The Trade Union Question

The workers, who have suffered their disappointments from the traditional parties begin themselves quite naturally to press for other means of political expression: means which they believe to be their own. The trade unions are the simplest and most elementary form of workers’ organisations. From the moment trade unions came into existence the strike has always been their principal weapon. The “right to strike” has always stood in the forefront of trade union experience and behind all negotiations, bargains, and settlements. Indeed, all trade union power rests trade unionists willingness to “withdraw their labour”. It is a “right” which cannot be taken away. It can be legally fettered and intimidation may make it difficult to exercise  but to cease work is the essence of working class combination.

Despite the fall in membership workers have demonstrated a remarkable tenacity in clinging to their trade unions. Whatever may happen to this or that union or any number of unions, the workers do not wish to abandon the union movement but to broaden it, increase its militancy, etc. So long as capitalism endures, organisation of some kind on the job to deal with the boss is indispensable. The reason for this is has to do with the system of capitalist exploitation, workers are compelled, in the process of self-defence to struggle not only against separate capitalists, but against the entire capitalist system as well. During the course of their struggle with capitalism, the unions came into collision with the whole capitalist system and with the capitalist State itself. It is a movement of wage-workers and all its problems are based upon the fact that the members of the unions are wage-workers who, to live, must sell their labour power to the private owners of the means of production. The fundamental purpose of the trade unions is the pursuit of the interests of the wage-workers.

It should be remembered that the trade unions are organisations of workers at work, bound up with the question of the terms of labour, such as wages, hours of labour, conditions of work, terms upon which the work has to be done in thousands of different occupations. These are essentially property questions, expressing themselves in struggles between opposing classes for the products of industry. The more they multiply and become general, the more it gives rise to the demand for the control and ownership of industry by the workers themselves. Ownership and control cannot be separated from each other. They who own industry control it.“He who owns the means whereby I live, owns me” Shakespeare wrote.  Hence the question of the workers’ control of industry and the coming of the classless society based upon community ownership are inseparable questions also.

 The issue of the role of the trade unions in the control of industry, what it should be now and in the future, has been a burning question for many trades unionists. The ideas, demands and movements of workers’ participation, workers’ control, self-management, direct workers’ rule, workers’ democracy have a long-standing tradition and are deeply rooted. The pioneers of  the unions recognised the slave condition of the workers in capitalism and had faith in the worker’s power and capacity to abolish the slavery and build a new society of free men-controlling industry in a classless society.  Industrial unionists and syndicalists gave very definite answers to the question. The syndicalists and industrialists advanced the idea of the workers in a particular industry owning and controlling it from top to bottom. This conception of the future of the unions was the modern counterpart to the “House of Trades” of the Chartist pioneers. An adaptation of the industrial unionist proposals was made by the guild socialists who advocated the social ownership of the means of production, the administration of certain political affairs by a citizens’ parliament and the administration of industry by industrial unions or guilds, organized in an industrial assembly, subordinate to Parliament in regard to general policy. GDH Cole argued for the democratisation of the capitalist state with the unions taking a greater share of responsibility for the running of industry by means of representation on its governing bodies, protecting  wage rates, hours of labour, factory conditions, etc., acting as a brake on the rate of exploitation of the workers. They would be  the custodians of certain forms of social insurance, such as unemployment pay, sick pay, old age pensions. They would have the function of “consultants” with regard to the general development and organisation of the economic life of the country.  Syndicalists and industrial unionists assumed that the unions would not only control industry but also serve as the basis of the whole social administration. Guild socialists realised the weakness of this theory and maintained that the State should continue to represent the people as citizens or consumers.

Whatever of value there is in the vision of an industrial democracy, there is no evidence of the possibility of the working class achieving power in that way.  Industry may be “socialized” by trade union control but production will remain on a capitalist basis. At first sight, it is appears an  attractive idea: Get rid of the owners, work for ourselves and enjoy the full fruits of our labour. The idea of  taking over managerial functions from the employers till the factories fully belonged to the workers seems impelling.

 But it is a trap.

A company has to buy its raw materials on the market, along with every other company. A company has to sell its finished products on the market, along with every other company.  A  company has to invest in new plant and equipment, along with every other company.  To do this, they must make enough surplus value and like any other business it is done by employing less staff or by increasing intensity of work or taking a wage cut.  It means workers attacking their own living standards. Workers control of industry is largely incompatible with a union’s character as a voluntary association of the workers formed primarily to protect and represent their interests.  It  means the participation of workers in their own exploitation. As long as the capitalism has not been abolished workers will be obliged to submit to its requirements.

Workers have to seek other methods and goals.

A Little More Food for thought

Relevant to the recent revelation that the US is spying on its own citizens and the governments of other countries, the New York Times (July 21) reported on two Italian hackers working on the Mediterranean island of Malta. They search for bugs, software flaws that governments pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn about and exploit. It allows them to break into the computer systems of their foreign adversaries. Of course, we all know that all countries are at the same game and that the US just got caught with its pants down. What a system that forces everybody to spy on everybody else just to keep up and compete. John Ayers.

Food for thought

Saudi prince, Alwaleed Bin Talal is suing Forbes magazine because in their list of the world's billionaires, his fortune of $20 billion was underestimated by $9.6 billion, according to the prince. Consequently, he should be a few rungs higher on the rich list. How arrogant can they get?
Seems Marx must have been wrong with his crisis theory. In "What' Holding Developing Economies Down" by David Olive (Toronto Star, July 6, 2013) he quotes Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and author of "Breakout Nations", as saying, " Crisis gives birth to reform, which flowers into a boom, which matures into political complacency, which ages into a new crisis". Nothing to do with the capitalist system really
then! John Ayers.

Business for Scotland

Tory supporter, Laurie Clark, the owner and managing director of Paisley-based firm Anglo-Scottish Concrete told Prime Minister David Cameron that he would be backing independence in the referendum.

“The referendum is not a choice between Scottish and British identity. Instead, for me, it is about how best we realise the potential of Scotland, create wealth and jobs, expand the private sector and reform the public sector in the interests of the nation as a whole... We could and should be attracting much more substantial business, investment and jobs with fiscal solutions and broader public policy tailored to the distinctive Scottish economic environment.”

As the Socialist Courier frequently asserts the issue of an independent Scotland is one for the capitalist class to decide upon the division of their spoils. Some will favour it and some will oppose the idea but at the root, as Clark infers - it will all be about who gets the profits - and that certainly won’t be the members of the Scottish working class.

World Revolution

“The whole world has tended to become one community similar to that which exists in a single country. A few weeks ago men were buying and selling. lending and borrowing, contracting and planning, with little attention to national boundaries, when suddenly the whole co-operative system was disrupted.” Standard Oil describing the effect of World War One

  In modern industry, raw material is taken from the Earth, pass through factories, where it is manufactured into articles of sale, and then distributed to markets by various ways of transport. The whole system of  transaction is made possible and facilitated by means of money and credit—by banks and banking. Without the constant co-operation of millions of workers employed in these various sub-divisions there can be no industry in the modern sense. The objective conditions for socialism are apparent everywhere. Cooperative mass organisation of labour within industry, collective corporate enterprise and its far-flung interests, separation of ownership and management and the collective performance of managerial functions by hired employees. We can see this exemplified  by the supermarket chain stores in distribution. An abundance exists which makes possible and necessary the collective or socialist distribution of goods, a socialisation of consumption to correspond with the socialization of production. Capitalism rejects this possibility and necessity because it means its own abolition.

Industry is integrated in socialism, managed as a whole, not as scattered parts disregarding and clashing with one another. Considerations of private interest or profit interfere neither with production nor consumption. Rational planning of industry is possible, with the exclusive aim of meeting community needs. The abundance of industry is released on an immensely enlarged scale. As this means the abolition of capitalism there is a clash of the old and the new, a struggle of classes, a struggle for power between the classes representing the old and the new.

