What we need is understanding

The vast majority of us are wage-workers. Wages are our main source of income.  Or we receive a pension because we were once workers. Or we are the dependents of workers. We are just cogs in a giant machine. We are seen primarily as a cost that reduces profit. Some lip service given to workers as a resource; words to the effect that “we’re all in this together” might be spoken, but real examples of workplace democracy are few and very far between. If workers were truly valued as people “all in this together”, wouldn’t there be at least some semblance of democracy at work? There is a pretence  under capitalism that employees are treated as humans instead of as expendable resources like oil and there is a charade that the corporation has its employees’ best interests at heart, usually acknowledging and supporting employees’ collective bargaining rights. Instead, under our current economic system, the master-servant relationship is the legal framework that dominates workplaces. Reality for most people is a fundamental lack of respect at work.

 The object of work is to make enough money so that we can consume what we want and enjoy the good life, nothing more. What we do —  our work — defines us. We seek a source of lasting satisfaction in our work. When the system does not provide that sense of satisfaction at work alienation is the result. This leads to stress, addictions and other forms of ill health.

 Common sense must replace “business logic.” Workers believe in and accept capitalism, or are at least reluctantly acquiescent to their personal situation under capitalism and they buy into the ideas of capitalism.  If people think capitalism is the best that is possible, of course they will continue to follow the true believers in the system. If people believe there is no better way, disenchantment with the existing capitalist system will breed nothing more than cynicism and a retreat to private spaces. In fact, that is the result purveyors of capitalism are banking on. The more people are dissatisfied with capitalism, the more people believe another economic system is possible and  can help bring about change. If we want to organise the we need to focus on the flaws of capitalism and begin defining an economic system that is a realistic and attractive alternative. We need to develop a vision of a better system that can be a powerful motivation to do the hard work that is necessary to create a better society. Socialists want a world where the fruits of our labor, the immense social wealth we create each and every day, will be shared based on the needs of people rather than profit.

Workers and their unions must learn to aspire to greater. We must learn to demand more than simply more. What socialism proposes 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. The great present mission of the Socialist Party is to gather together all those workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, and also to shut out of the party the class whose real interests lie in the preservation of the present system. Socialists  believe the working class can and must have its own political party, a party that will serve its own interests, not those of the exploiting class. Socialists understand that politics is essentially a war between the two main classes in modern capitalist society: those that work (the working class or proletariat) and those that exploit those who work (the capitalist class or bourgeoisie).

But knowing where we’re going and knowing how to get there are two different things. Socialist organisation means getting together with a common understanding and a common end in view, and working systematically for the attainment of that end. For the workers to organise effectively, they must have a correct understanding of their position in society and of the conditions under which they live and work. If they fail to understand these things, they will either not organise at all or will organise in an ineffective manner. The effectiveness of their organization depends on the correctness of their understanding. The better they understand conditions the more effectively they will organise. When workers study conditions and get a true understanding of the essential points, they can neither be chloroformed into inactivity nor carried away by half-baked theories. They do their own thinking instead of trusting would-be leaders to do it for them. Joseph Dietzgen expressed it this way:
 "If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself."

If workers understand that "The working class and the capitalist class have nothing in common,"  This constitutes the common understanding necessary for organisation. The common end in view is the "Abolition of the wage system."

There can be no organization without action, and it must be systematic, not haphazard action. Systematic action means in co-operation with every other member. It means each one doing his or her part, and all co-operating in the production of the whole. When people organise, they do so because they can work or fight more effectively collectively  than alone. When the workers get together on the street to make a "demonstration"  they are only making a demonstration of their own ignorance, and a target of themselves for police clubs and tear gas. They are a powerless mob The power of the workers is not on the street but at the ballot box. Every worker can take part in this activity.

So let us understand  and agree on a common end, and all work with one another for the attainment of that end, which can be none other than to take over the means of production and distribution and operate them for use instead of profit.

Partly adapted and inspird from the writings of Gary Engler of the website “New Commune-ist Manifesto"

Food for thought

The futility of revolution without real purpose --The New York Times reported (25/08/13), reported "Promises of Arab Spring Prove Elusive". The author writes, " It is clear that the region's old status quo, dominated by rulers who fixed elections and quashed dissent, has been fundamentally damaged, if not overthrown,
since the outbreak of the Arab Spring uprisings. What is unclear is the replacement model. Most of the uprisings have devolved into bitter struggles over the relationship between the military and the government, the role of religion, and what it means to be a citizen." The real reason for the apparent lack of success is the fact that there has been no real understanding of the problem, the capitalist mode of production, and the only alternative, socialism. John Ayers.

Plan for Revolution

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a political party, which means that its concern is the struggle of the working class as a whole for political power and the capture of the State. The primary concern of the trade unions is the economic struggle for better conditions. The Socialist Party strives to fill our fellow workers with the spirit of the class struggle, focusing upon overthrow of the capitalist system.  It looks upon every activity of the workers from this point of view. The Socialist Party participates in the election campaigns as a separate and distinct political party. We are not there to help the capitalists govern the working class. We do not spread the false belief that there can be cooperation between the exploited and their exploiters. It is idle to deny the war between the classes and we will go into Parliaments in the spirit of the class struggle. The Socialist Party does not solicit votes in order to reform the capitalist system and thereby to make it more effective for the capitalists. We go into Parliament not to tinker with the system for the benefit of the capitalists.

