WW1 and the SPGB

Whereas the capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the question of the control of trade routes and the world's markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters' quarrel, and

Whereas further, the pseudo-socialists and labour 'leaders' of this country, in common with their fellows on the Continent, have again betrayed the working class position, either through their ignorance of it, their cowardice, or worse, and are assisting the master class in utilising this thieves' quarrel to confuse the minds of the workers and turn their attention from the class struggle.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain seizes the opportunity of reaffirming the socialist position which is as follows:

That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living by the capitalist or master class and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

That in society therefore there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a CLASS WAR, between those who possess, but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

That the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers.

These armed forces therefore will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them –the master class –and as the workers' interests are not bound up in the struggle for markets wherein their masters may dispose of the wealth they have stolen from them (the workers) but in the struggle to end the system under which they are robbed, they are not concerned with the present European struggle, which is already known as the “BUSINESS” war, for it is their masters' interests which are involved, and not their own.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain pledges itself to keep the issue clear by expounding the CLASS STRUGLE, and whilst placing on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid, and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home.

Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITEE.
August 25th 1914

Only World Socialism Can Save Humanity

All the main parties claims it can solve the country’s problems. But who can believe that the Tories, or the LibDems, or the Labour Party can have any solution to the problems of workers? In elections the Socialist Party of Great Britain takes the opportunity and  occasion to criticise the capitalist parties and defend our alternative of socialism. In our election leaflets we  expose the Labour Liberals and the Conservatives as the parties of the ruling class. Throughout our campaign, Socialist Party candidates insist that socialism is the only solution for working people. It is only by ending the system where a handful of parasites benefit from that the working class will emancipate itself from exploitation once and for all. Our aim is not just to collect votes but above all it is to popularise our views and draw people into the fight for socialism.

Capitalism is kept alive not by coercion but by ideas and these ideas it instills into the minds of  people from the day they start thinking. The schools, the newspapers and books, the tv, radio and cinema are all the means by which the thoughts of people are shaped. They are used by the ruling class that controls them to argue that the society we live in is fundamentally good and correct and by and large, the working class accepts these ideas. If it did not, capitalism could not exist very long. All the organs of ruling class propaganda are mobilised to deceive the masses. They want to sidetrack the workers from the struggle to end the capitalist system and establish socialism. The ‘progressives’ seek only to reform the system, content to defend the capitalists’ profits so long as they aren’t excessive. If the left-wing parties are fundamentally anti-capitalist movement, you’d expect that they would, be weaker when capitalism was doing alright, and stronger when capitalism was doing badly and when an alternative, was clearly necessary. But, it’s the other way round. That suggests the Left is not a fundamentally anti-capitalist movement, but a progressive movement within capitalism, able to grow when capitalism is able to accommodate social progress, but with no alternative to offer when capitalism forces a retreat.

The Socialist Party is not like the other parties which make fake promises they will never keep in order to win workers votes. Most people are not attracted to negative criticism, so they don’t become politically active. Even when life is getting more and more difficult, many believe you can do more to improve your own lot by looking out for yourself than by agitating against the authorities. If you’re unemployed for example, you’ll do better looking for a job, than taking part in protests about it. Often people on the left are even reduced to defending capitalism when trying to persuade others to become active. For example, they want people to take to the streets against the government’s austerity policies. So they say those policies are the cause of all our troubles.

Politicians and economists appear on television and in the press explaining basic principles of Marxist political economy that in not so many words that there’s a world wide capitalist economic recession and there is nothing the or any other government can do about it. In that situation, people have no choice but to put up with lower real wages and welfare benefit cutbacks. After all, it’s happening everywhere, not just in this , so it can’t be the fault of the government. Unlike the leftists, the Socialist Party agree that capitalism doesn’t work and suggests that therefore we ought to get rid of it.  But instead the left-wingers insist that it’s all David Cameron’s fault. They pretend that if only the government followed different policies, it would be possible to have rising real living standards, improving health, education and welfare, and what have you. They’re lying. They know they’re lying, their opponents know they’re lying and most important, the people being  asked to take to the streets know they’re lying, so naturally they won’t come.

