No Support to Capitalist Parties!

Study because we will need all your intelligence.

Agitate because we will need all your enthusiasm.

Organise because we will need all your strength.  -  Antonio Gramsci, editor of L’Ordine Nuovo.

Let the workers in the factories and fields rejoice. We are in potentially the most revolutionary period in the history of mankind, an epoch in which the course of history may possibly be taking a decisive turn towards world socialism. The Socialist Party is a party of socialism. It stands for the overthrow of the capitalist exploiters. It fights for a new social system, for socialism, for the end to the exploitation of man by man. It stands for the triumph of socialism on a world scale.  To hell with the political parties of the rich. Working people must build their own independent political movement, independent of and against the parties of capitalism. Our Party represents the future, the liberation of mankind, and opposes all that seeks to hold back human progress. The relentless search for profits drives capitalists to the most reckless squandering of human and natural resources. The capitalist, to speed and intensify the work, turns workers into appendages of his machines. Socialism is an entirely different form of society. Socialism replaces production for profit with production for social use, for the satisfaction of human needs 

Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new  economic system is to be built liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, ending all exploitation by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. The socialist commonwealth would provide the basis for real freedom and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind. The interests of the exploited cannot be brought into harmony with the interests of the exploiters. These cannot progress together in the name of some fictional unity. That the work of the social revolution can only be accomplished by men and women with a clear understanding of capitalism. The work of the social revolution depends in the last analysis upon the growth of class-consciousness amongst the working class, that therefore the chief task of a Socialist political party is to educate and direct that class consciousness along correct lines.  It must be made possible for all who have accepted the central principles of common ownership to become members of the Socialist Party irrespective of their knowledge or lack of knowledge of the intricacies of Marxian philosophical writings and economics. The world socialist movement must be depended upon to clear the minds of the members rather than any process of weeding out. We want to see every bona fide socialist in the Socialist Party. To such, the doors of the party have ever been and will continue to remain open. Capitalism is completely incapable of solving the problems of the world peoples. There is the colossal wastage of armaments, the emissions of global warming gases and the insanity of national frontiers in the age of the internet of the World Wide Web.

The Socialist Party are revolutionary socialists who believe that capitalism — as a system centered on private accumulation and profit — is inherently a system of inequality and injustice. We want a social system where social wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is controlled by the people. We seek both economic and political democracy. Our enemy is capitalism. Capitalism dominates our economic system. Under capitalism, a handful who own the factories, the mines, corporate farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority of the people produce. It is this system that we are fighting. Capitalism organizes globally. Blocs of capital compete intensely for growth and profits. Under capitalism you either destroy the competition, or are destroyed yourself. This drive sends the giant corporations around the world, seeking cheaper raw materials and corrupt local governments that will insure a "friendly investment climate." Capitalism continuously seeks cheaper labour costs. This is why we see so many plants closing down, out-sourcing  or moving off-shore. Capitalism is a system of violence. Poverty is built into its operation. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power. The capitalist class has kept the working class of this country divided along racial lines. workers need to be educated to the fact that racism and white supremacy ultimately hurt every worker and that the unity of workers will benefit all.

The struggle for a livable planet is a life-and-death issue. Corporate greed has polluted our air, destroyed the ozone layer, poisoned our waters, and drenched our food with dangerous chemicals. Our survival necessitates social control of technology and production and the elimination of the blind consumerism that causes us to squander so many of the world's resources needlessly. As we work to develop a new vision of socialism, we will have to deepen our understanding of the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature. People will have to change how they live and how society is organised. The threat to the environment touches everyone. We believe in a socialism where fulfillment will be found in the relationships among people and not in the consumption of things. Only conscious socialist planning by all of society can make this happen.

