Build Socialism

 

The Socialist Party is often criticised as being the political party for saints and angels, expecting our fellow workers to be altruistic and self-sacrificing but it is through the self-interest of the workers to change the system that we actually appeal because the capitalist system is run in the interest of those who are parasites on society. The Socialist Party is urging the producers of wealth to gain the comfort for themselves that they make possible for others to acquire. Socialism would encourage excellence in every branch of human activity. Freed from the uncertainty of the future, and with the best conditions prevailing for all, those who may excel will not be relegated to obscurity on a capitalist pittance. They will merit something infinitely greater respect of the whole of society, whose interests will be their own. 

Our job and our responsibility are to get people interested in socialism, to persuade and provoke people into accepting our ideas.  The policy and principles of the Socialist Party are easily understood, and we offer them to workers who are prepared to learn something new. Without understanding the workers cannot achieve socialism. Working people must require socialist knowledge and they must resist apathy and begin to challenge their existence of poverty and uncertainty. They must seek socialism as a priority. The Socialist Party is optimistic about the future, and we are optimistic that our fellow workers desire social change.

We concede that our fellow workers habitually vote capitalist representatives to the seats of government and that they can if they have a mind to, vote them out of office. It is not that the working class are enthusiastic supporters of capitalism — their experiences have taught them to expect little from any political party or politician. It is because they see no alternative to capitalism. This is the situation the Socialist Party hopes to rectify. The establishment of socialism is not just based on the control of political machinery: this is the end of the process. Socialism is not a change of government, it is a fundamental change in the nature and purpose of society. The master-and-servant mentality is imbued in the worker. While he starts and finishes his active life as a wage slave, ideas are spoon-fed to him by the propaganda machine of the capitalist. Left-wing propaganda offering leadership adds to the impression that we are incapable of thinking, organising and acting for ourselves. The reformers have had their day and there is nothing to show for it. When men and women become conscious of the need to change from capitalist society to socialism we will move forward. The conditions are ripe and the revolutionary route well signposted. The job of the Socialist Party is to speed the process, and not the impossible task of trying to make wage-slavery more palatable. If workers refuse to see the need to establish a revolutionary system of production based on democratic control and common ownership, there is no other way open to them to achieve their release from capitalism. It is all or nothing.

The World Socialist Movement has always been plagued by ignorant definitions and descriptions of socialism and dictionaries have played no small part in this deception. An objective test of socialism is contained within its two cardinal principles: first, abolition of the system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution and its replacement by a system of production based on common ownership; and, arising from this, the abolition of the wages system and capitalist exploitation. This is the revolutionary approach to politics which workers will have to think about rather than allow themselves to be misled by definitions written by career-minded academics. Capitalism divides because the means of production are owned by a few. Socialism will embrace all mankind because the earth will be owned in common. Socialism will be a class-free world community, democratically administered without leaders or governments. Production will be geared to meeting human need, on the basis of free access. The privileged private or state property institutions of capitalism will make way for communal interest and cooperation. Money, wages and profits will be no more. It is high time the workers of all lands finished killing and dying for capitalism and proclaimed their own class interest by establishing socialism. There is nothing in capitalism for the working class, whoever runs it. Capitalism has disastrously failed to harness its immense industrial and scientific resources for the benefit of all mankind, or to any end other than the quest for profits, must be obvious to any objective observer.

Building socialism demands the unity and cooperation of the workers of the world. Such unity and cooperation can only arise from a clear recognition of the need to change society into a system without frontiers where the scramble for trade and profits no longer exists. The resources of the planet, instead of being a class monopoly used to exploit and destroy, will be commonly owned and used solely to satisfy human needs. Our organisation’s task remains one of expounding the case for socialism. If one thing is clear, it is that until a majority of the world’s workers understand and acts for socialism we are stuck with capitalism and all it implies.

The Capitalist Pandemic

 

We all want peace and prosperity which means nothing if it remains only platitudes. We in the Socialist Party are educating toward the replacement of the capitalist system of private profit by a democratic socialist society based on production for use. Socialism and democracy are inseparable. As socialists, we are unalterably opposed, not only to capitalism but to any form of the State. Nationalisation or state-capitalism is as abhorrent to us as the private-profit system. For us what existed in Russia was not some kind of socialism, not even a bad version. There was nothing resembling socialism. No benevolent dictator can lead to socialism. It can benefit capitalism but one kind of society cannot be built that way, and that is socialism. Socialism means for the first time in history people are freed of class rule over them, that they make history on their own behalf and in their own interests. And this freedom from class oppression cannot take place unless they themselves act. It cannot happen even if a well-intentioned leader tries to create socialism.