If slaves go on demanding that their masters improve their rations, they deserve to remain slaves, because they accept having masters and they therefore accept slavery. We have to build a movement to overthrow our masters, and run the world ourselves, and solve its problems ourselves, instead of demanding that our masters find some solution for us.

The alternative, as everybody already knows, is socialism, a practical alternative that can really work. But if that’s what we’re fighting for, why can’t we spell out (at least in broad outline), just what it means, and how we propose getting there? Why do we always avoid the issue and just talk about how bad things are now? Are we afraid that Socialism isn’t very attractive and we need to paint a even more grim picture of the way things are now, so as to persuade people to opt for the alternative? And that is perfectly understandable when one looks  closely at the sort of “alternative” most people on the Left really want. It is not surprising they don’t want to talk about it and much  prefer just denouncing capitalism.

 A few on the Left actually want to go backwards to a life of low technology rustic simplicity, described sometimes as primitivism but better portrayed as a regression to the more backward neo-peasant society. Then other left-wingers who once looked favourably towards the state-capitalist systems of Russia and Eastern Europe which is now rapidly disappearing from China, Vietnam and Cuba but still clinging by fingernails to the North Korean workers’ paradise. Yet it doesn’t stop them from nostalgically advocating a return to those types of  “socialist” countries, seeking new bosses in a new restrictive regime. But mostly, the majority on the Left simply just want some of the most glaring injustices of capitalist society to be resolved. They want better jobs, housing, education and so forth,. Some believe they can get it without some major upheaval, others argue it needs uprisings.

The Socialist Party has a vision of a better world with fundamentally different social relations. But even we need to rethink the whole approach and really come to grips with the world we’re in and how to change it. As a first step, we need to talk seriously to each other and examine and criticise each other’s ideas in a comradely way. Being united against Cameron and capitalism is not a particularly strong point of unity. We need something deeper to unite us - socialism.

AJJ

The Profit System Kills

Capitalism in its relentless search for bigger and bigger profits cares little for the plight of the working class. A particularly awful example of this surfaced recently. 'Campaigners say 29 retailers had sold or ordered clothing made in the Raza Plaza factory complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which collapsed in April last year killing 1,127 people. Yet only four have signed up to a £24m fund to compensate injured  survivors and the families of victims.' (Sunday Times, 12 January) The blaze was so severe that in addition to the deaths 2,500 were injured. The reason that retailers like Matalan, Mango and Benetton favoured the Raza Plaza factory? The average salary in Bangladesh is £1,150 per year. Lower wages mean higher profits. RD

Society V Individual

Simple as it may seem to demand the right to good housing, good clothing, good food, good education and good health-care these simple demands cannot be met without the complete overthrow of our present competitive society.  We are socialists out of conviction – because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, sets one group against another. We see in socialism the way of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialists can offer an alternative which can meet the basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism and racism, free of the rat-race and dog-eat-dog competitive system. As the socialist movement grows in strength, the nearer we will be to creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs.

We see the primary task of the organisation to be the fight for socialism. Without unity on essentials, no serious practice is possible. We advocate and work for socialism – that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.

Socialists are often asked the question, ‘what would you do if you found yourselves with power in your hands tomorrow?’ The Socialist Party does not profess to possess a ready-made detailed scheme for the future of human society. All it proclaims is a system of laws of social evolution which shows the development of society in the past and deduces from that the main principles of the next stage of social progress. As to the details of the arrangement these no human being can see. All we say is, let the organised working class take over the means of production and distribution and run them democratically.  Anything further than this must be left to time and circumstances to work itself out. We cannot hold out a detailed plan of the new society in its complete form.

Socialists are all agreed as to the object for which they are striving – the ownership of all the means of production by the community; that community to be organised on the most democratic basis possible. But, beyond this, socialists are not concerned with the  organisation and administration of the new society; and it is possible that in the conception of what that organisation will be, there may be the widest divergence of view even among socialists. What should be emphasised is that socialists do not wish to impose on the future society a huge bureaucratic system, spreading its tentacles, octopus-like, over all the arrangements of every aspect of social life, crushing all individuality, and reducing every detail of existence to rule and plan. But do stand for social control and regard with suspicion those who endorse absolute individual liberty.