The struggle for power aims to get control of the state or to retain control. Like all states, the capitalist state is an organ of class rule and suppression, under capitalist control, enmeshed in all the class-economic and exploiting relations of the existing order. Capitalism creates an ideology to disguise and justify its predatory character: it is a necessary device of class domination. The dominant capitalist interests use all means, of an increasingly forcible nature as the struggle sharpens, to retain control of the state for a twofold purpose: to suppress the proletariat and its allies in the struggle for power, and to augment the economic activity of the state. Although their ideal is that government is best which governs least capitalists constantly enlarges the scope and use of state power. More and more state action was required by the complex relations and problems arising out of capitalist expansion. Governments “protect” the home market and newly developing industries,  enterprises call for state intervention in the form of financial subsidies or actual government ownership for various reasons: their unprofitable character, lack of private capital, as a source of government revenue, in the interests of the economy as a whole, or simply for reasons of political expediency. The state “regulates” the relations of capitalism. State capitalism is used to  encourage and permit more rapid economic development.

The term state capitalism was originally used to designate only the government ownership of economic enterprises. But its meaning is now much wider to include all forms of government intervention in economic activity to aid capitalism to overcome the contradictions and antagonisms in industry, particularly in the United States. The intervention is always within the relations of capitalist property and exploitation, of the subjection of labour to capital. All forms of state capitalism are animated by the necessity and use of the collective action of the state to “strengthen” capitalism as much as it can and “compensate” for the effects of  the anarchy of production as much as is possible. State capitalism has been greeted by many on the Left  and the reformists as the progressive unfoldment of a new social order. In reality, the result has been the deepening entrenchment of capitalism.

Pressure from workers has forced the adoption of reforms and minor concessions of social legislation to “placate” this labour opposition. The usual justification for reform from the Left lies in the fact that they make it easier for the workers to organise themselves and enlighten themselves about the real meaning of capitalism and the part that they are forced to play under it, and shows the thinking worker how futile it is to dream of reforming capitalism. They furnish, besides that, a rallying ground for those workers who cannot see beyond their own nose, and perhaps would not understand socialism, but do feel the need for a shorter working day.

The risk, however, arises when reformists try to persuade the workers as well as themselves that socialism only means the sum of a number of such petty acts and restrictions; that in other words, welfare measures are socialism. By that approach “socialism” gets the credit for legislation which are in all but name means for defending capitalism against socialism and all the disadvantages which arise from that fact are written down to the discredit of socialism. The dominant class interests use a bastardised “socialism” to prevent the coming of socialism and to stabilise capitalism

No doubt reform changes will always produce a certain reaction such as disillusionment but that may be less if there are some real advantages than if the whole measure is an elaborate swindle. The main point, however, is whether the experience of decades of social reform activities has not been to show that it would be simpler and better to concentrate our efforts on the abolition of capitalism than on any attempts to reform it. That is not to say that we need reject capitalist reforms but we ought to regard them as what they are, as attempts to prolong capitalism. The less enthusiasm we show ourselves about them, the more keen will the capitalist may well champion them.

Our business as socialist is to show how inadequate all such reforms are as solutions to remove the evils from which the workers suffer. But above all there is a need for us to make clear that only with the abolition of production for profit, and the competition between the capitalists for sources of profitable investment which is an inevitable result of the capitalist system, can we get rid of the social problems of capitalism such as poverty, crime and war.

 Socialists may sometimes talk about the inevitability of socialism but there is for socialists a great danger to forget the requirement for enthusiasm for the great social and economic transformation of society. Many overlook the fact that it is the collective workers’ will which  forms the essential element in that development of socialism. We also assume that the workers will continue to engage in the daily class struggle . Were they to accept the coming of socialism  in a fatalist sense, and think that they could sit down tamely and wait till socialism came to them, they would soon lose all the rights that they have gained and become mere slaves.

The reformism of capitalism must fail. But that does not make socialism inevitable. Capitalism does not “grow into” socialism, it merely determines the necessary historical conditions, which provide the  working class with the opportunity for creative action. State capitalism is not the transition to socialism but a reaction against it and  becomes a type of corporate capitalism. There is no “final" crisis of capitalism , unless the workers makes it so. For capitalism can always find a “way out” from a recession, even if it is by stumbling about blindly for the exit.

When class-conscious  workers, both politically and economically, have become so well organised as to make their exploitation impossible, then capitalism will have reached the end of its life. That is what we understand by social revolution, and our ideal – that of human brother- and sisterhood – is revolutionary, because it is only to be realised by the social revolution.

Who Owns the North Pole Part 62

With help from the French energy company Total and the China National Petroleum Corporation, Russian capitalists celebrate global warming by building $20 Billion natural gas plant in  the Arctic.

Gas produced from the Yamal LNG plant would be shipped to Asia along northern sea lanes that only began opening up four years ago as warmer ocean temperatures thawed and thinned the ice sheets. Global warming may be causing worrisome environmental  damage, but for oil and gas industrialists such changes can mean new-found profits.

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/russians-capitalists-celebrate-global-warming-by-building-20-billion-natural-gas-plant-in-arctic-130726?news=850682

This "wonderful" world - Or a new one?

The basic problem of capitalism is the source of all its weakness is found in the fact that this system does not carry on production for the benefit of society as a whole but for the profit of a relatively small owning or controlling class. The industries by which society must live are owned by private individuals or by the government who ruthlessly exploit the masses who work in these industries. Under capitalism production is regulated not by the needs of the majority  but by whether or not the capitalist or ruling class can make a profit by such production; commodities are not produced primarily for use, but for profit. Even the limited progress that capitalism has accomplished for humanity has been achieved at the cost of incredible misery, poverty and slaughter of the working class.

 Conflict and disruptive struggles between individual capitalists and between rival capitalist States are systematic. There exists a  division of capitalist society into classes of exploiters and producers, with resultant class struggle between them.  Capitalist production is anarchic. Capitalism can live only by a rapid extension of its market. The innumerable individual capitalists and companies, compete and ruthlessly exploit the toiling working class, produce whatever they think they can sell. The development of the capitalist system has not been even and steady, but by a series of jerks. The zigzag graph made by the cyclical crises  is quite familiar. First, the upward trend, a period of industrial expansion, with rising prices and wages, an era of good employment, “prosperity” and optimism, gradually developing into a boom, with its characteristic orgies of feverish production, stock speculation, etc.; secondly, the downward trend, with the gradual surfeit of the market from excess production, slowing down of industry, wage-cuts, fall of prices, mass unemployment, financial “panics” and general economic crisis; and thirdly, the trough of the crisis, in which the productive forces are diminished and the choking surplus of commodities, in the low state of production, are consumed or wasted in various ways and the markets thus cleared for a fresh race between the swiftly expanding productive forces and the more slowly developing capitalist market. The current recession  showed how whole sections of the capitalist economy can fall into paralysis, and this paralysis spreads.

The cyclical crisis also greatly sharpens the major social contradiction of capitalism, the ever-active antagonism between the working class and the capitalist class. In economic crises the capitalists always seek to shift the economic burden onto the workers through wage-cuts, etc., and this still further stokes the class struggle. Hence, the capitalist cyclical crises have been especially periods of great strikes fiercely fought, growing class consciousness of the workers.  A basic indication to-day of the general crisis of capitalism is the increasing revolutionary upsurge throughout the world.  It varies in intensity from intensified protest movements to increased strike actions to actual struggles for power. Workers, faced by intolerable conditions, are exhibiting the characteristic signs of radicalisation. Workers everywhere are beginning  to penetrate the lies of capitalism.

Capitalism has created the objective conditions for socialism. But it can go no further.  Capitalism has provided its own executioners and grave diggers, the working class. Socialism is no longer is it simply the aspiration of an oppressed working class. Now it is a living, growing reality. Socialism abolishes the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production and social organization; it does away with the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalist industry, breeder of industrial crises and war. It sets up instead a planned system of economy in harmony with the global character of modern industry and social relationships. Instead of a hodge-podge of competing enterprises, socialism will create a great, inter-linked and co-ordinated modern industrial-agricultural machine; instead of a profit-making apparatus to fatten a few while millions starve, it socialism will building its industries for the benefit of the producers. In  socialism there is no exploitation. There will be no ruling, owning class, no class to get a rake-off from the worker’s production.The main task of all capitalist governments is the suppression and exploitation of the people.

