The Future Is Ours If We Dare to Take It

 Every human being who desires to put an end to this society of decay and destruction, of war and hunger, must find a place in the  revolutionary World Socialist Movement. We will produce no more for profit but for use but for happiness. The crack in the foundations of capitalism is the technical possibility of producing as much or more than is required by everyone yet capitalism fails to deliver. The hope of socialism will be buried under the ruins of civilisation. This is your choice – to abandon your hopes and aspirations, for your master’s continued profits, or to abolish the capitalist system to make realisable our hopes and dreams. To do the first is to give up life itself, to do the second is to make life worth living. The Socialist Party aspires for a world worth living in. A world where no one need know hunger. Where people use their brains and brawn to contribute as fully as possible to overcome social problems. Where peace is the rule not an exception. The Socialist Party offers to exchange  poverty for prosperity, ignorance for knowledge, hatred for kindness, division for unity and to effect this change with minimum inconvenience to individuals so all shall be essentially benefit within a short period from the introduction of socialism, a cooperative world community.  There is no better way for suffering humanity than to go forward together to establish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities. 

It is the capitalist system which produces misery and disaster. Capitalists  promise all things to all men, like the quack who will cure everything from toothache to cancer with a bottle of colored water. Production for profit required two things: someone with enough resources to buy means of production (machines and so on); and, secondly, people who had no means of production themselves, no resources by using which they could live. In other words, there had to be “capitalists,” who owned means of production, and workers whose only chance of getting a livelihood was to work the machines owned by the capitalists. The workers produced things, not directly for themselves or for the personal use of their new “lord,” the capitalist, but for the capitalist to sell for money  on the market. . Marx pointed out that the source of  profit  could not possibly come from the capitalists selling the products above their value – this would mean that all capitalists were all the time cheating each other, and where one made a “profit” of this kind the other necessarily made a loss, and the profits and losses would cancel each other out, leaving no general profit. It therefore followed that the value of an article on the market must already contain the profit: the profit must arise in the course of production, and not in the sale of the product.

What is the importance of the analysis made by Marx to show the source of profit? It is that it explains the class struggle of the capitalist period. In each factory or other enterprise the wages paid to the workers are not the equivalent of the full value they produce, but only equal to about half this value, or even less. The rest of the value produced by the worker during his working day (i.e. after he has produced the equivalent of his wages) is taken outright by his employer. The employer is therefore constantly trying to increase the amount taken from the worker. He can do this in several ways: for example, by reducing the worker’s wages; this means that the worker works a less proportion of the day for himself, and a greater proportion for the employer. The same result is achieved by “speeding up” or intensifying the labour – the worker produces his keep in a smaller proportion of the working day, and works a larger proportion for his employer. The same result, again, is achieved by lengthening the working day, which increases the proportion of the working day spent in working for the employer. On the other hand, the worker fights to improve his own position by demanding higher wages and shorter hours and by resisting “speeding up.”

Hence the continuous struggle between the capitalists and the workers, which can never end so long as the capitalist system of production lasts.

Socialism, as every worker should know, is the next step in social evolution. The ideal of socialism is deeply embedded in the minds and hearts of workers.

We represent the conception of socialism of the future. We  stand for the  end impoverishment and to win the earth from the fear of want and war. We seek a world in which the exploitation of man by man shall cease, when prosperity and peace shall be enjoyed by all. Socialism obliterates all differences of race, gender, colour, and nationality. It celebrates the brotherhood of all workers everywhere. It crosses all national boundaries, it transcends all language barriers, it ignores all religious differences. It makes sharp and clear, around the world, the impassable chasm between all workers and all exploiters. 

Socialists seek a new world, a class-free world, a peaceful world, a world without poverty or misery. That  is the  promise of socialism, the real fraternity of humanity. Socialism is a constant inspiration to downtrodden and exploited workers in every  country in the world to build a place of land of peace and plenty, the great cooperative commonwealth, no bosses, no landlords, no bankers, no rich, no profiteers, no capitalism. We represent the future. 