 How far the antagonism between society and the individual will be eliminated or modified by changed conditions only the development of those conditions can decide. We are not called upon to make rules for future society; we can very well afford to let that society take care of itself in that respect, as, in any case, it will have to do, whatever we may say or decide. It is very interesting, no doubt, to speculate on the future arrangements of society, but it is out of our power, and would be impertinent, were it not impossible, to say that these arrangements be thus and so; and any discussion on this matter must necessarily be of an academic character.  Speculations as to the future of society need not of necessity prevent any bodies of men working together for a common object, but when there is a complete divergence of view as to the immediate steps to be taken such co-operation is absolutely impossible.

It is inconceivable that a set of circumstances would always result in the interest of the individual and the interest of the community being absolutely identical. The very essence of socialism, as the word connotes, is that society, the community at large, has interests superior to those of any individual and often antagonistic to the interests of an individual. We are in revolt to-day, against permitting individuals, as landlords and capitalists, to prey upon the community. If any individual stole a book from a public library, or a flowers from a public park, he or she would be enriching themselves at the expense of the community. But if all the individual members of a community did either the one or the other, in the exercise of their equal individual liberty, they would utterly destroy the library or the garden and in endeavouring to enrich themselves individually would despoil themselves collectively. Yet the fear that others might follow this example, and thus cause communal injury may not in itself be sufficient to deter the stealer of a book or flowers. Therefore it is necessary for the community, as a whole, to protect itself from every one of its members, and thus it comes that society has rights and powers and duties superior to those of any individual. No individual has a right to prevent another individual from taking a book or plucking a flower, but society in its collective capacity has such a right, in the interest of the whole of its members, including the individual whose designs may be thwarted by the intervention of the social authority.

AJJ

Class Solidarity

Socialist Courier can do little better than the views on the independence referendum propounded by John Wight, writer and political commentator. Socialist Courier may not endorse all his other political opinions but on his views on Scottish nationalism we can only concur. They reflect the ideas presented by many posts on this blog.

 “ I will be voting ‘No’ in this year's referendum on Scottish independence. I will do so as a statement of solidarity with working people the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

There is undoubtedly much that is regressive – make that despicable – about the British state. The monarchy, the House of Lords, the country’s history of empire, colonialism, and its recent history of sowing carnage and chaos in the Middle East – all of those things add up to a damning indictment of a state formed in 1707 in the interests of a rising mercantile class, committed to colonial expansion and the super exploitation of the planet’s resources.

However, the notion that Scotland and the Scots were not party to this history – or played only a marginal role – is an insult to truth. The ill-fated Darien Scheme of 1698-1700, an attempt by the then independent Scotland to establish a colony in what is now Panama, succeeded in bankrupting the country, which led inexorably to the bulk of the Scottish aristocracy and merchant class – who made up the Scottish Parliament of the day - voting to enter the current union with England in 1707. Thereafter Scots played a disproportionate role in building the British Empire as generals, officers, and soldiers in the army, colonial administrators, slavers, and merchants - in the process creating great personal fortunes, and establishing Glasgow as the second city of the empire.

The unintended effect of the 1707 union was the homogenization of the working class throughout the newly formed British state. This homogenization was based on the common misery they were suffering at the hands of the factory and mill owners who controlled their lives under an economic system of unfettered capitalism. The need to organize collectively in order to resist the brutal conditions of the lives of workers across Britain transcended every other difference – whether on grounds of nationality, race, religion, or gender. This gave rise to the emergence of the trade union movement followed by the Labour Party at the beginning of the 20th century, reflecting the growth in size and consciousness of a British working class. This class identity remains relevant today at a time when the nation is being ruled by the most extreme and callous Tory government in generations. Simply put, it dictates that a bus driver in Glasgow has more in common with a bus driver in Newcastle, Liverpool, or Cardiff than he does with a wealthy fellow Scot.