Politicians cannot change the status quo to one which benefits ordinary people instead of their masters, because capitalism is built upon the need for poverty oppression and endless war. You cannot have an oligarchic plutocracy without ensuring that the rulers have far more wealth and power to control their citizenry. Above all capitalism is manically authoritarian and indoctrinating. It slowly crushes any ideas, beliefs not conducive to turning people into compliant producers and consumers. Capitalism moulds everyone and everything into malleable forms with minor variations.

 Only by altering the system, by overthrowing and abolishing the capitalist class and establishing socialism in its stead can the workers get rid of the bad conditions they exist under today. The Socialist Party, the only party truly representing the workers, makes its attack to capture the political machinery and therewith control of economic powers and social forces for the purpose of ending the robbery by overthrowing the system of capitalism, emancipating the working class, and laying the foundations of the socialist co-operative commonwealth. The Socialist Party has for its object the control of the means of existence and the capture of political power as chief means to this end. The Socialist Party, of course, has always taught that the workers must become conscious or have knowledge of, their exploitation before they will free themselves from wage slavery.

It makes no sense to advocate the overthrow of the government by a conspiratorial minority or something of the sort, using force and violence in an insurrection to make up for the lack of democratic support by the majority. As long as we do not enjoy the support of a majority – and the socialist movement, unfortunately, does not – and as long as the opportunity exists to reach the ears of and convince such a majority by persuasion and education, we will continue to use every channel of conviction open to us to acquire a majority without which the achievement of socialism is hopeless. To do otherwise would be contrary to our socialist principles. Our ability to exist as an independent socialist group is based on the fact that we represent a concept of socialism that has nothing in common with Leninism, Stalinism or Trotskyism. These are some of our ideas, and we vigorously urge an examination of them, a thorough examination, a thorough hearing, a real hearing. We are not hero-worshippers, and we are keenly conscious of human frailty. Flattery is not our way. Today the working class are largely unconscious of what constitutes their own interests. They are thus easily misled by the capitalist class to use the political power they possess against the real interests of the working class. The Socialist Party is pledged to the abolition of the present system of society and the substitution of the socialist commonwealth.

The Socialist Party holds that it is not the task of our Party to draw up blueprints of future society. In expounding the case for socialism we stick to what is warranted by the evidence of contemporary experience, what is in line with history, and that which flows logically, from socialist assumptions.

Those who recognise that existing society — capitalism — cannot solve the major social problems of the world, but on the contrary is the cause of those problems, will agree that from the standpoint of human interests capitalism is obsolete. It has long since developed modern technology and industry to a level where a world of abundance and free access is possible. Capitalism is incapable of using these resources for the satisfaction of human needs, because of its private and state-property relationships.

In referring to socialism as a “world of abundance” we are not trying to foster the illusion of a press-button Star Trek world of replicators where everything endlessly gushes forth for the asking (although 3-D printing is a start). We are well aware that at whatever stage socialism is established, there will be worldwide aftermath of slums and general ugliness in almost every aspect of society. The task of rationally redirecting productive resources, to create an entirely different world environment, will be a vast one. Abundance must therefore be understood as developing with socialism, not as an automatic hey-presto. With the elimination of all the wasteful and destructive activities of capitalism, immense resources both in human and industrial terms will be available for useful production. When the sole commitment of all resources is the satisfaction of human needs, all the evidence shows that a continuous ample supply of food, healthcare and shelter is possible.

Socialism and Self-Emancipation

 

While capitalism lasts the Socialist Party has a primary task to explain and struggle for a socialist society. Our object is the establishment of a worldwide social system in which the means of wealth production and distribution (factories, mines, land, transport and communications, etc.) will be owned by the entire population of the world. We oppose every organisation which stands for capitalism. We oppose the wars which capitalism persistently throws up. We oppose political campaigns which appeal for votes on programmes of reforms (better housing, higher wages, etc.), which in fact do little or nothing to alleviate working-class problems. We oppose nationalisation, which is just another way of organising capitalism.