Scottish Ingenuity Sold to the American Military

 The li-fi system harnesses the light spectrum rather than radio frequencies to transmit data securely. Li-fi - short for "light fidelity" - is an emerging technology first developed in Edinburgh. The term was coined by Prof Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, who In 2011 demonstrated how an LED bulb equipped with signal processing technology could stream a high-definition video to a computer. While radio frequencies can be "detected and targeted", its technology cannot be detected outside of its defined "cone" of coverage.

Scottish high-tech firm pureLiFi has announced a multi-million dollar deal to supply the US military with an optical wireless communication system. The deal with the United States Army Europe and Africa is the world's first large-scale deployment of li-fi technology, according to the company. PureLifi said its Kitefin system would be deployed by the US military in "real tactical and strategic environments"

Andrew Foreman, chief technology officer with the US Army in Europe and Africa, said: "Including optical wireless in the commander's toolbox is imperative to the survival of communications, command and control systems and, more importantly, soldiers."

Chief executive Alistair Banham said: "If one of the most significant and advanced defence organisations in the world can rely on li-fi for the most critical of communications, li-fi can offer unprecedented benefits to the consumer. Li-fi, like so many technologies before it, is on a classic journey of adoption in defence to widespread acceptance in the consumer market and eventually li-fi in everyone's home. This first major deployment with the US Army Europe and Africa is just the beginning."

Light technology firm strikes deal with US Army - BBC News

Socialist Courier can only say how sad it is that a new technology must be sold to help make war and killing more efficient as a measure of it success. 

Build a Better World

 For an interesting read try, 'The Rise and Fall of United Grain Growers: Cooperatives, Market Regulation and Free Enterprise', by Paul D. Earl, U of Manitoba Press, ($27.95).

 Earl traces the history of the Winnipeg based co-operative grain company from its beginning in 1906 to its takeover in 2007 by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, now called Viterra. 

The UGG was started by farmers in Saskatchewan and was the first farmer owned grain marketing business in Canada. Initially it was kept going by about 16,000 producer-shareholders who were organized in a network of local associations which supported the company.

 As good as it sounds, the iron-clad laws of capitalist economics forced the UGG to compete on the market with private grain companies. This eventually led to mergers, which in turn led to them being sucked in to the whole capitalist scheme of things; clear proof that bits of socialism cannot exist within capitalism.

There are many who believe that the co-operatives will provide an easy and painless means of transforming present competitive production into production upon a basis of common property. 

The means of production to-day are in the hands of a small but tremendously wealthy class; a class that is powerful because it controls the State machinery. The means of production are operated by a large but poverty-stricken class of wage workers; a class that is in slavery because it leaves the State machinery in the hands of its oppressors.

Production is on a gigantic scale, based upon sale for profit. The increase in quantity and complexity of the machinery used makes necessary ever less and less workers to turn out the things required by society. The big capitalists undersell the small, and eventually drive increasing numbers of the latter out of business.  It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive.

The relationship between the two classes forms the basis for an economic tyranny under which the workers as a class are robbed of the major portion of the social wealth that they produce.

 

Socialism - Economic Democracy

 The present crises, which encompasses all countries has definitely shown the absurdity of capitalism. The further maintenance of the private ownership of the means of production threatens humanity with degeneration and barbarism.  

The basis of society is economic. That basis is ripe for socialism in a double sense: modern technology has advanced to a point where it can assure a high standard of living to all mankind; but the capitalist property system, which has outlived itself, dooms the masses to ever-increasing poverty and suffering.

Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world Like all thieves, bosses have no honor among themselves. They are constantly falling out. Capitalism means the ruination of our class, our families, our friends. Only world socialism offers working-people an alternative to the misery of capitalism. We want a society whose workers run everything in the interests of the world's peoples. We want a system that encourages every worker to become involved in running society; that educates everyone to act for the common good and does not indoctrinate people to "look out for number one;" that opposes placing selfish interests above the social needs. We want society to help each person grow. Socialism will abolish the wage system. Ending the wage system will reduce the problems capitalism causes inside the working class. In a socialist society, the principle "to each according to need" will be as basic as the principle "every man for himself" is to capitalism. With socialism the principle of work will be voluntary and "from each according to ability." People will work because they want to, because their class brothers and sisters around the world need their work. Socialism will abolish socially useless forms of work that exist now only for capitalist profit. Socialism will not need millions of lawyers, advertisers, or salespeople. In one stroke, it will do away with layers of needless government bureaucrats, as well as the hordes of petty supervisors and administrators who oversee and manage us for the bosses. It will free everyone to perform socially useful work, which is the source of true creativity. Capitalism cannot do anything but accumulate more and more capital. It is as obvious that the capitalists aren’t planning and can’t plan for a peaceful world! Conflict is in the blood of the capitalists.