With this in mind, I have increasingly found some of the arguments being made in support of independence by progressives and socialists within the Yes campaign disappointing. The central of those - namely that voting ‘Yes’ will rid Scotland of the Tories - is not only weak, it is cowardly. Firstly, you may get rid of the Tories but that doesn't mean you will get rid of Tory ideas, a few of which are front and center in the SNP's recently produced independence manifesto (or white paper), titled ‘Scotland’s Future’. The Scottish Nationalist Party’s positions on corporation tax, the monarchy, and NATO membership would sit more than comfortably in the pages of a Tory manifesto.

More importantly, the idea that abandoning millions of people who've stood with us - and us with them - in trade union struggles, political campaigns, progressive movements, etc, for generations - the idea that this can be considered progress is anathema to me. The analogy of the Titanic applies, wherein rather than woman and children, it is Scots to the lifeboats and to hell with everybody else.

Nationalism, unless rooted in national oppression, is a regressive ideology. It obscures the real dividing line in society - namely class - offering instead an abstracted analysis of the world through a national prism that takes zero account of social and economic factors, thus offering nothing but more of the same under a different flag. It is no wonder that Albert Einstein described nationalism as an ‘infantile disease’.

Our nationality is an accident of birth. It means nothing. You can't eat a flag. A flag doesn't heat a home or put food on the table. Nationalism offers a largely mythologized history in the process of inviting us to embrace a national interest, one that can only relate to the world behind false divisions of national, ethnic, or racial differences. Even when it comes to culture, the terms national culture obscures more than it illuminates. The traditional culture of the Highlands in Scotland, for example, means little to me as a Lowland Scot. I can appreciate it, of course, but not anymore or with any more feeling than I do any culture anywhere in the world.

The concept of the modern nation state is a relatively recent one. It traces its roots to the Treaty of Westphalia in the mid-17th century, which brought to an end the Thirty Years War in Europe. Out of it emerged the concept of national sovereignty, a political concept reflective of the early stages of capitalist economic development, with the resultant growth in international trade and the need to expand and protect both markets and sources of natural resources required to feed burgeoning manufacturing industries in the interests of competing capitalists.

However, much has changed in 350 years. In 2013 economic sovereignty does not lie with national governments as it did at one time. Today economic sovereignty in the West lies with global capital under that extreme variant of capitalism known as neoliberalism - or the free market. The notion that separation from a larger state would allow said smaller state to forge a social democratic utopia without challenging neoliberal nostrums is simply not credible. A patchwork of smaller states plays into the hands of global capital, as it means more competition for inward investment, which means global corporations are able to negotiate more favorable terms in return for that investment. The result is a race to the bottom as workers in one state compete for jobs with workers in neighboring states. In this regard it is surely no accident that Rupert Murdoch is a vocal supporter of Scottish independence.

Support for Scottish independence among progressives in Scotland is rooted in despair over a status quo of Tory barbarity. This is understandable. For the past three decades working class communities throughout the UK have suffered a relentless assault under both Conservative and Labour administrations. The Labour Party, under the baneful influence and leadership of Tony Blair and his New Labour clique, came to be unrecognizable from the party that created the welfare state, including the NHS, the party that once held full employment as a guiding principle of its economic and social policy. The embrace of free market nostrums under New Labour meant that the structural inequality that obtained after 18 years of Tory rule remained more or less intact. The market was now the undisputed master of all it surveyed. The consequence of Labour’s shift to the right has been to give rise to cynicism, disappointment, and lack of faith in politics among large swathes of voters, evinced in ever lower turnouts at elections. Issues such as the lies and subterfuge surrounding Britain going to war in Iraq in 2003, the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2011, followed by the phone hacking scandal - during which the unhealthy relationship between the owners and editors of tabloid newspapers and politicians was revealed - has only deepened this cynical disregard for politics and politicians in Britain, giving rise to anti-politics as the default position of many voters.