We advocate socialism and nothing else. Without a working class in possession of socialist knowledge socialism cannot be established. We seek to recruit socialists and nobody else. We examine all applicants for membership to ensure that they understand what is entailed by being a socialist. We appeal to the working class to examine the case for Socialism and to vote for our candidates only if they understand and desire socialism. Our party leader does not exist. Leaders are for the politically ignorant. We are leader-free. There are no leaders in the Socialist Party and we do not set out to become leaders of the working class. Apart from the Socialist Party, all other parties seek support for a political leader. The fact that the Socialist Party emphatically rejects the cult of leadership is another basic difference between ourselves and all other parties. To us, political leadership symbolises immaturity; it is inherently corrupt. By supporting political leadership in this election, the working class will relinquish yet again the power they can have to act in their own interests.

Over the years, politics has given us a procession of various leaders and a great deal of attention has been given to their various personal qualities, but the electorate is fickle appetite and one image can easily give way to something else. It is convenient under capitalism to associate individual personalities with various phases of its administration. It is convenient to be able to associate failure with a man instead of a system. It is convenient to be able to swap the man but keep the system, to create the illusion of fresh opportunities by introducing a new personality. Political leaders come and go, but the institutions they administer remain. We do not attack one leader as against another. We argue that no person, or for that matter no team, can administer capitalism in the interests of the whole community.

The political leaders claim that they can work on behalf of the majority. By now the cheap electoral promises that crumble in the hard test of actual policies and subsequent experience is more than familiar. As ever, this process will repeat itself in this election. Regardless of the endless auctioneering that lakes place between parties seeking to form a government, the stark facts of capitalist society must assert themselves. We live in a class-divided society that operates in the interests of a privileged minority. Regardless of intentions, capitalism can only be run in their interests. There can be no choice. The defence of interests, that are hostile to the working population must go with the job of government.

The administration of a society that is based on privileged interests requires the cult of political leadership. Workers who accept economic exploitation will abdicate their political interests by supporting a leader. Socialists have a knowledge of capitalism that enables them to know where their interests lie. For us, leadership is an irrelevance. We combine in a democratic way with the object of realising our mutual interests through the establishment of socialism. Action for fundamental social change is beyond individuals This must be the act of a majority who assert democratic control over their social affairs through knowledge and understanding. For us leadership and the confused support that it rests upon walks a political path fraught with disaster.

The Socialist Party does not seek your blind support on the basis of empty promises which are easy to mouth and cheap to print but, which, having no prospect of success, are in reality deceptive We do not offer you a leader with an allegedly magic touch. We do not ask for your vote unless you understand our case.

We live today under capitalism where the basis of the system is the ownership by a section of the population of the means of producing and distributing wealth—of factories, mines, and so on. It follows from this that all the wealth which we produce today is turned out with the intention of realising a profit for the owning class. It is from this basis that the problems of modern society spring. Capitalism is essentially a system of inequality; it can be nothing else.  The division of wealth— its glaring inequality which is a constant feature of capitalism. It is moreover a fundamental fact of capitalist life and colours the whole of your existence,

The class which does not own the means of wealth production—the working class—are condemned to a life of degradation and dependence upon their wages. This poverty expresses itself in inferior housing, clothes, education, and the like. Implicit in capitalism is the class struggle between capitalist and worker. The basis of capitalism throws up the continual battle over wages and working conditions with attendant industrial disputes. It gives rise, with its international economic rivalries, to the wars which have disfigured man’s recent history. Every other party stands for capitalism, whatever they may call themselves. And whatever their protestations, they stand for a world of poverty, hunger, unrest and war. They stand for a world in which no human being is secure.

Socialism will be a social system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community. Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution means that the things, which are needed to make and distribute wealth will be1 owned by the whole of humanity. But common ownership does not mean that everybody in the world will own an equal share of every factory, mine, train and the rest. What common ownership does mean, is that there is one way in which all human beings will be equal. Everybody will have an equal right to take, however! much wealth they need and to consume it as they require. Because the means of production will be commonly owned the things which are produced will go into a common pool from which all human! beings will be able to satisfy their needs.