Change the System

 Many people don’t feel like they can change the system. Many people are simply existing, surviving, going through each day without truly living. Dis-empowerment has made it easy for people in power to continue to exploit us. Competition and rivalry between workers, sectional interests, plus social  national and racial chauvinism have often diverted workers from a revolutionary role to one that is reactionary. Recent events around the world have shown once again that reforms will be rolled back by the capitalist class when they see a need to do so. If the capitalists are to continue to make their extravagant amounts of money austerity measures have be imposed upon the greater population. The reversal of reforms does not occur randomly because of the narcissistic nature of individual capitalists. This phenomenon largely occurs due to the nature of the capitalist system itself, its drive to continually increase profits. Reforms, in themselves, do not solve any basic problems. Our criticism was that  through advocacy of such measures it was misleading the working class into a belief that they could secure their emancipation from the oppression and exploitation to which they were subjected under the capitalist system, by achieving the enactment of such measures.

It is clear that the only way to stop this continual battle for a meagre existence for basic working and living conditions is to change the system. We need to change the system yet many people still continue to attempt to work within the capitalist system. If we focus on solely on reforms alone we condemn the working class to continual tread-mill struggles for their basic working conditions. The Socialist Party should be demanding merely one thing, and that is the abolition of the capitalist system, and as the first step toward that end, the transfer of political power from the capitalist class to the working class. Our goal is to change the present system under which the small class owns and uses, for the purpose of securing profits, the machinery of production and distribution, into a society in which the ownership of the machinery of production and distribution would be in the hands of all of society. The Socialist Party devotes its efforts above all to preparing the conditions necessary for building of the Cooperative Commonwealth.

 We live in a society racked with crises. This society can neither guarantee us a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. Either nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us or we face the existential threat of environmental destruction faces us. The vast majority of us work for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. Under capitalism a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs come second—if at all. We must change the system if we want to simply survive. 

The Socialist Party holds out the possibility of a new society of production for use, not for profit. Freed from the clutches of the capitalist class, production and distribution must be brought under common ownership and the economy planned by the people themselves. The profit system cannot make use of new technology and automation for the benefit of society but socialism will. The future socialist society will reduce work to a insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his or her own abilities and interests. 

Protect our Peat-Bogs

 Peatlands are a carbon "sink", which means they soak up carbon dioxide helping combat human-driven climate change. When peatland is drained and dug up, it emits rather than soak up carbon.

About 10 years ago, the UK government drew up a voluntary agreement for retailers to phase out sales of peat. Leading garden retailers are still failing to stop the sale of peat in compost. The Wildlife Trusts said only one of 20 retailers contacted said it would eliminate peat from its shelves this year.

Dr Rebekka Artz is an expert in peatland ecosystems at the James Hutton Institute said that between two and three million cubic metres of peat - around 8,000 hectares - was extracted for horticulture in the UK each year. Even more was imported from the Baltic states or from the Republic of Ireland.

"Only 3% of our land area on the planet is covered in peatlands but they are the largest carbon store that we have. They have grown very slowly since the last Ice Age, and only accumulate about a millimetre every decade. It's a very slow-growing resource and it's very easy to lose it," she explained

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said: "Our survey shows that most retailers' approach to the voluntary ban on peat sales has been woeful - even though the industry has been aware of the problem for decades. The time for voluntary agreements is over - the sale of peat must end now. Countless promises have been broken and targets missed, with the result that precious peatland habitats are still being unnecessarily destroyed in the name of gardening.

Garden centres 'failing to stop peat sales' - BBC News

Imagine The Future

 Many are tired of their old leaders, have lost confidence in them, and not without good reason. Yet what confronts us today is that working people are still supporting the capitalist parties, and, whatever the future may hold in store for us, our present task is to wean these workers from the politics of their masters and to instil in them a spirit of class consciousness. A liberal or a reformist is someone who doesn’t like what capitalism does, but likes capitalism. They try to solve the problems created by the system by supporting the system. They were trying to change the system from within. 

