti-Big Government and draining the swamp, leaving the corporate aristocracy to reap the benefits of wanton deregulation and obscene-tax cuts. A toxic patriotism was a particularly pernicious component of the Trump years.

Understandably, the left felt increasingly alienated and disempowered in the face of this stark reality. Unable to chart a path out of their isolation, leftists expend much of their time and energy in various tried and true activities, marches and demonstrations. Unfortunately, this is further evidence of the defensive and impotent state of the Left rather than its vitality. Campaigns became little more than media events. Likewise, there were numerous conferences to discuss and debate the myriad of issues with irate resolutions proclaimed and angry manifestoes published. However, most people were unaware of these. And rather than bringing together the resistance, there was a proliferation of disunity and internecine feuding.  loose federations, coalitions, networks, etc.– were without any clear-cut solution to the problem. Clarity and purpose remained elusive.

In spite of all this the situation is not hopeless. There is no reason to throw in the towel. Granted, it is frustrating that there exists no general agreement and understanding about what needs to be done, nor any clear sense of how to go about doing it. The obvious things that need to happen should be uniting the disparate single issue organisations into a unified, multi-faceted political movement; combating racism, sexism, sectarianism; rebuilding the labour movement with all the components of a platform for social transformation. In addition, the creation of a “counter-hegemony” to the capitalist media, educational institutions, social and cultural organisations is necessary to fight for the hearts and minds of the people. 

 Socialists must look beyond the immediate situation and be willing to outline a vision of a future society. It is increasingly apparent that the issue is how goods are produce and distributed and who owns the means of production and how work is organised and administered. It is not only the fact that the planet cannot possibly sustain capitalism’s wasteful, toxic-ridden economic system on a global scale. Besides being ecologically infeasible, the unrelenting drive for increased growth is threatening to permanently subvert the struggle for human liberation itself.  “Freedom” is equated with the right to consume. And, in turn, people themselves have become commodities, reduced to little more than another expendable raw material. A technocratic faith in expanding production has become synonymous with “progress”, the mindless consumerism and the ever-expanding creation of “needs.”

A model of socialism must be envisioned which transcends the capitalism of growth/productionist itself, one that establishes a new ecological relationship between human needs and the environment. In other words, a socialism that is not only democratic, non-exploitative, egalitarian, and internationalist but one that thoroughly replaces capitalism in toto, if humankind is to avoid the path of barbarism or collective self-annihilation.

THE SPGB SAYS NO

Returning Scotland to Nature

 Anders Povlsen, the Danish billionaire, owns more of the UK than the Queen and the Church of Scotland combined. He has toppled the aristocracy who for years laid claim to such a title, the Duke of Buccleuch. Not only the UK’s largest private landowner, he is also Scotland’s richest man, with a fortune of £4.73 billion.

While the likes of Mohammed al Fayed (from Egypt) and the Wirths (from Switzerland) have made  their Scottish estates holiday accommodation, Povlsen plans doing something different altogether. He is seeking to ‘rewild’ his vast estates and return them to an earlier nature.

In total, Povlsen has acquired about 230,000 acres of Britain between his 13 estates, worth more than £120 million. In terms of his Scottish estates, Povlsen owns Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms, the Strathmore estate at Altnaharra, the 24,000-acre Ben Loyal and the 23,000-acre Ben Hope estate near Tongue. His acquisition of the Killiehuntly farm for £2 million means he owns the land where the artist Sir Edwin Landseer painted the legendary, The Monarch of the Glen. Then there’s the £15 million Aldourie Castle estate by Loch Ness and the 20,000-acre Gaick estate he bought from Xavier-Louis Vuitton (of the French fashion dynasty).

His rewilding vision is to allow native woodland and species to regenerate and flourish. Povlsen aims to return animal species by undoing centuries of over-grazing and regenerating native woodlands and wetlands. It’s notable that across Povlsen’s lands there have been increased sightings of red squirrels, pine martens and golden eagles, as well as reforesting.

As Povslen explains, "This [the Highlands] is not a natural environment any more — when you’re out there and there’s only heather, heather, heather. In some places you will not be able to see a single tree for miles. Then we dig into the peat and you will find it used to be a forest..."

Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen on his ‘rewilding’ mission in Scotland | Tatler

The Oxymoron of a "Humane" Capitalism

 

In the Nordic countries, like Denmark, Sweden and Norway, this came to be known as "the Nordic welfare model". These societies are popularly presented by many radical reformers such as Bernie Sanders as a kind of “democratic socialist” alternative to capitalism, a so-called "third way". In fact, such a way cannot be found, and what has been developed in Scandinavia is in reality a form of “humane capitalism” which makes the operation of capitalism more smooth and efficient, with the added benefit of appeasing the working class of these countries with various social services as a means of preventing social unrest and perhaps revolution.

 The socialist revolution, a socialist society, involves of necessity the self-administration of production and of society by the citizens and the producers of their own behalf and not by any self-appointed clique claiming to rule in their place. Some early socialists declared that property is socialist because it is owned by a workers’ state, that is the organised working class in power. It led to the claim that the state is socialist simply because it owns the property. If that were so, the Catholic Church would be a socialist institution, the Incas and Pharaoh’s Egypt both socialist states. Socialism does not comes in varied brands packaged in different wrappings. To argue that under one brand of socialism the workers may rule and under another they may be enslaved is to deprive the word ‘socialism’ of all its meaning. 

Everywhere people are waking up and are understanding that exploitation is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse.  Wages stay the same, but profits continue to rise. The source of all these conditions and injustices is capitalism. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own the big banks and corporations. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on – if we fight hard enough for it!