 Social revolution is the essential objective of the labour movement, the end towards which every step it takes must directly tend. If we look at the production of wealth in present-day society, we find that that production of wealth can only take place through the co-operation of many diverse trades and industries interlocked one with the other. Within a given workshop, the whole variety of workers, manual and mental, co-operate together in order to produce a common product. Within society as a whole all industries co-operate together in order to produce wealth, the raw material of one industry being the finished product of the other. Without this co-operation of all the useful elements of society in production, there can be no society as we understand it to-day. Wealth to-day can only be produced and industry maintained through this co-operation. The vast industries in which men and women co-operate to produce wealth to-day are not the creation of any particular class, but have only been created and can only be maintained by the co-operative labour of all useful elements in society. The ability to produce wealth grows every year, and therefore the welfare of the mass of the people should grow also. However, in capitalist society the opposite process is taking place. Alongside growing power to produce wealth there is growing poverty. In a period of the greatest expansion of capitalism, colossal wealth exists alongside the most heartrending poverty. It is not the case the more capitalism produces wealth the better off everyone will become. The more wealth capitalism produces the greater its difficulties as a functioning system; the more difficult it is to obtain resources and gain markets, the more intensive international competition becomes; the greater becomes the danger of the antagonisms created by this competition ripening into war.

In a single factory, or even within a single industry, production may be planned according to the most scientific methods, but in capitalist society as a whole there is no plan regulating the production and distribution of wealth. Marx called it the anarchy of production. The whole system is based on the pursuit of profit by the owners of the means of production. The regulator of the whole system determining whether industry shall be expanded or shall go on short time is the rise and fall of prices on the market, reflecting the rise and fall in the possibilities of profit for the capitalists whose industries produce for the market. The scramble for profit leads also to the scramble for markets for sources of investment and raw materials on an international scale, and leads inevitably to war.

The Socialist Party make it their business to talk and explain to our fellow workers the meaning of socialism. We distribute our journals  pamphlets and books. Once workers has begun to read a paper or pamphlet explaining the class struggle, they soon recognises the truth of that explanation which they can supplement by numerous facts from their own experiences. Reading about the class struggle is a step to actual participation in the class struggle.  Let the workers recognise their class interests, and they will fight for the final liberation of his class.  In this current economic crisis  the reformists stand for concessions to capitalism, in order to help capitalism to get back to “normal,” while the socialists stand for a resistance to the demands of the capitalists, not “business as usual”, but support the struggle for social revolution.

Fact of the Day

Glasgow has the highest percentage of workless households of any area in the UK, new figures have shown. Information from the Office of National Statistics showed that 30.2% (almost one in three) of Glasgow households had no-one aged between 16 and 64 in employment during 2012.

National average figures showed Scotland with 20.6%

The statistics showed there were 3.5 million such households in the UK between April and June this year, about 17.1% of all households containing a working age adult. This was down from 3.7 million, or 17.9%, a year earlier.

PROGRESSING BACKWARDS

It suits politicians to portray UK workers as living in a society that gives them a steadily improving economic position, but recent figures completely deny that claim. 'The number of UK workers earning below the so-called living wage has risen to 4.8 million, research suggests. The figure, equivalent to 20% of employees, is up from 3.4 million in 2009, the Resolution Foundation think tank said. .......Although employers are obliged to pay the minimum wage, there is no legal requirement to pay the living wage. ......It found that 25% of women and 15% of men were paid below the living wage in 2012 - up from 18% and 11% in 2009.' (BBC News, 4 September) R D

Food for thought

Columnist, Rosie DeManno (Toronto Star, 17/08/13) while investigating the expense scandal of several senators, revealed how celebrities moonlight for extra money, "Some have made a significant Second Act career out of it, occasionally with hilarious exploitation of repute, and clearly for money. They're whores of a
kind." For example, General Norman Scwarzkopf took a seat on the board of The Home Shopping Network. Henry Kissinger went for Revlon among his many post-White House gigs. Boxer, Evander Holyfield, was considered a coup for the board of Coca Cola. The Canadian senators are cut from the same cloth and naturally are attracted to money, anybody's. John Ayers

From Rags to Riches

Socialists don’t hanker after the “increasing misery” for the working class. We don’t look forward to the attacks on the workers’ standard of living in the hope that we may attract more members.  But what we do is recognise economic facts.

Capitalism is an economic system based on three things: wage labour (working for a wage), private ownership or control of the means of production (things like factories and farms), and production for exchange and profit. Capitalism is based on a simple process – money is invested to generate more money. When money functions like this, it functions as capital. For instance, when a company uses its profits to hire more staff or open new premises, and so make more profit, the money here is functioning as capital. As the amount of capital increases (or in the bigger picture, the economy expands), this is called 'capital accumulation', and it's the driving force of the economy.