The class struggle between workers and owners can have only one possible ending. The end may be very near or very far, but sooner or later the great mass of the people who do the work will see that their own separate interests are bound up with the interests of their class. They will see that it is folly for them to support in luxury a class of do-nothing owners. They will unite to overthrow the capitalistic system under which we are living, and to establish the cooperative commonwealth. By this we mean a society in which the good things of life shall not be produced for the profit of a part of the people, but for the use of all the people, and where on one who is able to work shall have the privilege of living on the labor of others. We mean a society in which there shall not be a class of rulers with a class of workers under them, but in which all shall work and all shall rule — in which human equality shall be not a pious phrase but a fact. A socialist working class will be made up of working people with one common interest — to get the wealth they produce and use it in living a happier life. We want the use of the resources and of the machinery, and our labour will every year produce all the good things we need.

It will mean the beginning of a new era of civilisation; the dawn of a happier day for humanity. It will mean that this Earth is for those who inhabit it and wealth for those who produce it. It will mean society organised upon a co-operative basis, collectively owning the sources of wealth and the means of production, and producing wealth to satisfy human wants and not to gorge a privileged few. It will mean that there shall be work for the workers and that all shall be workers, and it will also mean that there shall be leisure for the workers and that all shall enjoy it.

The Socialist Party, the first and only world party, is rising grandly to power all around the world. In every land it is the party of the dispossessed and the impoverished. It is the  party of human emancipation. It stands for a world-wide democracy, for the freedom of every man, woman and child. We are organising to abolish the capitalist system. We must have socialist administration instead of capitalist government. To accomplish this we must organise. We must succeed at the ballot box. Slowly but surely there is being established the economic and political unity and solidarity of the workers of the world. The World Socialist Movement is the political expression of that unity and solidarity. We have made it abundantly clear that we do not seek to abolish capitalism with a minority or that we want to impose the will of the minority on the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority of the people to support a change in the system.

Socialist Standard No. 1400 April 2021

 

 

 

APRIL 2021 PDF

• Editorial

• Pathfinders

• Letter – Was Trump a fascist?

• Cooking the Books 1

• Election Communications

• Material World

• Warring Windsors

• It could never happen here

• Socialism, Free Speech and ‘Cancel Culture’

• Biodiversity loss and the capitalist economy

• Questioning Nationality

• Giants Unslain

• Cooking the Books 2

• Proper Gander

• Book Reviews

• 50 Years Ago

• Obituary

• Meetings

• Rear View

Universal Harmony

 Socialism will mean:

1. The abolition of the private ownership of the means of production.

2. Elimination of competition and production for exchange value and its replacement by democratic planning and production for use.

3. Workers’ and people’s management of the economy and society.

4. The abolition of wage labour.

5. The elimination of classes.

6. The disappearance of the state.

7. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

Socialism is a society where the associated producers are the masters of the process of production. Our democratic rights – freedom of expression and organisation, universal suffrage are hard-won conquests of the labour movement. Socialism is an economic system based upon conscious planning of production by associated producers (not the state), made possible by the abolition of private property of the means of production. As soon as that private property is completely abolished, goods produced cease to be commodities. Value and exchange value disappear. Production becomes production for use, for the satisfaction of needs, determined by conscious choice of the mass of the associated producers themselves. Humankind will be organised into a free federation of producers’ and consumers’ communes. Mankind produces in an associated, not competitive way; we produce rationally and in an unalienated way, which means that we bring production under our collective control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power. This clearly excludes a concept of socialism in which people are manipulated by a bureaucracy, even if this bureaucracy rules the whole state economy, rather than only a big corporation. It means that the individual participates actively in the planning and in the execution of the plans; it means, in short, the realisation of political and industrial democracy. 

The aspiration of the Socialist Party has never been the idea of socialism as interpreted as a  "workers' " state. We, the workers, who operate the productive apparatus that has been bequeathed to us by capitalism and relying on our experience as workers, will reduce the role of public officials to that of mere executive agents of our directives, held responsible to the community and recallable at any time. We can shape our own destiny only by embracing a society of freely associated producers. 