The capitalists, as is their wont, seek to justify their destructive type of competition by asserting that it is rooted firmly in human nature. Such appeals to “human nature,” however, must be taken cautiously. By that method of reasoning it would be quite easy to conclude that the rich capitalist who heartlessly casts workers out of the factory penniless and gives no thought as to their future has quite a different “human nature” than of the Amazon hunter who, with his high sense of tribal solidarity, before eating his kill, calls loudly in the four directions in case perchance there may be another hungry hunter nearby. Changed social conditions develop different “human natures.”

 Socialism will be use machinery and technology  on the broadest scale possible to produce the necessities of life in the industries, transport systems and communication services. Socialist society will also know how to develop the creative and  artistic impulses of the people which are presently checked by poverty and slavery, hamstrung by the profit-making motive, where the masses and poisoned by anti-social codes of morals and ethics. Every free community will involve the maximum cultivation of the intellectual and artistic powers of all. The imprint of individuality and originality will be upon everything. Socialism frees humanity from the stultifying effects of the present struggle for existence and opens up before it new horizons of joys and tasks.

The socialist revolution is the most profound of all revolutions in history. It initiates changes more rapid and far-reaching than any in the whole experience of mankind. The hundreds of millions of workers, striking off their age-old chains of slavery, will construct a society of liberty and prosperity and intelligence. Socialism will inaugurate a new era for the human race, the building of a new world. The overthrow of capitalism and the development of socialism will bring about the immediate or eventual solution of many great social problems. Some of these originate in capitalism, and others have plagued humanity for scores of centuries -  war, religion, superstition, prostitution, famine, disease, crime, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, race and national chauvinism, the suppression of woman, and every form of slavery and exploitation of one class by another.  Capitalism, with its wars, wage slavery, slums, crooked doctors, etc., undermines the health of the race and destroys its physique. Socialism with its healthy dwellings and working conditions, its nutritious and plentiful food,  will offer well-being to all.

Socialists have and must always interest themselves in the nature of the capitalist state. They must fight to have it democratised even from the point of view of capitalist democracy. But in that struggle we must be constantly be teaching the workers that not capitalist democracy and not the capitalist state will bring us socialism but workers themselves.

We take it for granted that socialism cannot be introduced by a change of the constitution and the enactment of one law after another. We take it for granted that the state is an instrument to serve and protect the interests of the capitalist class. The police, the military, the courts and all the powers lodged in government departments and ministries are all freely at the service of the ruling class. Behind the Parliamentary majority there must stand the organised workers – there must be mass struggles and participation to secure the necessary transformation of the State machine. This is the dictatorship of the proletariat, the whole class exercising political power, realising new forms of organisation.  It is the class struggle in its most intense form that will decide what class will have power and whether a socialist world will be created.

Capitalism, based upon human exploitation, stands as the great barrier to social progress. There will come day in the not so far distant future when our children, immersed in this new life, will look back with horror upon capitalism and be aghast by just how long we tolerated it for.

The True Story of American History

This Is Progress?

Many  have the notion that we live in a society that despite its flaws is somehow or other progressing but recent developments must make them wonder. The Government have a van driving around London in areas where large numbers of ethnic minorities live which feature the message 'In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest'. We have an UKIP MEP referring to 'bongo bongo land'. What kind of progress is this? The ideas of nationalism and racism are obnoxious to socialists and hopefully to more workers RD

The Enigma

FIGHT FOR A WORLD OF ABUNDANCE

Many mistake the economic crash, the failures at the Stock Exchange, financial and banking disasters for the cause. Such like factors may lead to, but are not the causes of, business depressions and the recession. Capitalism is a s free-for-all that endures for a while. Every manufacturer and trader is the antagonist, opponent, and rival of all others; each seeks to surpass or conquer all others in the industrial battle.  Manufacturers must keep on turning out goods to keep machinery and works in action; the businessman places orders in anticipation of new orders, and in this way pays his old debts by contracting new ones. Finally all trade becomes blockaded; business stagnates; industry languishes; orders slow up, for
stocks are abnormally large. Workers are put on short-time,  temporary laid off, or made redundant and dismissed. Manufacturers are compelled to shut down their works, or cut back on production. Businesses cannot pay their old debts, for they cannot contract new ones. Banks refuse to loan money, some of them will even burst because they have loaned out too much.

There exists great riddles. Why is it millions upon millions hundreds should suffer deprivation and misery in a world that can provide abundance?  Why is there poverty amidst plenty? Why this endless repetition of suffering? Why is there no remedy? These are the questions which every thoughtful person must seriously contemplate and endeavor to solve.

Capitalism has itself constructed the basis for transcending the misery to which it condemns humanity. It long ago built up the productive forces—industry, technology and a globalised network economy—to the point where the possibility exists to produce an abundance of all the things people need. Shortages of housing, food and every other form of want can be easily overcome, but that potential remains trapped by capitalism’s pursuit of profit.  Capitalism is a free-for-all that endures for a while. Every manufacturer and trader is the antagonist, opponent, and rival of all others; each seeks to surpass or conquer all others in the industrial battle.

Reformists promise to redistribute wealth, to regulate the multinationals and the banking giants. They promise panaceas of social security that are unrealisable while the conditions of capitalism remain. Hopes arise that out of this they may restore the economy. Futile hopes, empty dreams! Raw material exists in abundance, human energy and ingenuity is in abundance, the genuine desire for useful articles of all kinds exists in every home,yet under capitalist control of industry it is impossible to bring these together. Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The earth is one vast mass of raw materials. Hidden in every passing river, in every wave or tide, in every gust of wind and ray of sun, are the renewable forces to be transformed into energy. We can tap into Nature’s fabulous abundance to banish for all time the spectre of want, and make Earth fit for human habitation, once again. The Socialist’s  mission is to win the world back from capitalist barbarism. A socialist society would seek to produce the needs of all rather than the profit of an elite class of profiteers.

 By producing an abundance of necessary goods for all, socialism removes the very basis for the existence of classes. Necessary work would be divided equally among all. And the introduction of labor-saving technology, instead of creating unemployment as it does under capitalism, would be used to shorten the work week and free workers’ lives for greater leisure. In such ways the basis would be laid for the development of a society free of all forms of exploitation and oppression. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism

Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production  and exchange and their democratic organization and management by all the people in a society free of classes, class divisions and class  rule. Socialism is the democratic organization of production use,  of production for abundance, of plenty for all, without the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the union of the whole world into an international association of free and equal peoples, disposing in common of the natural resources and wealth of our shared planet.

Can this great ideal ever be realised?

Socialist society is not a dream or utopia. All the conditions for the formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being of all is perfectly feasible. Capitalism has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without freeing the whole of humanity. Socialist society is the product of workers' revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.A large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs. But for all the immensity of society's material resources.

The advances in computerisation and information technology means that the organisation of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before.  The backbone of socialist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realisation of communist society.

In socialism, production  is organised for use, not for profit. Production is carried on in a  planned,  democratically-controlled way, not on the  basis of whether or not the private capitalist can make a profit on  the market.

Where there is abundance for all, the nightmare of insecurity vanishes. There are jobs for all, and they are no longer dependent  on whether or not the employer can make a fat profit on a fat market. There is not only a high standard of living, but every industrial advance is followed by a rising standard of living and a declining  working-day. More leisure, less toil.

Where there is abundance for all, and where no one has the economic power to exploit and oppress others, the basis of classes,  class division and class conflict vanishes. The basis of a ruling state,  of a government of violence and repression, with its prisons and police and army, also disappears. Police and thieves, prisons and violence are inevitable where there is economic inequality, or abundance for the few and scarcity for the many. They disappear when  there is plenty for all, therefore economic equality, therefore social  equality.