The class struggle varies over time and place, depending on social-economic, political conditions and organisation. The nature of the struggle between labor and capital vary in terms of comprehensiveness, intensity, geographic location and class interests. Class struggles involve two basic antagonists. The ruling class struggle “from above”, in which various sectors of capital use their social power, economic control of the state to maximize present and future profits. We the working class, struggle “from below.” The class struggle in its multiple expressions is a ‘constant’ moving force and the organizational form which it takes changes. Trade unions and community-based movements have great variations in make-up and mode of operation. The bulk of the class struggle against exploitation finds expression in movements by the oppressed and dispossessed  who rely mainly on their own resource.

The class struggle is the conflict between those of us who have to work for a wage and our employers and governments. Socialists argue that our lives are more important than our boss's profits, which attacks the very basis of capitalism, where profit is the reason for doing anything.  Nor does the class struggle take place only in the workplace. Class conflict reveals itself in many aspects of life. For example, affordable housing is something that concerns all working class people. However, affordable for us means unprofitable for builder or landlord. Government attempts to reduce spending on health-care by cutting budgets and introducing charges shift the burden of costs onto the working class, whereas we want the best health-care possible in free NHS, or at worse, as little cost as possible. Workers have an interest in fighting to improve their housing, health, education and protection from destitution. There is therefore an inbuilt potential for conflict over welfare provision. The outcome depends on the balance of class forces.

Every state of society admits of certain improvements called reforms. These reforms are either required by the interest of the whole ruling class, or they are only for the benefit of a particular fraction. In the former case they are carried without much agitation; in the latter, that fraction for whose benefit they are to be carried, call themselves reformers; these form a distinct party, and appeal to the oppressed to aid them in their endeavours  by means of placing bait on the hook.

Reform can be viewed as a response of behalf of the ruling class to pressure from below, an attempt to buttress the existing class structure by making minor concessions. Reform is the reply to the threat of revolution. A reform is infinitely better than allowing the pressure of discontent to build up until it explodes with revolutionary force.

 Reforms make the system run more smoothly by helping to foster illusions about the state. Instead of seeing the state’s  real role of protecting capitalist exploitation, it is seen as eliciting rewards from the state and that there will be a the expectation of a better tomorrow. Like the casino, the best publicity for it is the occasional winner even though the house is always ahead in the end. It pays the capitalist state to appear to be generous since this conceals the true nature of its being.

Some reforms are a boost for the capitalist class. Improvements to the educational system can be construed as a victory for the workers. On the other hand, they provide employers with a labour force better qualified able to cope with modern production techniques. Likewise the National Health Service is regarded as a great boon for the working person. But it also helped the employers, who have known for a long time that personnel who are healthy are also more productive.

Any meaningful pro-worker regulations eventually become fetters to capital’s well-being, so it becomes necessary to neutralise or dismantle them - to “save” business from an unnecessary burden of extra expense. Each piece of legislation has a cost. Consequently, it is likely to squeeze profit margins and damage the competitiveness of the economy. The laws of capitalism are designed to facilitate the smooth-running of capitalism within the limits they impose which precludes effective amelioration of conditions. Even when face by a discontent the ruling class may wish to grant reforms but this is not always feasible. Indeed, even those concessions that have already been made can conflict with the system’s ability to meet them. In deteriorating economic conditions, when capitalism no longer can concede reforms, or when workers defend past gains the situation can turn into an intensified class struggle.

This is what we’re experiencing now with government austerity cut. Reformers are spreading illusions that divert energy away from the vital struggle. To be a real socialist is to be a revolutionary socialist – there is no other kind. So the Socialist Party says that it is reformism which is “utopian” and the only “realistic” way out of this mess is to go beyond legislation and regulation. What the Socialist Party insist upon making clear is that we can and we must establish a socialist society now, not in the long distant future. Taking control over the means of production in order to make things we require and share them out  according to need without the mediation of money is not a far off aspiration but a society  we could have right now. Too often the “realistic’, the “practical” activists, insist that we must lower our expectations and aim for achievable reforms. They present capitalism as a “natural” system which happen to possess some flaws that can be remedied.  There is nothing intrinsically socialist or even working class about reformism. These reforms alter nothing in the fundamental system of the existing state of things. The Socialist Party has opposed such reformists. We say to them that they deal with effects and ignore the cause. We can point to history and demonstrate that the reformist programme has failed repeatedly. The reformist message preached has brought disillusionment, apathy and despair.

The present crisis will not end until the capitalist’s expectations of higher profit margins is met. This requires the rate of exploitation to be increased and the main way would be by continuing to lay off workers (or make them part-time, or impose zero-hour contracts) and cut wages. If wages are lowered then obviously what is often described as the social wage, made up of welfare benefits  (paid indirectly by capitalists to particular workers via taxes.) The capitalist class can also do so better when they can shift costs onto others. If companies can cut costs by not protecting the environment, they will.

 The Socialist Party case can explained very clearly - to people whose clothing is in rags we don’t offer to stitch them together: we offer them new ones.

Food for thought

Just a few years after the Ontario Liberal government promised to reduce poverty, and failed miserably, blaming the current recession (of course), the City of Toronto is looking at identifying new neighbourhoods to add to the priority list of needy areas that need cash to provide some services and relief. Spokesman, Chris Billinger, said, " If we've achieved nothing in eight years...then there's a different set of questions to be asked." How right you are, Chris, ask away.
In 1983, 30,000 people, mainly women, filed a pay equity complaint against Canada Post. Thirty years later, they are still waiting, although a settlement worth about $250 million has been handed down. Many, of course have died or moved away. This gives new meaning to 'the cheque's in the mail!' John Ayers.