The Socialist Party vision is an ecological society managed democratically by associated producers living harmoniously with nature. Class society will disappear in the future in a class-free society of democratically self-administering associated producers.  Only capitalists stand in the way of abundance. To expand production the workers have to wrest control of the factories and other major means of production from their hands establish their own control over industry and society. Production for profit must be supplanted by production according to a unified plan determined by the needs of the entire people and directed by the associated producers themselves. This is the socialist remedy.  

Humankind can never attain real freedom until a society has been built in which no person has the freedom to exploit another person. The bulk of humanity’s resources will never be used for the good of humanity until they are in common ownership and under democratic control. The State will be replaced by the associations of workers. The overthrow of capitalism, the transition to a class-free society, the replacement of domination by a free association of producers can emerge from self-organisation, a society without private property, production of goods, money, enrichment, competition and nation-state. The goal can only be achieved through the self-activity of working people. 

The socialist  spirit is best summed up in the Internationale:

“No saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

Our own right hand the chains must shiver

Chains of hatred, greed and fear.”

 

 

 

 

Which Side Are YOU On?

The socialist revolution has to be a worldwide phenomenon.  The mission of the Socialist Party is not to substitute one exploiting class for another but rather to rid humanity of all exploitation. The characteristic of the working class,  is that it does not own the means of production and that it is the object of exploitation. As a class, it has no other future but the total elimination of exploitation of man by man. This is why we can say that the movement for the emancipation of workers has to lead to the liberation of all of humanity. In attacking the foundation of the capitalist system – the private ownership of the means of production and wage labour – workers undertakes at the same time the elimination of classes themselves. The elimination of the private ownership of the means of production is to destroy the material basis on which all exploiting classes are founded. The Socialist Party’s goal  is the creation of a class-free society, i.e. socialism, a community in which no person exploits the labour of another which in turn leads to a state-free society. The total emancipation of workers is the socialist revolution. The abolition of the exploitation of man by man means first and foremost the total ban of the exploitation of the work of another person, i.e. the appropriation for personal ends of the product of another’s work. Thus it will be impossible for individuals to enrich themselves from the work of others. In this area, socialist society applies the following principle: to each according to needs, from each according to abilities.

 While under capitalism, production is done solely in order to make profits for those who own the factories, the transport and the big chain stores, etc., in socialist society, production is planned according to the needs of all. Socialism is concerned about  the material and cultural well-being of the people. Production will no longer depend upon the wishes of a handful of capitalists whose only goal is maximum profits, but on the collective will of all  the people. Under capitalism the private accumulation of capital, the profit system itself, is the motor of the economy. Replacing the capitalist production of goods by the socialist organisation of production the workers have, above all, a collective interest of society as a whole as the priority.  Today, it’s possible to improve the means of production and the work process but this would merely give new wealth and new means of exploitation to those who oppress us. With socialism, new technology developments instead of resulting in either layoffs or increased exploitation it would be used to reducing the working time of the entire working class.

Many  groups, organisations and parties supposedly are dedicated to the struggle for socialism yet the mostly peddle the  same old bastardised reformist solutions for things. In fact, the only answers that these phony partisans of socialism ever put forward is collaboration with elements of the capitalist class. Working people must understand how to resist the facile and misleading mirages that the reformists dangle before their eyes. The entire history of the international workers’ movement shows irrefutably that the complete emancipation of the working people can be realised only if the great majority of the working masses rally to the proletarian revolution.

 The Socialist Party  will make no concession on principles to anyone just for the sake of unity.

Fact of the Day

 Child poverty in Scotland has been on the rise for the past few years.

Figures released last week revealed that, before Covid, a quarter of all children in Scotland - around 240,000 - were living below the breadline.

Two thirds of them come from families who are in work.

 The pandemic has likely made that problem worse.

 In the last year, the number of people claiming Universal Credit in Scotland doubled - suggesting many families are struggling.