Where there is abundance for all, and where all have equal  access to the fruits of the soil and the wealth of industry, the mad  conflicts and wars between nations and peoples vanish. With them  vanishes the irrepressible urge that exists under capitalism for one  nation to subject others, to rob it of its resources, to exploit and oppress it, to provoke and maintain the hideous national and racial antagonisms that cling to capitalism like an ineradicable bloodstain.

We in the Socialist Party of Great Britain are organized to make the working class  conscious of its historical mission, of the great part it must play in reorganising society itself. We are part and parcel of  the working class and the labour movement.

We do not say to the workers: "Fix your eyes so rigidly on the  socialist future that you ignore the needs and battles of the day."  Rather, we also say: "Fight every-day for that which will  strengthens the working class,  which gives it a stronger position in society, which increases its self-confidence and militancy, which pits it against its mortal enemy capitalism and the capitalist class-which strengthens its independence, and which, therefore, brings it a step further along the road  of struggle for the socialist future."

Socialism  puts an end to the class division of society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, market, exchange of commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for all. Work, which in capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an involuntary, mechanical and strenuous activity to earn a living, gives way to voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by virtue of being a human being and being born into human society will be equally entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need — this is a basic principle of communist society.  The administrative affairs of the society will be managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of its members.

Not only class divisions but also the division of people according to occupation will disappear. All fields of creative activity will be opened up to all. The development of each person will be the condition of development of the society.

Socialism is a global society. National boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human identity. Socialist society is a society free of religion, superstitious beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free thought.

The wage-labour system, that is the daily compulsion of the great majority of people to sell their physical and intellectual abilities to others in order to make a living, is the source and essence of the violence which is inherent of this system. This naked violence has many direct victims: Women, workers, children, the aged, people of the poorer regions of the world, anyone who stands up to any oppression, and anyone who has been branded as belonging to this or that "minority". In this system, thanks essentially to the rivalry of economic blocs, war and genocide have assumed staggering proportions. The technology of war and mass destruction is far more advanced than the technology used in production of goods. The bourgeoisie's global arsenal can annihilate the world several times over. This is the system that has actually used horrendous nuclear and chemical weapons against people.

Nowhere in socialist theory is use of force viewed as a necessary component of workers' revolution.

Capitalism is a world system and the workers' socialist movement must also be organised on a global scale, a  body uniting the workers' global struggle for socialism.

Food for thought

Though some countries are getting too much water with flooding caused by global warming, in Egypt the government is worried they may not get enough. Their concern is caused by Ethiopia's proposed construction of the $42 billion Grand Renaissance dam that might reduce the amount of water in the Nile. The Egyptian government said, "Egypt will never surrender its right to Nile water and all options to safeguard it are being considered." Younis Makhyoun, the
leader of the Islamist party said that Egypt should back rebels in Ethiopia or, as a last resort, destroy the dam. Whatever the outcome, it will not be good and underlines the primitive division of the earth into competing countries under our current system. A socialist world would manage resources for the benefit of everyone using the best scientific and common sense paradigms. John Ayers.

Misplaced Loyalty

The ideas of nationalism are repugnant to socialists. Which country you are born in is an accident, in fact your birth itself was probably an accident. Despite this many workers sing national anthems, wave flags and identify themselves with "their country". Britain like every other country is owned by a tiny handful of the population and recent figures have shown the British working class are becoming even poorer. 'British workers have suffered one of the biggest falls in real wages among European countries over the past three years, with only crisis-hit Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands doing worse. New figures collated by the House of Commons Library show a 5.5 per cent drop in wages after inflation since 2010.' (Independent, 11 August) RD

Remember our Past - Fight for our Future

The union movement has proven itself to be a powerful instrument of a defensive character and as a potential force that poses the possibility of a fundamental transformation in socio-economic relations from wage labor to a free association of labor and common ownership of its product -  socialism. The history of US labour has often been mythologised into a stereotype based on Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters and the Mafia, as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in the movie FIST. The idea of a labor unions led by a corrupt and self-serving class collaborationist bureaucracy has been too simplistic and misleading. In the United States employers are often not merely above the law, they are the law. Hand in hand with industrial despotism goes political despotism. The master class controls everything, police, courts; the whole political and state power is in its possession and under its control.

 On June 21, 1877 eleven “Mollie Maguires” were executed. The men who perished were early martyrs to the class struggle in the United States.  In 1887 occurred the infamous judicial  murder of the Haymarket Martyrs. In the seven years of 1890–97 an estimated 92 people were killed in major strikes, and from January 1902 to September 1904 an estimated 198 people were killed and 1,966 wounded. Over the years 1877–1968 state and federal troops intervened in labour disputes, almost invariably on behalf of the employers, on more than 160 occasions. Overall, a check of strike casualties actually reported in the national press over these same years gives a total of 700 dead and thousands more injured. 29 people were killed in major strikes between 1947 and 1962.

 Capitalism feeds upon the blood of labour.

The employers, through their agents in control of government and the entire state apparatus, have erected a whole network of laws and regulations designed to hamstring the labor movement. These range from the various regulations designed to make it difficult for unions to establish the fact that they represent a majority of a specific group of workers, to those which only permit strike action after a long process of delay, that not only make it illegal to strike within the life of contracts, to the ever- increasing use of court injunctions forbidding or limiting pickets, and the extension of compulsory arbitration to ever wider areas of the work force. Organized labor has grown weaker in relation to the growth of the work force.  Large layers of workers, poorly paid and helpless before the onslaughts of rising prices, the price of health-care, all the insecurities that are products of capitalist society, have fallen prey to the capitalist- inspired propaganda that the union movement is a narrow, a sectional power bloc, insensitive to their needs and concerned only with its own welfare. But think on. Do you find that the fatter the employer gets, the fatter also grows the employee? Or rather is it that the wealthier the boss becomes, the poorer his workers get.

Between the working class and the capitalist class there exists an  irreconcilable conflict, a class struggle for life. No glib-tongued politician, no academic professor deny the fact. There are ranged on the one side all those who owned the tools of production, and on the other those who used them.  It is a struggle that will not go away, and  can only be ended by the abolition of the capitalist class. This is the natural order of the damnable and sordid economic system in which we live.  This is the order which will remain until it is altered by one of these classes, and the class which will make the alteration will be the working-class or slave class.  That is its mission.  With the proper understanding of the economic system, the workers will soon find means to end that system, and to raise on its ruins a development of society having for its goal the benefit of the whole of the community instead of only the vested interests of a few.

The class struggle is the ceaseless struggle which goes on from day to day in every country. The struggle on all occasions is over some advantage which the one seeks to obtain over the other.  It may take the form of more wages or shorter hours or the alteration of some working condition; but the particular point really does not matter, the opposing forces are always the same – the master class and the working class. Society is  like a huge market where two commodity possessors come to sell their goods. The capitalist brings his commodity – money, and the worker his commodity – labor power. The worker sells his labor power in exchange for a wage which is what will bring him the subsistence of life, food, clothing and shelter.  In return for their slavery they receive only sufficient pay to enable them to continue operating the machinery from day to day, and to perpetuate their class.  It would be a catastrophe to the capitalist system if slaves did not breed more slaves. The supporters of a system are those who have gained control of it or control of the means of production, those whose interests are bound up in it.  The system is capitalism, and those who control it are capitalists.

The State in a class-divided society can be nothing other than an instrument in the hands of the class owning the property and means of production in society. The talk of “reconciling class interests” is simple deceit. It is impossible to reconcile the interests of the slave owner and the slave, the exploiter and the exploited. Parliament grew out of feudalism and after the capitalist revolution developed as the natural custodian of the interests of capitalism. It was founded on private property foundations. Its laws are the laws of private property. The modifications that have taken place, the extension of the franchise and the growth of social legislation for the working-class are the reflection of the growing strength and power of the working-class.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain endeavours to convince the workers of the inadequacy of reformism and the necessity for revolution. We shall fight reformists  to the end. Not by lies and slanders, not by violence, but through argument. We, socialists, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers into the camp of capitalism. The intensity of the class struggle is greater today than at any time since the capitalists overthrew feudalism. Now it is the working class that must overthrow capitalism. Use the ballot against capitalism. Vote for socialism. Vote for the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary banner unfurled  in unremitting struggle for a socialism.