If there is unrestricted access to wealth for, everybody it must follow that nobody, in a sense nor any individual or a class, owns wealth. This means; that wealth will not be exchanged. It will not be bartered nor will it be bought and sold. As a rough parallel, we can consider the air we breathe. Everybody has free access to the air and we can all take in as much of it as we need to live. In other words, nobody owns the air; nobody tries to exchange air for anything else, nobody tries to sell or buy it. Similarly, there will be no buying and selling under socialism; no need for the complicated and widespread organisations which deal in commerce and banking in capitalist society. Socialism will have no banks, no stock exchanges, no tax inspectors, or any of the paraphernalia of capitalism.

In a socialist society, wealth will be produced solely to satisfy peoples’ needs and not for sale as it is today. Because of this, there will be no deliberate variations in the quality of wealth. Socialism will have only one quality. Whatever is produced will be the best that human beings are capable of. Houses, for example, will be designed and built with the only motive of housing human beings in the best possible style. The materials of which they are made, their facilities and their location will all conform to this. They will be the best homes that society knows how to build.

Nobody will be employed by another person - nobody will sell his or her labour-power or work for wages. Everybody, in fact, will work for the whole of society, Work will be a cooperative effort, freely given because men and women will realise that wealth can only be produced by working unless wealth is produced society will die. Yet it will not only be a reluctance to commit social suicide that will keep us working under socialism. Mankind will be free, free from the fetters of wage slavery, free from the fears of unemployment, free from economic servitude and insecurity. Nobody will found doing a job that is hated but tolerated because it pays well. We will be free to do useful work, making things which will add to society’s welfare, things which will make human life better and happier

There will be no war; the cause of war will no longer exist. This means that there will be no armed forces with their dreadfully destructive weapons It means that the people who are in the armed forces, together with the rest of the enormous social effort which is channelled into them, will be able to serve useful, humane purposes instead of destroying and terrorising.

When production is only for human use we shall see a great development of society's productivity. First of all, an enormous number of jobs that are vital to capitalism will become redundant. Socialism will have no use for such jobs because its wealth will not be produced for sale. There will probably be statisticians to collect information about society’s productive resources and to relate this to our needs. A lot of people will work at transporting wealth all over the world. These are useful occupations, just as all work will be.

Capitalism has veined the world with frontiers and has fostered patriotism and race hatred none of which has any scientific basis. Frontiers are purely artificial and are often altered at international conferences. Many workers are proud of their nationality although in logic they cannot take pride in something over which they have no control. Socialism will have none of this. No frontiers, no racial barriers or prejudices. The world will be one with only human beings working together for their mutual benefit.

Socialism will end the wasteful insecure world we know today. It will remove poverty and replace it with plenty. It will abolish war and bring us a world of peace. It will end fear and hatred and give us security.  No matter how often the politicians assure us that they have the solution to our problems, they never succeed in solving them. The future, as long as the workers are content to trust their leaders, and to keep capitalism in being, is grim. The expansion of socialist knowledge and action is the only hope for a sane world, a world that is safe and abundant and free.

Hydro for the Future?

 Pumped storage hydro schemes are renewable energy projects with the potential to cut carbon emissions and hit climate change targets.  It has been decades since a new scheme has been constructed in the UK. The UK has four existing pumped storage projects - Cruachan and Foyers in Scotland, and Dinorwig and Ffestiniog in Wales and none of the projects has yet progressed beyond the planning stage. Experts suggest the creation of a new market for pumped storage hydro would be the best solution to unlocking its potential.

The schemes involve two bodies of water at different heights. The water flows from one to the other through tunnels, passing through a power station inside a cavern that has been created by hollowing out part of the mountain. When there is a low demand for electricity from consumers and/or when surplus power is available from wind farms, electricity is used to pump water from the lower level to fill a reservoir further up the hill. The water can then be released from the upper reservoir, flowing down the tunnels to drive turbines that generate hydro-electricity. This happens at times of high demand, or when there is not enough wind to power wind farms.

Developers argue the current energy market does not have the mechanisms to make such major projects attractive to investors.

They are not cheap to build - costs can run to £500m and more. They also take a long time to construct - between five to eight years.

The massive green power projects stuck in limbo - BBC News

Solidarity with the Dispossessed and the Downtrodden

 What the Socialist Party means by socialism is the same as the pioneers meant—the ending of the exploitation of man by man, the abolition of the system of rent, interest and profit, planned production for use instead of profit, and the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the working people. We reject the view that capitalism can reform its way out of its problems. We are living under a system that is more and more clearly revealed as the enemy of humanity.  It imposes draconian cuts in living standards on the already poor, simply in the interest of still greater profits for the capitalist class. Capitalism plunders the resources of the planet. Its armaments industry directs most of the world’s research and development and the arms trade cynically profit from a series of local wars of unparalleled destructiveness. Capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, takes precedence over any human interest. Capitalism jeopardises the future of humanity.  It threatens the genocide of whole peoples. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has undergone many changes in its history, but these have simply meant finding new ways to exploit the people.