The fundamental premise of socialism – that is, the economic premise – has already been present for some time. But capitalism will not disappear from the scene automatically. Only the working class can assume collective ownership over production and distribution from the stranglehold of the exploiters. If working people for one reason or another, prove incapable of capturing political power the continued decay of civilization will follow, climate calamities will pile up, despair and despondency will engulf the people. Other than the socialist revolution, there is no way out. When faced with barbarism or socialism, there is no longer a choice. The rejection of socialism can be likened to someone who would rather drown than get into a lifeboat. The choice is ours. Sink or swim – socialism or barbarism.

A better world is not only possible, but an urgency if we do not intend to return to barbarism. Whether you want it or not, the socialist revolution is the only alternative at the moment. And also it is the most beautiful of all the alternatives. Socialism will transform class society into a commonwealth. There is no other answer and no other escape.

 

This what we mean by socialism

 

All the Socialist Party’s hope rest in working people. Their woes are its woes, their  foes, its foes. The Socialist Party believes that the reorganisation of society upon the basis of common ownership and democratic control of the economic forces will put an end to social  evils which now menace workers’ life. The Socialist Party’s goal is wealth for all and the plenty of the good things of life for everybody. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble whatever. There is no doubt at all about this. Modern inventions have so increased the productive capacity of mankind that all men and women could have abundance of wealth by working only three or four hours a day.

 The Socialist Party proposes abundance for all. In order to get this abundance it advocates society the vast new inventions and use them for producing new wealth for all instead of producing it for a few. The only reason we are not all well off now is that a few people own these great modern tools and refuse to let us work at them except when they can make a profit for themselves. The fact is, not more than half of us are allowed by these capitalists, or great machine owners, to work even half the time. If we owned these factories and mines, transport and communications ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and the promised land is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth. Therefore, what the Socialist Party seeks to do, in order to get wealth for all, is to take possession of the means of production and run them for the use of all.

We indulge in no dreams or false hopes. We say to our fellow-workers, “Come, join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that political state power to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern inventions entitle you to.” The Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership, establishing the principles of common ownership and workers’ control of industry, abolishing the wages system and distributing the good things of life, each according to needs. Only by taking and holding the means of production and distribution can the workers be free. As socialists, we take as our starting point that present society produces sufficient wealth to provide enough for all, but because of the ownership and organisation of production, that wealth is wasted or even destroyed. Capitalism is incapable of providing decent homes, social services and living standards for all.

The Socialist Party is part of a conscious movement that has as its aim the common ownership of social wealth. Changing the economic system is not an end in itself. It is a means of creating conditions in which human beings will be able to realise their full potentialities and work together for the common good, instead of being divided by class, sex, race or creed. Socialists want a society in which people’s needs are provided for by an abundance of goods and better social services. Capitalism distorts human individuality, subordinates men and women to the needs of the profit system, sets them against each other. Socialism aims to develop their individuality by creating a society in which exploitation and poverty are ended, and the resources of science and technology used to reduce the time spent in monotonous and mechanical jobs to a minimum, and vastly increase the amount devoted to leisure and creative work. Socialism is not a society in which the state and the government, as institutions separate from the people, either regiment them or do everything for them. It is the people themselves who have to build socialism, become involved in government, and be responsible for the development of society. In the process new attitudes to society, to work and to culture will develop. New relations, based on co-operation instead of domination and exploitation, will come into being between the sexes, between generations, between races and between nations. Socialism is based on co-operation instead of domination and exploitation, will come into being between the sexes, between generations, between races and between nations. 