 Non-revolutionary political parties contest one another for votes and office. They represent different sections of the ruling class struggling for their share of profits and privilege, vying with eachother for control of the governmental bureaucracy, and perhaps presenting different theories of how best to keep the compliance of the people by securing this or that reform or concession for this or that section of the population. All promise material betterment, peace, prosperity and security yet none of these are possible under capitalism. These parties are dedicated to the maintenance and defense of capitalism and only differ in the ways and the manner of the “appeal” which they make to the voter.

All varieties of non-revolutionary politics PRESUPPOSE the continuance of the existing order in its fundamental structure: that is to say in capitalist society, its capitalist property relations, the exploitation of the majority by the propertied minority.

Socialists must break through the deceptions of politics. They must pose directly the central issue: the class struggle for  socialism. Their success in an election campaign is not to be measured in votes won, but in the extent they have succeeded in bringing the central issue before the consciousness of the working class. The main issue for the worker is the CLASS issue. All of its propaganda, all its discussion must be attached to this issue. Now, more clearly than ever before, it must be the Socialist Party for socialism.

The Glorious 12th

The grouse season opens.  A week of fishing and stalking in Sutherland's Reay forest estate is being offered for £6,500.

Scotland has the most inequitable land ownership in Europe. More than half of of all privately owned in Scotland is in the hands of 432 people. In Scotland, the largest eight landowners own 908,000 acres or 3.2 per cent of accessible land. 50 individuals own  20 per cent of Scottish land.

 According to the academic and land reformer, Jim Hunter explains "We're now six years into an SNP government which has so far done absolutely nothing legislatively about the fact that Scotland continues to be stuck with the most concentrated, most inequitable, most unreformed and most undemocratic land ownership system in the entire developed world."

Agricultural subsidies and forestry grants are weighted so that the largest farms, owned by the biggest landowners, receive the largest handouts. Such owners can claim five-figure sums a week in subsidies. The landowners also cash in on windfarms to the tune of £1bn a year. Scotland's richest people are skimming off more millions from taxpayers when benefits are being capped and the bedroom tax is forcing people on to the street.  A 28,000 acre Highland estate near Bridge of Orchy is on the market for £11.4 million and whoever buys it will immediately qualify for state-funded hand-outs of £12,000 a week,

Land means power, so Scotland's few hundred aristocrats can scarcely be expected to give up on four centuries of owning more than half of the country. They regard themselves as the sole arbiters of what is good in the countryside. As for protecting wildlife, then perhaps we simply have to assume that those golden eagles and other birds of prey found dead on grouse shooting estates every year must have poisoned themselves.

Since the end of the Second World War landowners have without regulation been able to create tracks across their property providing they are for farming or forestry purposes. However, the environmental groups – who include the RSPB, Ramblers Scotland, Scottish Wild Land Group and the National Trust for Scotland – say many of the tracks laid are for country sports such as shooting and have no agricultural or forestry use. They also insist that a number are poorly constructed, unsightly and threaten the environment. Helen Todd of Ramblers Scotland and co-convener of the campaign group said: “Currently tracks can simply be bulldozed across the countryside almost anywhere in Scotland, and have caused huge visual and environmental damage in some of Scotland’s finest landscapes.”

Beryl Leatherland, also of the Scottish Wild Land Group, added: “Tracks have been dug deep into peat, releasing large quantities of CO2 and destroying sensitive habitats, carved straight up steep hillsides and even over the summits of several hills, leaving erosion scars that spread for years and are visible for many miles. Some of the examples we have seen amount to little more than vandalism.”

Since the early 17th century, a cabal of landowners has enjoyed the riches and privileges conferred on them by ownership of land that, for the most part, was obtained illegally and at the point of a sword. The Scots aristocrats are as Tom Johnston once said in his book Noble Families “the descendants of successful pirates and rogues”.

Andy Wightman, author of “The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland (and How They Got It), explains "The land on which many of our lairds sit was stolen in the 17th century. But these ill-gotten gains were protected by acts which maintained their hegemony after the rest of Europe ditched feudalism and concentrated land ownership." He describes how the aristocracy embraced the 1560 Reformation as a means of getting their hands on land belonging to the "Auld Kirk". They needed to protect their stolen goods with a robust law. The Act of Prescription (1617) declared that any land occupied for 40 years or more was indemnified from future legal challenge. The law remains in place and has effectively upheld the gentry's rights to stolen goods for 400 years.

Tom Gray, spokesman and co-ordinator of the Scottish Tenants Farmers Association, said "The families of many of Scotland's tenant farmers have worked this land for generations. They have invested money in them and made improvements, while the estate owners sit back and employ agents to raise rents every three years...we are seeing an increasing number of cases where our members are being forced out due to a lack of co-operation by the estate owners and often downright intimidation."

 Andrew Riddell was a tenant farmer. He and his family had worked on the farm for more than 100 years and then, one day, he was given notice to quit by his landlord, Alastair Salvesen, billionaire and Scotland's third-richest man. The notice followed a year-long legal case which finally found in favour of Salvesen. The judge ruled that the protections Riddell thought he had in the tenancy arrangement were trumped by the landlord's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. He killed himself after collecting his final harvest.

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH

Richard Scott is the 10th Duke of Buccleuch. He owns 240,000 acres of land worth between £800m and £1bn, making him the largest private landowner in the UK. His title confers on him chairmanship of the Buccleuch Group which has interests in commercial property, rural affairs and food. The title was created in 1663 by King Charles II for his eldest son, the Duke of Monmouth.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

The 12th Duke of Atholl is Bruce George Ronald Murray, who inherited the title following the death of John Murray last year. The Atholls were to become participants in the Highland Clearances when tenants on their land were thrown off to make way for sheep.

THE DUKE OF ROXBURGHE

Guy David Innes-Ker is the 10th Duke of Roxburghe. He was the elder son of the 9th duke by his second wife. He succeeded his father to the title of Duke of Roxburghe in 1974. The duke is also a baronet and a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, having been educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He has expressed disappointment that the Land Reform Review Group "concentrates so heavily on expansion of community ownership".

A Cancerous System

A survey of 2,217 adults carried out by YouGov for the charity Macmillan Cancer Support has revealed the appalling state of treatment for NHS patients. Patients say their medical files have been lost, putting their health at serious risk. They add that they are "humiliated" by nurses and forced to wait to go to the toilet. 'A survey found that of the 170,000 cancer victims admitted to hospitals in England each year, around 18,000 - or 11 per cent - said their files were lost by a doctor or nurse. Some 15 per cent felt they were belittled by nurses while 14 per cent were forced to wait at least 30 minutes after asking for help to go to the toilet - one per cent waited for at least two hours.' (Daily Express, 9 August) Needless to say this treatment is for members of the working class. Members of the owning class can afford the best of medical treatment. RD

Politics And Poverty

Despite the Coalition government's claim to be a family-orientated organisation families are suffering at their hands. Food banks across Britain are being inundated with requests for emergency meals as families struggle to feed their children through the school holidays. The Trussell Trust, which runs the country's largest network of food banks, says this is the busiest summer it has ever experienced, with some of its branches seeing double the number of requests for emergency parcels since the start of the holidays. 'Parents whose children ordinarily receive free school lunches are among those struggling the most, as they now have to find an extra meal every day. The trust says the situation is worse than last summer because of rising food prices - which despite falling slightly in the latest Government figures are more than 4 per cent higher than last year - and the impact of the Coalition's welfare changes that were launched in  April.' (Independent, 9 August) RD

The War of the Classes

This war of the classes has raged throughout the ages and not always have the participants even been conscious of their parts in it. It is nevertheless universal and bitter. The class struggle will end when the causes that give rise to it are removed. The economic structure of society must be remodeled before the basis for a real civilization can be laid, formed with knowledge and power. The working class will change the economic basis of our life and establish equality where exploitation and misery now reign supreme. The workers are obliged to  fight for their own existence and for the future of all society.