In Scotland – for decades a Labour Party stronghold – devolution has allowed a protest vote to make the electorate’s feelings towards this Labour Party betrayal of its founding principles known at the ballot box. Regardless, the most significant protest has been a non-vote, with turnouts at elections in Scotland following the pattern of the rest of the country in remaining low. For example, there was only a 50 percent turnout at the last Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2011, out of which the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged with an overall majority, the first time any party has managed to do so since the Scottish Parliament came into existence in 1999.

However the argument that Scotland is more left leaning than the rest of the UK is one that seeks to conflate conservatism with England in its entirety, rather than a specific region of the country, which in conjunction with the antiquated first past the post electoral system of Westminster elections has thrown up Tory governments that are unrepresentative of where the majority of England and the rest of the UK sits politically. Scotland is no more left leaning than the deindustrialized North East, North West, and Midlands of England. Nor is it any more left leaning than Wales. The working class in Scotland is not any more progressive than its English or Welsh counterpart.

As a consequence, my ‘No’ vote in September will be both a rejection of nationalism as a progressive alternative to the status quo and a statement of solidarity with all who are suffering under this Tory government – not only in Scotland but throughout the United Kingdom.”

Rather than vote No which will be taken as support for the present status quo and support for the current UK state, the Socialist Party unlike Wight recommends spoiling ones vote by writing World Socialism and if that is not possible - abstention. 

Mutual Aid

FROM EACH ACCORDING TO ABILITY,
 TO EACH ACCORDING TO NEED 

It is a fact that man is a social animal whose existence depends on the physical and psychological bonds between human beings.  Another fact is that human life is not possible without the labour of others, and that there are only two ways in which this can be done: either through a fraternal, egalitarian and libertarian association, in which solidarity, consciously and freely expressed unites all humanity or the struggle of each against the other in which the victors rule, oppress and exploit the rest.

Mutual aid is a fundamental law of nature that causes animals to band together for self-protection. Socialism is the highest expression of mutual aid, because it embodies the idea of mutual protection and advancement for the greatest number of human beings. Mutual aid prompts a person to give and receive help from fellow workers and as such even the secret society of Freemasonry is an expression of mutual aid. It is not the love for a fellow being that causes man to aid one in distress, but the instinct of mutual aid. In winter, animals will huddle together to keep warm. It is not the love of the flock that causes a sheep to run with it, but the instinct of mutual aid.  Wolves band together in packs for mutual aid. A puppy does not cuddle close to the other puppies to keep them warm, but to keep itself warm. It is mutual aid. Workers do not organise unions because they love each other, but because through organisation they are enabled to get more of the good things of life. Acts that are in the interest of the community as much as of the individual, and of the individual as much as of the community, cannot be described either as selfish or as unselfish. They are both and neither.

Socialists want to bring about a society in which men will consider each other as brothers and by mutual support will achieve the greatest well-being and freedom as well as physical and intellectual development for all.  The class-conscious worker full of the class-war spirit could hardly be described as an unselfish since he sees himself reflected in his class, but neither is be selfish in the ordinary sense, since he sees his class reflected in himself.  In a word, he identifies his own interest with that of his class.  While workers try to defend themselves from fatal or crippling health and safety hazards on the shop-floor, while labour takes steps to deal with all aspects of  discrimination,  while workers strike and sacrifice in a thousand ways to defend their standard of living, the capitalist media argues that they are being greedy and selfish and workers’ organisations are all too often viewed as greedy self-interest group concerned  about only a small minority.

The needs, tastes, aspirations and interests of people are neither similar nor naturally harmonious; often they are diametrically opposed and antagonistic. On the other hand, the life of each individual is so conditioned by the life of others that it would be impossible, even assuming it were convenient to do so, to isolate oneself and live one’s own life. Social solidarity is a fact from which no one can escape. The strongest is the one who is the least isolated; the most independent is the one who has most contacts and friendships and thereby a wider field for choosing close collaborators; the most developed is the one who best can, and knows how to, utilise Mankind’s common inheritance as well as the achievements of  contemporaries.