Because under socialism the main industries and means of production would be commonly owned, all the wealth they produced would be available for the use of the people as a whole, including that part of it which the capitalists now take as their private profit. Moreover, the removal of the fetters on production imposed by capitalist crisis would be removed, and the production of wealth greatly increased.

End Capitalism - Build Socialism

 

The Socialist Party struggles to transform the means of production (natural resources and industries, etc.) into social property, ending their private property, which only allows the exploitation of the working class and the impoverishment of the people. Being anti-capitalist means seeking to rid the world of capitalism and establish socialism. No support to capitalist parties or parties that believe capitalism and socialism can co-exist—they cannot. nationalisation of industry means simply State capitalism. The workers have no control whatsoever. This is true even when the Labour Party is in the government. The government is still a government over the workers. The elections of the Labour Party are run on the assumption that Labour Party victories would mean workers’ control over the resources of the nation. As a matter of fact, everywhere we see these Labour Parties defend capitalism. They would like the workers to trust to the Labour politicians to bring the factories under workers’ control. Workers’ control to the opportunists of all stripes means simply workers’ participation in a government that controls the industries and runs them. 

 

Socialism is a society of free people. They cannot be compelled to do what they do not want to do, either by brute force or (as in capitalism) by threats to their livelihood, built upon a recognition of our shared heritage and  our common  ownership of the fruits of the planet, the common wealth belonging to humanity in its entirety. There is absolutely no excuse for any hard times anywhere in the World. There exists fabulous and inexhaustible riches, enough for all, times more Yet in the very midst of these we are unable to feed and shelter ourselves. Capitalism is a system of gorging one and famishing the other Capitalism is essentially anti-social. Its entire structure rests upon the production of things primarily for sale to the end that a ruling class may profit, instead of upon the social principle of production for use, for social gain, for the common good and joy of all. The only reason why working people who are capable of building beautiful homes – as is shown by the palaces they build for the rich – build ugly, prison-like, gloomy tenements for themselves  to dwell in is the fact that their labor is governed, not by the desire to attain supreme usefulness, but by the desire for profit.

 

No longer one against all and all against one, but one for all and all for one. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs; that is to say: From each and to each at will. Production for use instead of profit, for the collective good instead of for the gain of a few at the cost of the many, can only be made possible through the common ownership of the resources of nature and the principal means of production. And so everywhere the socialist movement is striving to bring about the social ownership and democratic control and management of all those means of production which so long as they are owned and controlled by individuals, or by groups of individuals, enable their owners to build thrones of pride and power upon the degradation of the many, the users of the tools, the actual producers. Common ownership of the means of production, with democratic management, is the central demand in the socialist programme everywhere.

 

Socialists do not contemplate the destruction of all forms of private property, and the making of all things common to all. On the contrary, it is quite certain that collective ownership of the great social agencies of production and exchange would result in making private property far more general than it is now. Millions of people have practically no private property at all to-day. They do not own the homes in which they live. They do not own the things they produce. They do not own enough to provide the necessities of a decent existence during a month of enforced abstention from labour. When sickness, accident, or other misfortune, compels them to be idle for a few weeks they are reduced to dependence upon charity as the only alternative to starvation. Even in the most prosperous times millions of people are so divorced from property of all kinds that they never have enough good food to eat, enough good clothes to wear, or decent homes in which to live. How idle, therefore, it is to urge as a reason for opposing socialism and remaining content with the existing order the fear that socialism would do away with private property. Capitalism has never provided all people with private property. Socialism on the other hand, would make it possible for every human being to have and own all the private property which that human being could use to advantage and without imposing any disadvantage upon another human being. Common ownership of the principal means of social production – that is, the natural resources, the mines, factories, railways, machinery, and so on – would not take away anything from the great majority of people. True, the worker would not himself own the machine used by him, but that is his condition to-day. The workers in factories and workshops do not own the tools with which they labour. They do not own the raw materials upon which they labour. They do not own the places in which they labour. They do not own the things which they produce by their labour. All these are owned by an exploiting class of non-producers, whose interest it is to see that the producers get in the form of wages as little as they can manage to live upon, and produce as much more than they receive as possible. This is the inevitable interest of the owning class, because its own income is derived from that which the workers produce over and above what they receive in the form of wages.