According to our capitalist society the owners of the means of life are under no obligation to see that their fellow beings, who do not possess such means, are provided with the opportunity to make a living. When the capitalist cannot make profits out of the labour of the workers he turns them out, cuts off their source of bread without the least compunction. They may starve to death for all he cares. He is not their keeper except while they keep him in fat dividends. While differing in many respects from previous forms of exploitation, capitalism is no less cruel and merciless. The capitalists own the means by which we live and thus we are at their mercy in no less degree than were our ancestors in the days of chattel slavery. The kings of old ruled the world with an iron hand, but they had a much smaller world to command than the industrial monarchs of today. Modern capitalism leaves a trail behind it as bloody as that of its predecessors and a record of cruelty and injustice just as brutal.

The truth of the matter is that this is a rich man’s State and a rich man’s Government. The State is there to act on behalf of capital and to protect its interests against the people. The government is the executive committee of employing class. The State is an instrument of power in the hands of the industrialists, bankers and landlords, who by this token are the ruling class. The State is there to effect the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the poor. The government, its laws, its agencies: the military, the police, the courts, the jails— all are there to effect the exploitation and oppression of you and millions like you. The capitalist desires to squeeze more sweat and blood out of the workers, and there is the wish of the workers to fight back against their enemy, who feeds upon them. There is war, a class war. It is waged by one class, the oppressors, against the other class, the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the corporations. Every one who tries to persuade you that the State is a friend to defend you, that the State is neutral and impartial and only the honest broker and mediator offering fair regulatory legislation is lying.  Under capitalism you cannot protect both  the capitalists and  the workers.  When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labor”. When you protect labor you make it possible for labor to get more out of industry. Socialists  recognize the true nature of the capitalist State. The State may change its appearance and its appendages. It may use the parliamentary system, with a limited freedom of speech to opponents — as long as this opposition is not too dangerous. It tightens the screws and tries to silence the opposition when the situation becomes disturbing for businesses.  Under different circumstances it may do away with parliamentary procedure altogether and institute a dictatorship when a danger to capitalism becomes particularly acute.  The forms change and the language  differs according to time and place. But the essence remains. The essence being the capitalist State is in the employ of capitalism for the preservation of capitalism.

“Who are the Socialist Party of Great Britain ?” We would like to answer immediately, “It is the political organisation to be used as the means toward gaining socialism” But alas that is only our own aspiration and not yet the reality. Too often many look upon the party as the ultimate end we are striving for, and not the means to that end. We are accused that we are a  merely a theoretical propaganda party and this policy stands in the way of success. “Practical politics” is to-day in ascendance everywhere. Principles have naught to say on the matter. The point is to win, and to win at all costs. We have no monopoly on the use of the word socialism.  But in the end the cause will know its own. We will continue to say until we are proved wrong that democracy has prepared for the workers all the means necessary to achieve socialism. Let the workers use universal suffrage to send socialists into all the legislative assemblies. Let the socialists form a majority in these assemblies and when this is done, the way is open to abolish the capitalist system. To make socialism possible the workers must take hold of the State machinery of capitalism.

 There is no room for any collaboration or co-operation of any kind with the ruling class which must be dispossessed, both politically and economically. There can be no bond or union between  those in Government, and we, who wish to overthrow them. There can be nothing in common but the battlefield and the struggle. If this class war successfully carried out by the working class brings about a victory, then with an end of the class system it will enable us to attain true social peace. The SPGB, therefore, calls upon all the workers to mass round the banner of socialism. 

Morality And Money

The British government likes to portray itself as an organisation of the highest moral principles and absolutely opposed to brutality. Except of course when it threatens their master's profits. 'Britain is in talks to sell 12 Typhoon fighter jets to Bahrain, despite the Gulf state's controversial human rights record. The proposed deal with the Gulf monarchy rocked by protests in 2011 is thought to be worth more than £1 billion and is part of a concerted effort by Gulf countries to strengthen military ties with Britain. ........... Amnesty International claimed the arms negotiations showed human rights worries were once again playing second fiddle to British business deals.' (Daily Telegraph, 10 August) The highly political deal was one of the main agenda items in a recent Downing Street meeting between David Cameron and King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain's government faced condemnation and accusations of brutality for its repression of protests led by the island's Shia majority in early 2011. RD

Food for thought

The New York Times (July 7) provided yet another example of a 'tiger economy' leaving the people behind. The Philippines growth of 7.8% and the rising glass towers is evidence of lots of money but work is scarce, low-paid, and seventeen million have left to find work elsewhere. More than nine million cannot afford the $135/month needed to eat.
Meanwhile, research conducted by Equilar for the Times shows that the 200 top executives' average pay packet came in at $15.1 million, a leap of sixteen per cent from 2011. For example, Leslie Moonves, CBS pulled in $60.3 million, Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, $22.4 million, Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle, $96.2 million, Marissa A. Mayer, Yahoo 36.6 million. Nice work if you can get it, and get away with it. John Ayers

The Rich Housing List

Indeed a housing crisis exists, particularly for the rich - a crisis of which country estate to buy. The magazine for the lairds and the squires, Country Life,  has advertised a number of desirable rural residencies in Scotland.

10,143-acre Cluny estate at Laggan, Invernessshire,  ‘offers over £7.5 million'. The house has three main reception rooms along with seven main bedrooms and five bathrooms. Eleven estate houses and cottages are used to house staff or could be developed as holiday lets.

Hoscote estate at Roberton, in the Borthwick Water valley in upper Teviotdale, nine miles south-west of Hawick, little more than an hour's drive from the Scottish capital, for which ‘offers over £2.95 million' are sought. As well as the refurbished nine-bedroom main house surrounded by  formal gardens, the estate includes five modernised houses and cottages, an in-hand livestock farm. It also offers a pheasant shoot, roe-deer stalking, duck-shooting and trout fishing on Borthwick Water.

Culdaremore near Fortingall, in the heart of Highland Perthshire, another small estate with a  five-bedroom main house, gardens and a range of traditional stone buildings, surrounded by 375 acres of pasture, hill grazing and conifer plantations. Offers over £1.25m are sought. Also available is  red- and roe-deer stalking, fishing on the River Lyon, a tributary of the Tay, and the potential to create a low-ground pheasant shoot.

Offers over £1.25m for the picturesque, 194-acre Achara estate near the Highland village of Duror, near Loch Linnhe in coastal Argyll. The house was built in the Scots Baronial style.  In addition to the  eight-bedroom main house overlooking Loch Linnhe, the estate boasts a converted three-bedroom coach house and two cottages suitable for holiday lets.

 At offers over £950,000 Lessudden House on the eastern edge of pretty St Boswells village, 4-and-a-half miles from Melrose, Roxburghshire, and within a realistic commuting distance from both Edinburgh and Newcastle. Lessudden House sits in the midst of 19 acres of enchanting gardens and grounds, surrounded on three sides by parkland grazing. Accommodation includes reception and dining halls, two further main reception rooms, five main bedrooms and an attic bedroom. A range of stabling offers potential for development.

Wellfield House and Lodge at Duns, 15 miles from Berwick. Offers over £1.5m are sought for the five-bedroom house, and its two bedroom lodge. The main house is set in some eight acres of wooded gardens and grounds

Offers over £1.65m are sought for Leithen Lodge at Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, a refurbished the three-storey main house, with courtyard apartment and wing, and  20 acres of gardens, grounds and parkland.

The House of Aquahorthies near Inverurie, ‘offers over £1.3m', A nine-bedroom house, AND  some 38 acres of landscaped grounds, woodland and paddocks

Socialism - the Political Case

FOR A REVOLUTION FOR THE MAJORITY BY THE MAJORITY

Many of the arguments against the case for socialism are in reality criticisms of parliamentary action. The two spheres of activity must not be confused. Parliamentary action believes that by placing a series of reforms upon the Statute Book—  “one step at a time” — the economic position of the workers can be improved, and that they will be finally emancipated by such reform measures. Such a line of activity is the aim of the “reformers” or State-"Socialists". Many reformists pose as socialists with claims of helping the workers by nationalising or controlling the means of production through the State. They endeavour to argue that "evolutionary socialism” is superior to revolutionary action. Every advance in nationalisation is heralded as socialism in practice; every extension of State control greeted as a conquest by the workers. Thus a false conception of socialism becomes the means of misleading the working class. So eager have these State-"socialists" (or more accurately State-capitalists) been to bestow the label of "socialism" upon profit-making institutions that any Labour or Tory could say "we are all socialists nowadays." Any demands, such as the reduction of taxes or increased business regulation has been advocated as "socialistic" legislation.