The world is capable of satisfying the needs of all its people. But today the great majority of our people are faced with the threat of poverty, deteriorating health, education and other welfare services. Capitalists control our world and make vast profits off the backs of the working people and from the natural resources of the land. All the major means of production - the factories, forests, farm and fisheries are in the hands of a few hundred capitalists. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. A handful of parasites benefit from the labour the workers. The capitalists get rich from our toil. At the end of the week, a worker collects their pay. The capitalists claim this is a fair exchange. But it is highway robbery. In reality, workers get paid for only a small part of what they produce. The rest, the surplus-value, goes straight into the hands of the capitalists. The bosses get rich, not because they have "taken risks" as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and get fewer workers to do more work, the greater their profits. If the bosses think they can make more profit somewhere else, they just close their factories and re-locate. People live in misery so a small clique of very wealthy individuals can live in luxury. 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. There is only room for a few capitalists - at any time the great majority must work and be robbed. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or abolish the wages system.

The only solution is to end it and build a new social system. Only socialism can end the contradiction between social production and private appropriation, abolish the exploitation of man by man, make possible long-term planning, and utilise resources and every new development in technique and scientific knowledge for the benefit of the people. Socialism will be a better society, one which will present unprecedented possibilities for the improvement of peoples' lives. Rational planning will replace the anarchy of the market. We hold that poverty and war are not inevitable. The socialist society of the future will draw its strength from the new organisational forms thrown up by a mass class struggle movement. When working people gain control of the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be a liberating and transforming force. With socialism, goods and services will be distributed on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. We are internationalists. We are carrying out the socialist revolution to make our contribution to the struggle for world socialism.

Socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have some idea of what it is. If a person who votes for a Socialist Party candidate does not do so because he or she is a socialist but because they do not know what socialism is, of what good can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of the working people and not upon their lack of knowledge. The idea that we should first be elected to office and then teach socialism to the masses is so absurd that it should not even be contemplated. It can be stated with the greatest of assurance that a Socialist Party candidate who refrains from teaching socialism during the campaign, with the idea that it can happen once elected will forget all about socialism when in office. From the point of view of achieving socialism one hundred votes, obtained conducting a campaign where socialist ideas and the Socialist Party are stressed, are worth more than a thousand votes polled in a campaign where socialism has not been at the forefront of the campaign and left in the background.

No to Cambo

 A proposal is being pushed by Shell Oil and Siccar Point Energy to develop a large new oil field off the coast of the Shetland Isles. The government has not signalled its objection to the plan.  The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report stating that to reach net-zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050, policymakers must end all new investments in oil, gas, and coal extraction.

Friends of the Earth Scotland called the possible approval of the Cambo oil field project "completely indefensible" and said it "would further damage the U.K.’s credibility on climate action ahead of the U.N. climate conference COP26 later this year."

"It is an obscenity that these plans are being progressed just months before the UN climate talks are due to take place in Glasgow," said Caroline Rance, for Friends of the Earth (FOE) Scotland.

Producing and burning the 800 million barrels in this field would be equivalent to 10 times Scotland’s annual climate emissions.

In its first phase, the project would extract 150 million barrels—" as polluting as running 16 coal-fired power stations for a year," said FOE Scotland.

Rachel Kennerley, an international climate campaigner at FOE England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, said in a statement that "if ministers are serious about facing up to the climate crisis they must end their support for climate-wrecking fossil fuels at home and abroad."

Siccar and Shell aim to continue producing oil at Cambo until 2050. The government is not considering the Cambo oil field proposal in its "climate checkpoint," which determines whether new oil developments are compatible with climate goals, because the companies originally sought licensing in 2001 and 2004.

 "In terms of oil, it's not a new license, there are no new licenses this year," climate change minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan told the Scottish Affairs Committee Wednesday.

Proposed New Oil Field in Scotland Ahead of Glasgow Climate Talks Decried as 'Obscenity' | Common Dreams News