 

Common ownership and democratic control of the means of production would not give the ownership of the tools of labour to the individual worker. That was once possible, in the days when production was of necessity carried on by hand labour. It is not possible with machine production, which is only carried on by the organised labour of masses of workers. But collective ownership would make it impossible for the idle few to exploit the industrious many. It would make it possible for the workers themselves to exercise an effective control over the products of their labour and their distribution. It would make certain a fuller enjoyment by the producers of the wealth they produce. This is what we mean when we say that common ownership of the forces of social production would result in a greater diffusion of real private property. 

 

Socialism, then, is an attempt to realise in the larger life of the community that rational and fair adjustment of collective and individual power and responsibility 

 

 

The socialist ideal is not at all incompatible with the development of individual genius and character.  Until we socialise all we shall waste an incalculable amount of potential individual genius. We must give to every child born full and free access to every social gift, to develop all his or her gifts. Socialism, then, is not aiming at equality and a level plain of mediocrity. Poverty must be abolished, because it is anti-social, and denies millions opportunity to develop their inborn powers. The disease-breeding tenement and the slum must go for the same reason. To-day the production and the exchange of wealth are functions carried on with an anti-social object, namely, the profit of a class of non-producers. That is the fundamental wrong of capitalism. That is the source of its poverty and its inequality. Those who make the bread of the world cannot eat the bread their hands have made. No one is poor because there is not enough for all. No child suffers hunger because there is a dearth of food. No child wears rags or goes without shoes because good clothes and shoes cannot be made in sufficient quantity to supply all. We have abundant natural resources and wonderful powers of production; on the other side are have a great unsatisfied need which could be easily satisfied. But we have not as yet learned to direct our productive capacity to the social good. No human want would remain unsatisfied so long as there were unexhausted productive powers. All our resources and our skill and might would be combined to meet the needs of every human being. 

 

We must end capitalism and establish a socialist world. There is no other way. We aim to make life better, happier and more beautiful for all, capable of producing plenty for all.

No to Separatism

 

To advance the careers of a handful of members of the ruling class, workers are being set against each other by Scottish nationalists. The question of independence once more threatens relations between Scottish and  English/Welsh workers. Scottish workers are being asked to trust in the local ruling class rather than in the solidarity and unity with fellow workers. We cannot easily achieve combined working-class action by declaring there are supposed national differences which distinguish Scottish workers from, say, their English brothers and sisters. And certainly it is not aided by identifying with Scottish businessmen and landowners because of some imaginary concept of a shared ‘nationality’. 

To combine to defend our class is the strategy of liberation, not separatist notions of any Scottish constitutional sovereignty. The Socialist Party does not fall into the trap of the ‘progressive’ facade of nationalism as promoted by some on the Left. 

Sturgeon of the SNP is once more rattling her claymore calling for a new referendum. First, it was Brexit as the excuse, then it was the pandemic which became the reason, now it is Boris Johnson’s corruption as justifying another vote on independence.

“...Scotland faces two very different futures. We can decide to take the powers we need to rebuild our economy and society into our own hands, with a future as an independent country, working with our friends in Europe and building a fairer economy. Or we can remain tied to a Westminster system that is dragging us in the wrong direction and which with every day that passes is slipping deeper into a mire of Tory sleaze…”

But, as we have witnessed, in the Salmond-Sturgeon who is lying, power politics always remain the unstated position.

As Marx pointed out, “If they speak consciously and openly to the working class, then they summarise their philanthropy in the following words: It is better to be exploited by one’s fellow-countrymen than by foreigners.”

What we in the Socialist Party’s Edinburgh and Glasgow branches are saying is independence will not improve our condition one iota. Only class struggle could do that and only with difficulty. Such success depends on close ties with similar movements in England and elsewhere.

We are not defending ‘British nationalism’ or the unity of the United Kingdom in any way. That would be an endorsement for the status quo, something we do not support. We do not argue that the present constitutional arrangement benefits ordinary people either.

The freedom of Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders.

‘Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.’ so said Engels.