Marx in his criticism of the French crisis of 1848 described how the capitalist class promoted  reforms under the title of socialism. He says: —
"Whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: Socialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic is national financial reform. It was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a sword."

It has been customary for people to be told that they must look to the State for salvation. For years Old Labour have assured us that the hope of the workers lay in State control. Nevertheless genuine socialists have consistently argued that State ownership takes all control away from the workers and leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic and irresponsible ministers. It is impossible for State officials to understand the nature of the problems arising in the industries, or to appreciate the grievances of the workers.

The attempt of the State to control industry is therefore the attempt of the ruling class to dominate Labour.  It seeks to make socialism a term at once contradictory and confusing; and it accomplishes this by declaring the most essential things necessary to the development of capitalism as state intervention and nationalisation are all "steps" in the direction of socialism rather then the reality that they are merely the general centralisation and concentration of capital.

 Capitalism due to the ever increasing conflict for markets and the intense competition involved will tend to accelerate rivalries and lead to the need of the productive forces to be controlled with greater urgency. The desire to control national production, the fear of industrial unrest, and the wish to enforce discipline upon the workers may compel the capitalist class to extend State control. The extension of State control will bring with it armies of official bureaucrats, who will only be able to maintain their posts by tyrannising and limiting the freedom of the workers. And instead of having to overthrow a system buttressed by a handful of individual capitalists, the workers will be faced with a system reinforced by a gigantic army of State-subsidised officials, who will fight to maintain their status and power. Such indeed is the logical outcome of nationalisation. Socialists deny that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. Whenever a politician is appointed to control any industrial concern he has to select a technical expert and
permanent officials who know something about that industry. These officials are appointed by the State — i.e., from above; they are only answerable to the State minister who has to depend upon them for all his information regarding his department. The officials are conscious of their power, and they use it. There is no method whereby it is possible to have democratic State control. These officials, when appointed, simply act as rulers appointed above the heads of the people who do understand the industrial processes. State Control can never be democratic control; hence it becomes a bureaucratic autocracy. It is a social despotism organised from above.

By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the few members of the capitalist class are able to rule over the majority. State departments are in the hands of unsympathetic bureaucrats who are appointed by our masters. The bureaucrats have no organic connection with communities or industry and are unable to understand working-class problems. Being appointed by the master class, who control the State, the bureaucrats can only maintain their jobs by serving those who control them. Here, again, is another problem, the destruction of bureaucracy, which can be only solved if the revolutionary organised workers defeat their masters at the ballot box.

Capitalism cannot be controlled. But it can be destroyed and replaced by a workers' co-operative commonwealth, an association of producers.

Socialism will be fundamentally a system democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks into industrial administrative committees and those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central industrial councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all — it will be, therefore, a true democracy

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. The political State is not and cannot be a real democracy. It is not elected according to the social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the mass media. By its money the capitalists can buy up large newspapers and these trump up false election issues. The electorate is not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media, representing Capital, puts before the viewers and readers.

We cannot build towards socialism and leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the control of the State gives to the employers in its struggle with employees. It is through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of civil liberty, the loss of which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution impossible. The maintenance of what limited rights and feedoms we possess is part of the political struggle. Political action must be used to combat the capitalist class in any attempt to filch away the rights of industrial action and other civil liberties. And to be used as a precautionary measure for when the socialist movement grows more powerful and the capitalist chooses to resort to the use of force and other methods of suppression. The coercive control flows directly from Capital’s control of the State which it secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful revolution, the working class must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from using the nation’s armed forces against the workers. This can be described as the destructive function of the  role of political action. But this pre-emptive destructive political function is necessary in order that the constructive element in the revolution may not be thwarted.

 Socialism will require no political State because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class; there will be no social disorder as a result, because there will be no clash of economic interests; there will be no need to create a power to make "order." Thus, as Engels explains, the State will die out. With it will end the government of men and make way for the administration of things. The German social democrat August  Bebel declared: — "Along with the State die out its representatives — cabinet ministers, parliaments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, district attorneys, prison officials, tariff and tax collectors; in short, the whole political apparatus. Barracks, and such other military structures, palaces of law and of administration, prisons— all will now await better use. Ten thousand laws, decrees, and regulations become so much rubbish; they have only historic value. The great and yet the petty parliamentary struggles with which the men of tongue imagine they rule and guide the world are no more; they will have made room for administrative colleges and delegations, whose attention will be engaged in the best means of production and distribution, in ascertaining the volume of supplies needed, in introducing and applying effective improvements in art, in architecture, in intercourse, in the process of production, etc. These are all practical matters, visible and tangible, towards which everyone stands objectively, there being no personal interests hostile to society to affect their judgment."

The constructive element in the social revolution will be the action of the workers in the organs of their own making seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community.

But, to repeat once more,  in order to tear the State out of the grasp of the ruling class the workers political organisation must capture the political machinery of capitalism. The work of the political weapon is purely destructive, to destroy the capitalist system. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of doing away with all the institutions which stand in the way of the industrial union owning and controlling the means of production. It is general elections which affords the workers the opportunity of overthrowing those political institutions standing in the way of their emancipation. The Socialist Party seeks to educate the workers in order that they may organise to combat capitalism in every field of its activity.

Our anti-political friends wish us to devote our energies solely to the industrial field of battle because they imagine that the workers are sold-out when they enter politics. But the workers can equally be betrayed industrially as well as politically. The history of the trade union leaders indicates this point. Until the working class is conscious of its own interests—until it clearly realises what it wants and how to get it—then they are the tools of the Labour Party careerists and other political charlatans. The moment that the wage-workers understand their class interests they will not be betrayed either industrially or politically. Because “leaders” are only able to act treacherously when workers are kept in ignorance and confusion. If the working class does not recognise and understand its own  interests, it will, indeed,  be betrayed in Parliament, just as they are often sold out in their place of work by conciliatory union leaders.

 Every argument against political action can be used against industrial (or syndicalist) action. They react upon each other. There is nothing inherently dangerous in political action. All the arguments brought against it prove only that the socialist movement has neglected its educational work; it has paid insufficient attention to the creation of a sympathetic media and revolutionary press; it has not sought to organise workers as a class but sectionally, by occupation and trade or through one-issue campaigns or even by lifestyle; and the result is that these weaknesses are glaringly reflected on the political field. When our anti-political friends contend that the political field makes for the confusion of workers they are unconsciously passing censure on every other field of socialist activity. The critics of political action, unable to perceive the law of causation, which links together the various weaknesses operating in the different channels of the labour movement, places all the blame on the political field. They therefore decides to ignore political faction and  by doing so they neglect the whole problem.

The Socialist Party takes the political field with one demand in its programme—socialism. It emphasises that only socialists must vote for its candidates even if it means our candidates will not be returned to Parliament. If we receive only a few votes from class-conscious socialists in any constituency, so be it , that must be the extent of its success. If we simply appealed for any votes regardless of understanding and entered into alliances, compromises, and electoral pacts arrangements with non-socialist parties this would mean the return of a candidate, perhaps, but most definitely not provided with a mandate for socialism. Our political object is the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which capitalism may looks to use in its final conflict with workers. Therefore, the only revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy capitalism. Political action, too, brings the propaganda of socialism into the daylight and lifts the revolutionary movement beyond that of being a secret conspiracy. Political action, by insisting on free speech, prevents the capitalist class from forcing the movement underground—because once there the State would crush it. And, above all, the political method by bringing revolutionary socialism upon the political field places it on that ground of social action where all conflicts tend to be settled peacefully. If socialism is ushered in by violent means it will be because the capitalist class repudiated the civilised or political method.