 On the other hand, the small capitalist class builds up huge fortunes off of our labour and do no work themselves, except running all around the world spending the money that we made for them. Is there anything wrong with this idea? Are not the working people the vast majority of the population? Do they not create the vast wealth of the country? Are they not its most useful citizens? Then why must we go, hat in hand, to beg some political appointees of capital on some government board or other for a few cents so that our families will be adequately provided for? What we all require is a system of planned production for use,

The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system. We maintain that the ills that beset the working class arise from the capitalist system of production for the profit of a few. It further maintains that it should be the aim of the workers’ movement to establish a system of planned production for use, which will guarantee plenty of the good things of life for all. We say that the fight for such a system of socialist production is primarily a political fight, for it requires that political power be lodged in the hands of the working people, who form the overwhelming majority of the population. Incorporated within our ideas is the basic belief that capital and labour have no interests in common; that since the beginning of modern industry there has been a constant struggle between the working class, seeking a better living, and the capitalist class, seeking greater profits.

Electoral struggle is one tactic among many. And not all of them are equal in importance and priority. It is quite true that we cannot yet spell out in detail a description of a socialist world.  But we do not believe this “vision” is the property of a few intellectuals. It is something that people will forge out of the concrete experiences of fighting oppression.  It is wrong to paint some Utopian vision of our own making. Marxism is a science but an inexact human science. It has its laws, principles boundaries and its universalities. What makes us different from other revolutionaries is what we stand for and how we fight. We offer a consistently revolutionary perspective.

Everything free for everybody

 

While the educational authorities debated making school dinners free for the duration of pandemic and as many hope, afterwards, Scotland is set to make period products free for all. Period poverty is when those on low incomes can't afford, or access, suitable period products. With average periods lasting about five days, it can cost up to £8 a month for tampons and pads, and some women struggle to afford the cost.

MSPs unanimously approved a legal duty on local authorities to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to "anyone who needs them". It will be for the country's 32 councils to decide what practical arrangements are put in place, but they must give "anyone who needs them" access to different types of period products "reasonably easily" and with "reasonable dignity".

Thus in regard to this particular product fulfilling the Marxist aspiration of "to each according to need."

Now is the time to advocate free access as a basic right.

The harmony of humanity.

 

SOCIALISM MEANS EXPANDING DEMOCRACY NOT ONLY IN THE POLITICAL SENSE BUT IN AN ECONOMIC SENSE – FREEDOM FROM POVERTY.

Our road-map for where we are finally headed should have socialism as its destination.  socialists can’t expect anyone to take them seriously without a fuller idea — not necessarily a detailed blueprint — but a vision of what kind of society we want. One general guideline is that instead of the ends justifying the means, we have to take seriously that the means determine the ends. 

 

If our objective is a society in which “the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all” as Marx says, this cannot be achieved by authoritarian methods. If self-emancipation is the goal, it must be the means as well. To paraphrase Eugene Debs, if a savior can lead you into the promised land, he can lead you back out again too. Ideas that tell people that they are unworthy, that this is ordained by God or some other authority as the right and best way — or as the only way — can keep them from trying to change things. 

One of the most tragic legacies of these dictatorial exploitative regimes that called themselves socialist is to have destroyed the very concept of socialism in the minds of millions of people. Defenders of capitalism are happy to endorse them as models of socialism. There is throughout the world a widespread popular perception that socialism is a coercive system, and the experiences of “Communist” Parties in power have justified that perception. Generally speaking, while the world's peoples hate capitalism, they fear socialism. These issues are at the heart of socialism's crisis, and only as socialists develop a movement, a strategy, and a vision which are at once revolutionary and democratic will they turn the corner of that crisis.

Capitalism rests on the domination of the overwhelming majority by a small minority. In capitalism everything is based upon private property. Private property divides. Private property presumes a multitude of owners with distinct interests, property rights and liabilities. Therefore, the capitalist system of relations of production and exchange is simultaneously an endless chain of relationships between property owners, between capitalists and workers, industrial and commercial capitalists, capitalists and landowners etc. Socialism is unitary. It does not divide, but joins. There is no longer a multitude of owners except in the sense that everybody is an owner and so nobody is an owner - a society of no ownership.

 

 Part of our job in the Socialist Party is to help people see through the illusions of capitalism, to understand that we are faced with a stark choice of socialism or barbarism, and to encourage a vision of self-emancipation as both means and end of revolutionary socialist action. We argued that socialism is about self-emancipation, not doing things ‘on behalf of people. The agency for socialist change can only be the working peoples themselves and not the existing state apparatus however benevolent (indeed we argue that the workers must end the state apparatus). We that the end result of nationalisation – whether accompanied with or without the rhetoric of ‘socialism’ – would be state-capitalism not socialism.

The goal of the socialist revolution is the abolition of capitalist private property, the abolition of all exploitation of man by man, the social ownership of the means of production and their planned use for the benefit of the whole of society, leading to abundance and the harmony of humanity. We do not put forward this goal as a utopia, as a mere vision of what would ideally satisfy people’s needs and make them all happy, but as a practical aim of which is made necessary by the actual conditions of modern society. Only with a socialist economy can the problems of capitalist society be solved and the great modern technological forces of production be fully liberated. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue. But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs, since man makes his own history and chooses what to do.  Socialism does not tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to life.

 

Not a stone will be left standing of this accursed capitalist system, with its wars, its famines, its vileness, its brutality and savagery. In the memory of people the times of capitalism will remain as a ghastly nightmare. Socialist teachings will live in the hearts and minds of emancipated humanity.