The nationalist follows the capitalist flag

The Socialist Party fights nationalism by rejecting it and exposing it's racism and xenophobia. Nationalism is a fraud whereby would-be rulers “self-determine" to impose their vision of nationhood on an entire community. Nationalism is an ideology of separation, of hatred for the “other” and the “outsider” It has been a creed of violence and war and oppression. And it has absolutely nothing to offer the world’s oppressed. What is necessary is to develop human solidarity, the instincts of mutual aid that enable us to survive and which have fueled all human progress.  Patriotism, in its essence, is a readiness to die and to kill for an abstraction, for what is largely a figment of the imagination. Nations are in no sense natural communities; they stand in stark opposition to  the principles of mutual aid and solidarity upon which our very survival depends. This community of interests and of relationship or neighbourly feeling, does not necessarily or exclusively apply to nationality. As a matter of fact, in ancient times it was the city-state rather than the nation-state which was its boundary.

Patriotism, as generally understood, is an objectionable sentiment since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. The man who “wants to see his country great and strong” invariably wants to see it so, if need be, at the expense of the welfare and interests of other countries. The principle of nationalism as a positive political platform involves always (in practice if not in theory) the doctrine of “my country right or wrong.”

Nationalism groups men and women according to their land of origin, as decided by the chance events of history; within every country, thanks to the patriotic propaganda, rich and poor unite against the foreigner. Socialism groups men and women, poor against rich, class against class, without taking into account the differences of race and language, and over and above the frontiers traced by history.

 No socialist party can serve the “Nation” so long as the nation is divided into two warring classes—one which owns the wealth and one which produces the wealth and does not own it. No socialist party can serve the robbers and the robbed at the same time. To speak of the “Nation” when it is thus divided is camouflage to hide their support of the robbers because the great majority of the nation belongs to the class which is robbed.

Socialists are intent upon building something better than a nation. Socialism will be attained, by a working class movement fighting a class struggle for the ending of the capitalist system, which cannot be done by an alliance with the very enemy we are fighting. That is the impossible task being before the Scottish working class by those urging independence. Why should workers let themselves be diverted from the class struggle by the national question? How can a supposed socialist  demand that worker  support the party of one capitalist against another in a competition between capitalists which ultimately every national struggle is? Why cannot those “oppressed” nationalities wait with their emancipation until the hour of freedom arrives for the proletariat too? The Socialist Party strives to make the workers of the “oppressed” nation recognize the workers in the ruling nation as their comrades-in-arms and subordinate their particular national goals to the interest of the common struggle for socialism.

The nationalist Left argue that socialism is not yet possible and so present a programme of  reforms where business enterprises controlled by the working class is to be preferred to everything else. Where would the State get the funds necessary under this programme? The funds must in some way come from production; either from the profit on State industries, or from taxes paid by small enterprise. Of course, capitalists would not be content to pay to increase workers’ living standards; they would try to lower them, in order to restore the pressure of unemployment on the wages to keep that at a minimum. Here arises the natural and fundamental enmity of the classes, the chief opposition of their interests, the impossibility of peacefully combining their efforts. As long as capitalism exists, it must try to hold itself against competition by lowering the cost of production, or else be ruined. It cannot be content to secure a fixed living to the workers.

Thus the so-called Common Weal  programme from the Jimmy Reid Foundation is not the programme of socialists desirous to show to the workers the way to freedom; it is the programme of politicians desirous to win the great mass of adherents from various poor classes, by a programme of reforms that means coalition of workers, small farmers and petty bourgeois. And we have witnessed such coalitions before which uses the force of the working class  to promote the formation of a numerous class of small land owners and businessmen, extremely hostile to any socialism, thus it throws obstacles in the way to socialism. It fills the minds of the workers with illusions, diverting them from the only way to freedom; the way of class struggle, clear class-consciousness and confidence in their own power.

It is our duty as socialists to warn our fellow-workers in Scotland of the futility of the nationalist independence policy as far as they are concerned. There can be no relief for the oppressed Scot in changing an English robber for an Scottish one. The person of the robber does not matter—it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity and action, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends. Our purpose is to show both the "nationalist" and "unionist" worker, that the struggle "for" or "against" independence does not materially affect the lot as a worker; that the "freedom" much-talked of on both sides, is but the right of a minority class (the capitalists) to exploit the mass of the people.

Those "intellectuals" and “professionals" clamouring for jobs within a Scottish Parliament do not represent the interests of the working class in Scotland. They do not, indeed, profess to favour other than capitalist interests, provided that the landlord or capitalist be a Scot, but the Scottish employer is in no more wise, no more merciful than the English one. The national sentiment and perennial enthusiasm of the Scottish people are being exploited by the so-called leaders in the interests of Scottish capitalism, and the workers are being used to fight the battles of their oppressors. The Scottish capitalist rebels against the English capitalist only because the latter stands in the way of a more thorough exploitation of the Scottish  workers by Scottish capital. Let the thieves fight their own battles! For the worker in Scotland there is but one hope. It is to join the international socialist working class and to make common cause with the socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation; saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: "A plague on both your houses". For the true battle-cry of the working class in broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rally cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

Food for thought

Economics 101 -- how to solve your recession woes, Russian style. Apparently, in Russia, a business owner has a better chance of ending up in a penal colony (i.e. gulag) than a common burglar does. More than 110,000 out of a population of small business owners of three million are incarcerated. But with hard times, President Putin has devised a plan -- release many of these individuals to kick-start the economy and create jobs.