Adapted from some of the writings of Glasgow-born William Paul, when he was still in the Socialist Labour Party, before he joined the Communist Party.

A Greek Tragedy

Supporters of capitalism are always telling socialists that the buying and selling system of the profit system is the most efficient way to run society. This despite wars, world poverty and unemployment. 'Greece's unemployment rate hit another record high in May of 27.6%, according to the country's statistics body. The figure, from the Hellenic Statistics Authority, compares with a jobless rate of 23.8% in May last year. Among those in the labour market aged 15-24, the rate is 64.9%, as Greece sees its sixth year of recession.' (BBC News, 9 August) This is not peculiar to Greece. Last week, figures from the official Eurozone statistics agency reported that Greece's unemployment rate was 26.9% in June, compared with a Eurozone-wide figure of 12.1%, according to the same BBC report. Millions of workers throughout Europe are been debarred from producing wealth. Think what production could be  inside a socialist society. RD

If You've Got It, Flaunt It

At a time when many workers are desperately trying to get together enough money for the deposit on a house the owning class are continuing in their usual spendthrift fashion. 'Britain's most expensive parking place has gone on the market for £300,000, almost twice the price of the average home. The open-air spot is 11ft by 21ft and is in Hyde Park Gardens, London, where many houses cost millions of pounds.' (Times, 8 August) If you think that was unusually expensive the same report mentions an underground parking space near Harrods that was priced at £200,000 in 2011. RD

No New Chains

 While the banks may be part of the problem it is the capitalist system as a whole  which is at fault. Socialism starts of with the basic  truism that our present system divides society into two classes, the “have all” and the “have nothing” class, and that it is the great mass of the people that do all the useful work who belong to the “have nothing” class. In this system we have one set called capitalists, and another set called workers; and they are at war with each other over a division of the product. Therefore socialism is class conscious. This does not mean that socialists must hate every capitalist individually, that some should be picked out as “scapegoats” while the economic power and political encroachment of all the others should be silently submitted to. It means that while we understand that every individual capitalist is the result of the present system as much as the wage worker, we still must fight the capitalists as a class, because the producers cannot reasonably expect anything but exploitation from the exploiters as a class. In short, socialism recognizes that the development of capitalist society substitutes tyrannical monopoly by a minority for individual property of the many.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain in common with all political parties, is a class party. The Socialist Party did not create class lines or class distinctions and regardless of whoever or whatever is to blame for the situation, there is no denying the fact that society is divided into these two well defined groups.  As a matter of fact, this condition was not brought about through the plans or cunningly devised schemes of any group in particular. The banker, industrialist and  property speculator are just as truly products of this system as the impoverished worker.  But we frankly admit that our own  political organisation is but an expression of class interest. The party therefore exists for the sole purpose of representing the producers of the world , that is to say, the working class. Seeing clearly the age-long struggle between the producers of the world’s necessities and the parasites upon their backs, the Marxian philosophy of the historic “class struggle” is the foundation of its propaganda and organisation work.

We in the Socialist Party do not advocate a policy of partial remedies such as minimum wage laws, or stringent banking and financial regulations plus all the kinds of legislation that has marked the attempts of the  ruling class to placate the workers. In the end, an enlightened and class-conscious proletariat will be satisfied with nothing less than the collective ownership and democratic management of the means and instruments of production and distribution.  There will be no material change in the condition of the people until we have a new social system based upon the mutual economic interests of the people: until you and I and all of us own in common those things that we collectively need and use.

The Socialist Party therefore calls upon all workers to unite under its banner so that we may be ready to conquer capitalism by making use of our political  power, so that we may put an end to the present barbaric system by the abolition of capitalism, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned production and social disorder — a commonwealth which, although it will not make every person equal physically or mentally, will give to every worker the free exercise and the full benefit of their faculties.  We challenge those who are never tired of repeating that want, hunger, and necessity are imperative to make the bulk of people do any work at all, and declare that  “human nature being always essentially lazy”. Don’t tell us that some people are too lazy to work which we deny but even so, what do you think of a social system that produces people too lazy to work? If a person is too lazy to work don’t treat him with contempt. Don’t look down upon him with scorn as if you were a superior being. If there is a person too lazy to work there is something the matter with him or her and have been corrupted by this system. You could not, if you tried, keep a normal person inactive, and if you did he or she would go stark mad. Our conduct is determined largely by our economic relations. If you and I must fight each other to exist, we will not love each other very hard.  Business transactions are about  competition and what is more natural than that we should try to get the better of our fellows and cheat them if we can? And if you succeed that makes you as a success to be admired and emulated by others. When we have stopped clutching each others’ throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers and sisters, and we will establish the greatest civilization the human race has ever known.

The Socialist Party will fight open and above board everywhere against all capitalist parties alike. They cannot and will not assist capitalist politicians of one colour in one country and of the
other hue in another country. In short, the Socialist Party will be simply socialists and nothing else. Nature has laid out a bountiful spread for all to enjoy. There is little you can think of that cannot be produced in abundance. There is a plate and a place at the table with food for all, and any system of society that denies people the right and the opportunity to freely help themselves to Nature’s fruits ought to be abolished.

 What does the Socialist Party propose to do for the worker. Nothing! We simply want to awaken the workers to the fact that they are robbed every day in the week and if we can do that they will go to the polls on election day, and, instead of casting a vote to tighten the chains, they will vote for their emancipation. All the Socialist Party does is to show workers that they are victims of this system, that their interests are identical, that they constitute the millions and that the millions have the votes. The 1% have the money, but we, the 99%,  have the votes; and when we, have sense enough to know how to use the votes we will have not only the votes but will take the world’s wealth to be shared by all. If the working class keep on voting in the same old way, then the capitalists  will just  keep on getting what they produce. Some trust in governments to save them but Parliament is made up with few exceptions of opportunists and careerists. Now, in this competitive system the lackey sells him or herself to the highest bidder, the same as the worker does. Who is the highest bidder? The corporations, of course.

 From the narrow field of trade union struggle workers must enter the broad field of class struggle. But the workers themselves must take a wider view of the world. From their trade, from their work within the factory walls, their mind must widen to encompass society as a whole. They have to face the State; they enter the realm of politics. Effective unions will never exist till the workers are revolutionary socialists, just as effective political action can never come till the masses are thoroughly class-conscious and are fully determined to stop all thievery by the capitalist class and build instead  the co-operative commonwealth. If ever there was a time for workers to unite to fight their battle against capitalism and end wage-slavery, that time is now.

Food for thought

A fire in a factory in north-east China, where 119 people died, seems to have been eclipsed news-wise by the collapse of a building in Bangladesh, but is no less terrible in its blatant lack of preventative measures. Many of the deaths at the Baoyuan poultry plant were caused by blocked and inadequate exits. As one survivor said, " People were all rushing, pressing and crushing each other. I fell over and had to crawl forward using all my might." This is similar to the infamous fire at New York's Triangle Shirt Waist Factory in 1911 where 140 died because of a locked door. This clearly shows that nothing has changed in a hundred years of capitalism because the capital to fix it would have to come out of profits and that can't happen. To emphasize this point The New York Times of Sunday, July 28th . contained an article entitled, "Halfhearted Reform In Bangladesh". The world pressure has prompted the Bangladeshi government to make union forming to counteract the rapacious demands of capitalism. Unfortunately, the changes fall far short of what is needed and will be essentially ineffective. Surely, it's time to abolish a system that allows, no encourages, this monstrosity! John Ayers.


Poultry Plant Fire in China is Latest Tragedy for Dangerous Poultry Industry 2013-06-07 [UFCW]

Workers struggle with Chinese instructions 2013-06-07 [The Namibian]

Probe Into Poultry Plant Fire Amid Uproar Over Safety 2013-06-05 [Radio Free Asia]

Slaughterhouse blaze: Relatives demand answers over reports of locked exits 2013-06-05 [ABC]