History teaches us, daily observation of life around us teaches, that where violence has no place in human relations everything is settled in the best possible way, in the best interests of all concerned. But where violence intervenes, injustice, oppression and exploitation invariably triumph. In spite of the rivers of human blood; in spite of the indescribable sufferings and humiliations inflicted; in spite of exploitation and tyranny at the expense of the weakest human society represents progressive characteristics, feelings of sympathy, affinity and altruism, the sense of a common humanity. The workers’ environment is basically collective. When workers aim for betterment at work they act together. Benefits gained are for all, not one. Mutual aid is a powerful feature of every-day living. The neighborhood and community, the street gang and football fans are so much part of working class life where experience is shared experience.

Some historians may present the fruits of  their research as sensational events, large-scale conflicts between nations, wars, revolutions, the intrigues of diplomacy and conspiracies; but what is really much more significant are the innumerable daily contacts between individuals and between groups which are the true substance of social life. In the intimate daily lives of the people, one finds that as well as the thirst for domination, rivalry, envy and all the unhealthy passions which set man against man, is also valuable struggle for better working conditions , mutual aid, unceasing and voluntary exchange of services, affection, love, friendship and all that which draws people closer together in brotherhood and solidarity. Since co-operative work and reliance on mutual aid renders organisation necessary, the best possible form of organisation must be chosen: the test of its worth is its efficiency and the scope for freedom and initiative it allows to each. Organisation is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and is a natural and necessary condition of social life.

We deny that socialism presupposes any radical change in individual character at all. We do not anticipate any increase of the saints.  What we contend is that socialism, as primarily an economic transformation, brought about by the class struggle between the worker and the capitalist, will change the character of all who come under the influence of the new conditions  just as the advent of modern capitalism transformed the human character developed under feudal conditions. The transformation into the co-operative commonwealth, involving the greatest change known at least to history, must necessarily result in a corresponding change in the content of mankind’s behaviour.

For the transformation of society we want seek enlightened selfishness not unselfishness. The right to be lazy and the right to be greedy are true revolutionary slogans. The concept good of the people or general well-being require such basics as sufficient food, clothing, and shelter for all, healthy and beautiful surroundings, facilities for education leisure, and culture in the widest sense of the word  If political parties profess to aim at the common good then it is the fulfillment of these bedrock conditions of human happiness that must be their demand. 

Scotland Profits

 Scottish Business Insider Top 500 rankings show that, excluding Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland, the Top 500 saw a 4.9 per cent rise in turnover to £154.8 billion but profits fell by 7.3 per cent to £10.1bn. The table ranks all Scottish registered companies with turnover of more than £20m based on sales and pre-tax profits.

The fall was an improvement on the 13.1 per cent drop in the previous year.

Including the banks, turnover grew from £176.5bn to £180.1bn but profits plunged from £10.2bn to £3.1bn.

Standard Life has retained the top spot in the league table with energy giant SSE moving up from fourth to second. Weir Group climbed from seventh to third position after a strong performance in the year but Lloyds Banking Group subsidiary Scottish Widows slipped one place to fourth position in the listing after seeing its profits fall from £391 million to £205m. Chevron North Sea stayed in fifth position despite a drop in profits from £1.1bn to £879m and John Wood Group rose from 15th to sixth place after a strong rise in profits.

Half of the top ten are subsidiaries of companies with headquarters outside Scotland.

http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/scotland-s-top-companies-see-profits-fall-1-3264277

The Voice Of Reason

When Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel prize for Physics Englert was interviewed by Euronews about their discovery of the Higgs boson. He was asked 'The Higgs boson has been nicknamed the God particle by the media. What does God have to do in all of this?' He replied 'Nothing, nothing! It's simple: I don't think God has anything to do with it. What's more, I don't very well see what God has to do with anything, but that's a separate question.' (Euronews, 9 December) RD

Food for thought

  Following the article in the Fall Imagine re railway safety, the federal Government has new regulations on dangerous shipments. But that information will only get to select information who are sworn to confidentiality and then only after the fact. That means the new regulations are virtually useless. The reasoning is that information cannot be made public for security reasons. Fred Miller, a US consultant on railroad transportation responded, calling the reasoning 'complete nonsense'. He further remarked that Tank cars are already marked to show what they are carrying allowing 'any half-assed terrorist' to find out that information. As usual, the regulations do nothing to rein in companies and make them do the right thing. What would you expect a government to do in a profit system? John Ayers.

concerned with concealing!