Socialists always knew capitalists were crooks, now we have proof! (New York Times 10/08/13) John Ayers.

Even The Smiles Are Fakes

Not only do the capitalist class demand that workers produce surplus value for them they want them to smile while they do it. 'Smiling all the time can be hard work, which is why airline crew and shop workers are turning to the latest plastic surgery fad, the "perma-smile". South Korean surgeons are removing nerves and muscle at the corners of the mouth to mimic the ancient expression of welcome." (Sunday Times, 1 September) Guest speakers from South Korea will inform the American Association of Plastic Surgeons how it is done this month. One female who works in a jewellery shop in California has already had the $3,500 operation. A phoney smile for a phoney society. RD

The World Needs A Change

Never has the bankruptcy of our social system been more widely realised than with the current recession and the imposition of austerity cuts. It makes no sense except under capitalism to spend  billions buying bombs or bailing out banks, but can’t afford to end world hunger. We live in an absurd world. Can it get any worse? It will, if we don’t fight back and change things. Once upon a time we did have a vision of an alternative economic and social system to build a better world. But the workers movement never won the most important thing: power, the right of everyone to participate in running both our economic and political system. This power was left in the hands of tiny minorities who ultimately run the world in their self-interest.

Capitalist minorities have increased their wealth and also have more money to finance election campaigns, to lobby and manipulate political agendas to maintain their control of government spending. Roads, bridges, rail lines, sewage and water systems have been allowed to deteriorate. Public services such as schools, hospitals and housing has fallen behind needs. Imagine how many sewage treatment plants need expanding, how many  anti-flooding systems need building, how many bridges need fixing, how many schools need teachers and hospital nurses.

The largest transnational corporations have more revenues than most governments. They patent products, technologies, and processes. They buy up the most profitable sources of supply, control marketing networks, and spend millions on advertising  and PR. Whenever possible, they introduce technologies that increase productivity and reduce employment. They outsource work. The fewer people employed, the less paid for labour, the more profits for shareholders. Finance capitalism adds nothing to the real creation of wealth and  means of livelihood; winners merely gain at the expense of losers. Financial bubbles are followed by crashes. As capitalism hits rises the bosses hold on to what they can by demanding that workers be punished for the sins of management. Austerity leads to further declines in working-class income and markets.

What we must have to have a different better world is a whole world full of people with changed minds. Changing people’s minds is something each one of us can do, wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever kind of work we’re doing. Changing minds may not seem like a very dramatic or exciting challenge, but it’s the challenge that the human future depends on. The Socialist Party purpose is simple. We have to proceed with our educational propaganda until the working class have reached an understanding of the fundamental facts of their position.

The Reality Behind The NHS Myth

TV series about hospitals always present nursing as a worthwhile rewarding occupation, but the TV depiction is a complete distortion of the reality. Almost two-thirds of nurses have considered quitting their jobs in the last 12 months because they are so stressed, a survey has found. Swingeing cuts to the numbers of nurses in the NHS have left many feeling overburdened and unable to give the care they would want. 'A Royal College of Nursing (RCN) survey of 10,000 staff found that 62% had thought about leaving over the last year because they were under so much stress in their job. Sixty-one per cent felt unable to give patients the care they would want to because they were too busy, while 83% believed their workload had increased in the last 12 months.' (Guardian, 31 August) Official figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre revealed that the NHS has lost more than 5,000 nurses in just three years.

Class against Class

The Socialist Party of Great Britain  is not a large organisation – yet. But its membership has its roots solidly in the groundwork of Marxist theory and practice; its case for socialism is clear, its membership persistent and determined. The members are therefore confident of the future of the Socialist Party and intend to carry on toward the goal of the socialist reorganisation of society. Instead of getting caught up in popular fads,  rushing around  with our eyes closed just to build up the party, we continue our work in trying to bring about the union of socialism and the working class movement.  We must fight against the influence of those who would have us close our eyes to the weaknesses in our movement. We expose shallow thinking which is based more on wishful  desires than scientific analysis. For we must not allow our hearts to run away with our heads.

At present a fierce class war is raging throughout the world.  The two basic classes in our society, the working class and the employing class, are locked in a bitter struggle. The bourgeoisie represents the old system of exploitation and oppression. The working class represents the fundamental progressive force, the most consistent social force in the struggle to eliminate capitalism. All capitalist governments are openly fighting the battles of the exploiters to impose austerity. Capitalists are using the present economic crisis to increase their power of exploitation and oppression. The idea that everyone can get rich under this system has been exposed as a lie invented by the rich themselves. Under capitalism, the only way to get rich is to trample on someone else. This is why workers have only one choice: either submit to this wage slavery or fight it! For the workers, the future is bleak. The exploitation and oppression gets worse every year. The bosses get rich, not because they have “taken risks” or “worked harder,” as they would have us believe. The more they keep wages down and reduce the number of employees with speed-ups in productivity, the more they can steal from us and the greater their profits. And if the boss thinks he can make more profit somewhere else, he just closes his factory and throws the workers out on the street.