 Our federal government under the Harper regime continues so quietly to stifle anything that it doesn't like. Recently, the Toronto Star reported on just two of many (December 22). The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre will shut its doors this month after years of fund cutting by the government. Prime Minister Lester Pearson proposed the first peace-keeping force that moved the world back from war in the 1956 Suez crisis for which he was awarded a Nobel prize. Since that time Canadians have been front and centre in the UN peace-keeping missions. This government has moved our foreign policy more toward armed combat. Secondly the House of Commons recently shocked many Canadians by demanding its employees sign a confidential gag order with draconian sanctions for any breach. This follows funding cuts and similar demands on the scientific community suggesting the government is more concerned with concealing rather than revealing the truth, but that's nothing new to socialists. John Ayers

Statism is not socialism.

COMMON OWNERSHIP
 NOT STATE OWNERSHIP

Central to capitalism is accumulation and is accumulated through the exploitation of workers. Workers sell their labour power in exchange for a wage and the difference between what they actually produce and what their wage is worth is ‘surplus value’ – the source of profits for capitalists. In assessing labour costs, just like machinery costs, the capitalist is only interested in replacement – so that there will be enough workers of sufficient ‘quality’ to continue production tomorrow. The wage paid to a worker has to be enough to keep him working ‘efficiently’ and to ensure that when he is worn out a replacement is ready. His wage has to cover his own needs, those of his children and those of the wife whose job it is to service and maintain this generation of workers and the next. The employed worker works directly for capital, whether he or she is productive like a car worker, or unproductive like a policeman. His working life is controlled by the employer – what he does while at work and whether or not he has a job. Wages are not payment for work performed. It is not. It is a payment to cover subsistence, a necessary cost of production for capitalists, the cost of reproducing the labour force.

The struggle against our oppression is a class struggle, our enemies are the capitalist ruling class. Many so called socialists deny the old Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites were a form of state-capitalism. This denial is based on their belief that the concept of capitalism necessitates formal private ownership of the means of production and the free sale of wage labour on an open market. A ruling-class and oppression still occurred, but somehow the state was neither bourgeois nor proletarian.

If formal ownership of the means of production is so crucial to the definition of capitalism, then every bankrupt enterprise that is nationalised automatically falls into the category of socialism. Likewise, anytime a government institutes wage/price controls, and thus sets the price of  labour power also automatically becomes socialist.

What is actually occurring is the further integration of capital and the state power. Capitalism does not cease to be capitalism on that account, but simply sheds those formal aspects peculiar to laissez-faire and adopts new ones more at tuned to monopoly. Under monopoly conditions, it makes little difference whether a particular employer holds a title deed of ownership over the means of production. What is essential is that the factories run, the workers work, surplus product be produced and appropriated, and that this entire process be directed by  and for a ruling class. State-capitalism facilitates this process by rationalizing the essential
features of capitalist production, by combining economic and political power into a direct, unified authority, and by thus giving the bosses even greater dominion over the working class. One should not confuse this change in form with a change in fundamental economic relations. Unlike traditional capitalist society, protesting workers do not confront a single company or industry,but the entire state apparatus. The working class, which constantly threatens the whole edifice of class privileges is to be mollified by a steady diet of ‘self-management’ and paternalism. The form of ownership was changed but not its control.

Nationalisation brought considerable benefits to the capitalist class as a whole. Statism is not socialism.

Rangers Value

Rangers’  plummeting share price has resulted in its value dropping by £16 million in 4 months. The club’s current market value now sits at £19.9 million.

Shares in the club closed at 31p yesterday, dipping as low as 30.4p before close of business. In September, the share price was 55p - 44.5 per cent higher than last night’s figure.

 Fans who bought shares in the club in December 2012 have seen more than 50 per cent of their holding wiped off, as fans were originally offered 70p per share. This is in contrast with Charles Green, who was able to purchase 5 million shares at a price of 1p in October 2012.