In response, political formations in the UK appear to be undergoing realignment with the prospect of new Left party arriving on the scene. Workers do not like division. There is nothing that dispirits them more than to see their own battlefront divided.

The Socialist Party is in fundamental opposition to all pro-capitalist parties. It has as its aims the overthrow of capitalism, the establishment of a socialist society in which the means of production will not be the private property of the few, a society which will not be based upon profit, will not be based on class division, will eradicate both war and class war, as well as  abolish poverty for ever. The Socialist Party participates in elections, in parliamentary action, in all forms of political activity as the means to the preparation of the working class for the act of imposing its will.

The idea of socialism is powerless without a social force powerful enough to see to its implementation. There is but one such force in modern society – the working class and they cannot escape its exploitation by capitalism without socialism. Without socialism the working class is reduced to a constant struggle against the effects of capitalism because without socialism the system of  capitalism remains intact. Socialism is powerless without the working class and the working class cannot advance without socialism.

When the working class has political power it can build socialism.  Real democracy means the mass of the population being at once voters and administrators. The power of the working class is not the power of its spokespersons in Parliament, but the strength of its own organisation.  If the working class is to be successful in its struggles with capitalism, it must be united and organised. Only by all the workers acting together as one can challenge the power of capitalism. By organising themselves they can develop a co-ordinated attack on the capitalist enemy.

The Socialist Party must publish newspapers and journals, it must publish leaflets and pamphlets and books and it must produce videos. It must intensify its activities hundredfold in order that it may inspire workers with socialist understanding and purpose. We must overcome their doubt and hesitation and pessimism, and answer their questions.

September Standard

Socialist Standard September 2013
(These links will take you into the S.P.G.B. site.)

• Editorial: One State, Two States or No States?
• Pathfinders: Birthday Wishes
• Propaganda Power… in Your Pocket
• Halo Halo!
• Cooking the Books: An Easy Match for Mammon
• Material World: Mexico – The Disappeared
• Greasy Pole: All That Stuff – And Nonsense
• Egypt: Workers’ Struggles, Trade Unions and the ‘Left’
• The Civil War in Syria
• Capitalism or Socialism?
• Water, Waste and War
• Book Review: 'Karl Marx - A Nineteenth-Century Life'
• Cooking the Books: A Reply to the New Economics Foundation
• Mixed Media: 'The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution' & 'Ice Age Art'
• Book Reviews: 'The Value of Radical Theory - An Anarchist Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy' & 'Disassembly Required - A Field Guide to Actually Existing Capitalism'
• Book Reviews: 'How I Killed Margaret Thatcher', 'The Human Front', & ''The Alternative to Capitalism'
• Proper Gander: Smoking Woodbines In The Outside Lav
• Film Review: Searching for Sugar Man
• 50 Years Ago: Mail Train Robbery
• Action Replay: Street Football
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Unity for Socialism

“Compromisers and schemers will still erect parties to serve their personal ends and satiate their lust for being worshipped; intellectual mannikins will still perch themselves upon the shoulders of the workers and imagining their high altitude is the result of transcendent ability on their part will call the world to witness how great they are; but they will be deprived of their power to delude the real revolutionist by the simple fact of the existence of a political party of Socialists dominated by and resting upon the economic movement of the working class.” James Connolly

A worker does not live alone on a desert island but is a member of a social community. We  cannot do without food, clothing and shelter.  In the earliest period of history society was based on the clan or tribe. Everything was pretty much owned and shared in common. There was no privately-owned property, no government, no rulers and ruled, no laws in the sense in which we know them today.

A feature of the present economic recession is that workers are beginning to once again take their first determined steps in independent political action. Workers are being driven to this course by the ever-growing oppression of the employers and the increased use of the  governmental powers against them in their struggles. Many on th Left are now thinking and asking: How can the left-wing in this country be unified and strengthened? For many members of the working class it is a sincere aspiration.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is for the unity. But it must be a unity of socialism and socialists. The unity with opponents – with people who have other aims and other interests, is not socialist unity. To accept into our party or to merge with another that possesses objectives entirely opposite to our own would indeed be foolish ...it would be party suicide. We cannot trade our principles, we cannot  compromise, we cannot make any agreement with the ruling system. We must  fight it to a finish so that socialism may arise.

The socialist does not lower its struggle to the level of potential allies but instead it urges those possible allies to raise the level of their struggle. The socialist does not fight for the half-hearted demands to “improve” capitalism, but demands that others abandon their timidity and fight resolutely to abolish capitalism. The strength and power of socialism rests in the fact that that the labouring class is exploited and oppressed by the capitalist class, and that within capitalist society effective reforms, which will put an end to class rule and class exploitation, are impossible. The socialist must not simply seek unity, but create unity on its own terms.

The existence of a class-conscious working class is an essential precondition for a socialist revolution. Class consciousness embraces a range of perceptions and commitments including an understanding that there is a distinct working class that one is part of, whose interests are counterposed to the capitalist class; a sense of solidarity with other members of one’s class; a belief in the need for and the possibility of successful struggles—political as well as economic—to advance the interests of one’s class; a conviction that the working-class majority can and should become the dominant political force in society (“winning the battle of democracy,” as Marx and Engels put it), reconstructing the economy so that it is collectively owned by all, democratically controlled by all, and operated in the interests of all—making possible the dignity and free development of each person in society.

It involves an understanding of the insight that was contained in the preamble of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 to 1955:
“A struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world, between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which grows in intensity from year to year, and will work disastrous results to the toiling millions, if they are not combined for mutual protection and benefit.”

 Not all workers have absorbed this insight into their consciousness, but those who have done so can be said to possess at least an elementary form of class consciousness. Such consciousness does not exist automatically in one’s brain simply because one sells his or her labour power for wages or a salary. The working class are going to unite, economically and politically, for their emancipation. A united, class-conscious working class on the economic field has long been needed — needed by the workers, needed by the Socialist Party, and needed, above all, as an essential part of the labor movement.

The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. The socialists, throughout the history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have utilised them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether. The Socialist Party declares that the workers will free themselves from the exploitation and oppression which is their lot under the existing system of industries through their use of political power. The struggle of the proletariat for emancipation must be fought along political lines. Poverty starts with plunder; it is man-made and a political issue. Poverty will begin to end the moment poor people organise themselves and act politically to better their situation.”

Although a Trotskyist, James Cannon made this important observation:
“The surest way to lose one’s fighting faith is to succumb to one’s immediate environment; to see things only as they are and not as they are changing and must change; to see only what is before one’s eyes and imagine that it is permanent.” 

Against Capitalism, Against Reformism

Making profits is shrouded in great mystery by the capitalists. They seek to make the workers believe that it is through some occult power that they make the processes of production yield them profits and build up great fortunes for them. There is no mystery about the source of profits.

The capitalists do not create wealth out of the aid in juggling with industry. They make profits because they purchase the labour-power of the workers for less than the value of the goods the workers produce, that is, they do not pay the workers the full value of their labour. There is not other way of making profits out of industry. When the workers are educated to the real nature of the profit system they lose all respect for the masters and their property. They see the capitalists in their true colours as thieves and parasites, and their "sacred" property as plunder. They see state, church,media and educational establishments  as tools of the exploiters and they look on these institutions with contempt. They understand the identity of interests of all wage workers and realize the truth of the slogan: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

The capitalist system is based upon the production of commodities for profit — for the profit of a
small group who own the means of production, and who do no socially useful work. This means exploitation, wage-slavery, and misery for the masses who do all the useful and necessary work. The capitalist’s prosperity depends upon the making of profits and their conversion into capital. The higher the profits and the lower the wages, the greater is the accumulation of capital.Capitalist governments protects the rich and assists them to rob the workers. The only fight that you as a worker should be interested in, the struggle between the capitalist class and the working class for political power and the ownership of the machinery of production. It is the age-long class war. The only way out is to introduce a system of society in which production is carried on for use, for the benefit of all.

The desire for profits is the motive force which drives the capitalist class to use its capital in the production of wealth. In order to secure profits the workers must be exploited. The plain fact is that a numerically small group of people, the capitalists, who own the machinery of production and the natural resources of the country, have the majority at their mercy. The opposite of low wages are big profits. The present industrial system divides the people into two classes. Anyone with a grain of common sense will admit that. There are people who work for wages and those who employ the wage workers. There are the people who own the industries and those who must go to the owners of industry or their representatives to plead for the chance to earn a living.

The ownership of industry is the source of the power of the profit-seeking class. It gives them control of the opportunities of people to secure the necessities of life. The millions of men and women in this country who are dependent upon the wages they earn for a living are economic serfs. They have not won the “inalienable right of life, liberty, and happiness” as the American Constitution puts it because their ability to earn the necessities of “life, liberty, and happiness” can be taken from them by the owners of industry, and is taken from them whenever the owners of industry are unable to make profits for themselves from the labour of the workers.

The power to hire and fire the workers, to give and take away the opportunity to earn a living, carries with it the power to compel the workers to work for such wages as will leave the capitalists a profit from their labour. The lower the wages for which the capitalists can purchase the labor-power of the workers and the longer their hours of labour, the greater will be the capitalists’ profits. Naturally, the capitalists pay the lowest wages at which they can induce the workers to work. Since they are in a position to deny the workers an earning if the workers do not accept their terms, they have been able to keep the wages at little more than a subsistence level.

The workers naturally seek to increase their wages and reduce their hours of labour. They endeavor to secure for themselves more of the wealth they produce and better working conditions. The capitalists resist. for they can see their profits being menaced by the workers’ demands. The workers organise their power and refuse to work unless their demands are granted, and we have a strike with all its accompaniments of stoppage of production, misery and suffering for the workers, and rioting and bloodshed when the capitalists bring in their strikebreakers, or call in the government to assist them in forcing the workers into submission

Capitalism has become an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be got rid off. A relatively small minority recognise this and are consciously anti-capitalist, while most seek an accommodation with capitalism  to try  to satisfy their needs within the system rather than by overthrowing it. Reformists will make proposals as to how the present regime should deal with problems without ant fundamental change. Reformists talk about government policy because they seek to govern. When capitalism was in its boom-days, there was some hope that capitalism could grant, and reformists could wrest concessions for the workers. Since capitalism has been in recession and it cannot grant substantial concessions. Trade union leaders have found they are unable to gain concessions through negotiations and  compromises. Declining profits hampered the capitalists and they could not give in easily to the economic demands made on them.

 Reform politics is to accept capitalism; to work within its limits. What is needed is unity of thought and action. Far better no organisation at all than a fake form which divides the workers against themselves and misleads them in the interests of the employers.

Desperate to work

 Morrisons, the supermarket chain, advertised 250 vacancies at a new store in Kirkcaldy. Jobseekers were charged 21p a supermarket jobs hotline with more than 10,000 calls in an hour - an incredible rate of almost three calls every second. Jobseekers were charged 21p every time they left a message on the hotline. One applicant ended up with a £40 telephone bill.

The desperate job seeking has mirrored the opening of Asda in Glenrothes when nearly 7000 people were said to have expressed interest in positions and 400 people secured part and full-time jobs at the store.

Fife has the third-highest unemployment rate in Scotland, 7.8% of residents are unable to find work.

Who Are the Freeloaders?

During the present downturn of the economy the National Press is even more eager than usual to cut government expenditure and to them that means welfare benefit cuts. 'At last somebody from the Labour Party has admitted the truth. Our welfare system really does support a lot of people who choose consciously not to work. That somebody is Lord Hutton, a former Work and Pensions Secretary, so he should know what he is talking about. ....... Politicians of all parties should have the guts to put the contributory principle back at the heart of the welfare state and ignore the squeals of outrage from all the freeloaders. This newspaper has been making these points for years.' (Daily Express, 28 August) Those they  refer to as "people who choose consciously not to work" are of course unemployed members of the working class. They would never refer to the owning class as "freeloaders", although that of course is what they are. RD

Nothing stays the still

Life moves and changes. Marxist philosophy holds that the material world – matter – is primary. Ideas – consciousness – are the reflection of this objective reality. Marxism is a guide to action, based on practice. It recognises all things in nature and society as constantly coming into being and passing away. One social system grows into another. A new social order is in the making. We put Marx's concept of the association of free and equal producers to the forefront of our conception of socialism and the administration  of economic life. This is the  basic standpoint the Socialist Party of Great Britain.  Our aim is a world where every region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but are still a part of a world-wide system, based upon a society where everyone owns and  everyone has the equal right to control the natural wealth, the factories and plants in which this natural wealth is processed, and the transportation networks (such as roads and railways) and store-house and outlets centres where this wealth is distributed freely on the principle of to each according to needs.

 The essence of the capitalist system is the ownership and control of the materials and machinery of production and distribution by a small class whose legal title to the industrial and commercial utilities and plants gives them control over the lives of the working majority. The workers suffer in a new form of slavery, wherein their labour power is paid for by wages, and their lives are dependent upon employment by some capitalist master. capitalist society characterised by production for profit. Profit is derived from unpaid labour time. Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital and employment depends upon the production by the worker of a margin of value over and above what received for the labour power. The commodities produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by the capitalists so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. The capitalist employer has no responsibility the wage-worker, except that of paying for the labour-power.

In capitalist society the state is sometimes democratic in appearance. The workers are permitted to take part in elections and seemingly the government is the expression of “the will of the people.” The capitalist government is none the less a class government, the organ of the capitalists for the control and coercion of the workers. Capitalist democracy with all its pretensions to equality, is merely a disguise for the rule of an oligarchy. So long as the capitalists dominates the power of the media, the pulpit, the schools and colleges; so long as millions of workers are subject to their propaganda, the capitalists can well afford to allow the workers the empty privilege of periodically voting to confirm their rule. It is the control of the state power where lies the strength of the capitalist class. This control places at its command the military, the police and the judges for the protection of its class interests. While this power remains in the hands of the capitalists the working class cannot achieve its emancipation.

The Socialist Party proposes to secure control of the capitalist state through electing a majority of the legislative and constitution-making bodies, to use the position thus achieved to transform capitalism. It proposes to capture political power through the popular suffrage, the power of the vote. Socialist delegates to Parliament will not introduce reform measures. They will make clear that such measures are of no fundamental significance to the working class. At best they are belated parliamentary acknowledgments of defensive gains won by the workers in their industrial struggles.

The Socialist Party rejects the conception, as advocated by the IWW and other syndicalists, that it is only by the industrial struggle in itself that are the means through which power can be transferred from the capitalists to the workers. The socialist revolution cannot be achieved by direct seizure of industry by the workers, without the workers first having conquered and captured the power of the State. We maintain that the class struggle is essentially a political struggle. (We, however, do acknowledge that industrial unionism offers more efficient methods of struggle than conventional trade unionism.)

The workers can become emancipated only when capitalist economic relationships are broken
and production is controlled by the workers and the community. The technology invented to serve humanity has become the instruments for enslavement of the producers. Socialism will release all the productive energies for the common welfare of all the people. Instead of profit for a few being the driving force of production the needs and enjoyments of the vast majority of people will be the motivation. The working class will have at its disposal all that civilisation can offer for the enhancement of individual and social life.

There is but one solution for the ills of capitalist society, but one way for the workers to achieve freedom and human life — the way of the Socialist Revolution.