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/rangers-value-drops-by-16-million-in-4-months-1-3263785

Leisure and pleasure in ample measure

The Socialist Party of Great Britain’s policy is the clenched fist against the capitalists and an outstretched hand to the workers. A revolution that overthrows capitalism and establishes socialism is the only way to solve problems facing workers. Ours is not a business-as-usual political party. Critics smirk that the Socialist Party are “idealists.” and that we are, on the whole, “pretty good fellows,” but utterly “impractical”, however, the Socialist Party is a class party. It openly admits that a political organisation is but an expression of class interest. The Socialist Party therefore exists for the sole purpose of representing 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. A higher quality of life and leisure is the class war-cry of our side, as against greater production and higher profit of the other.

 It is an economic law proven by the history that when a social system becomes a hamper upon the productive potentialities it has outlived its day and is ready to give way to a new industrial system. If we apply this test to the capitalist system of to-day, we find that capitalism, instead of using the existing productive forces to supply the necessities and wants of society, is holding back and limiting our productive powers. We find that capitalism does not dare use to their fullest extent the productive forces. Its very existence depends upon limiting these forces.  Modern capitalism is showing itself to be not only injurious to the vast majority of individuals, but a definite obstacle to the advance of the human race.

Only through social or collective ownership can society secure for all its members the benefit of the improved method of organization. Once we establish collective ownership of our industries we will throw off the clogs and checks of our productive powers and will be able to produce more than enough not only to supply every human being food, clothing, and homes to live in, but the opportunity for education and culture which can make life worth living. The last of the slave systems shall be finally swept away.

Our primary task must be the making of socialists, and, isolated as we are, we must carry on that work in our own way.The Social Party declares its object to be:
First — The organisation of the working class into a political party to conquer the public powers now controlled by capitalists.
Second — The abolition of wage slavery by the establishment of a world system of cooperative industry, based upon the social or collective or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members, and the complete emancipation of the working class from the domination of capitalism and the abolition of all class rule.
We further declare that through the ballot box, we can abolish the capitalist system of ownership and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the collective property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. We ask the working class to organise with us and other socialists around the world to end the poverty-breeding system of production for profit — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.

Representing, as it does, the working and dispossessed class, and having for its sole programme the abolition of the exploitation of the workers through rent, interest, and profit, there can be no compromise between the Socialist Party and the owning class or its state. There is an ever growing tendency to confuse socialism with reform of one sort or another. No policy of partial redistribution will satisfy those who have done and are now doing the hard and necessary work. Minimum wage laws plus all the kinds of other legislation that has marked the attempts of the ruling class to placate the workers, and will merely postpone the final result. 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.

The Socialist Party draws a  clear and true line  between socialism and social quackery, between reform and revolution. It cannot be too strongly insisted that socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital.  Anything else is not socialism. Mere reforms of the present system, band-aid patches on industrial servitude is not socialism. Therefore, while not opposing any reforms or improvements which may be secured under capitalism, the Socialist Party is against taking time, energy and resources away from its main battle, for revolution, in order to carry on the struggle for reform. The one demand of the Socialist Party is socialism - unadulterated and undiluted - the unconditional surrender by the capitalist class. The Socialist Party insists all the philanthropic ventures, humanitarian societies, and charities are based on aspiration alone. The Socialist Party stands out unique as the only one based on the  programme which will make the realisation of those aspirations an accomplished fact. Socialism alone will supply the basis for any permanent improvement in the condition of mankind.

Those who advocated workers’ state sometimes mis-called state-socialism but more accurately described as state-capitalism call for the continuance of the wage system, and an extension of modified class management but socialism means the entire abolition of the payment of money wages, and the production and distribution of wealth by all, for the use and benefit of all. It is a return to the old democratic primitive communism, but at an immensely higher level, due to the almost infinitely greater technological  powers of mankind. Since there is no difficulty whatever in creating wealth far in excess of our requirements, by the scientific organisation and application of the right labour of all to the satisfaction of our social needs, then the old motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” ceases to be Utopian and becomes a reality. Labour will be devoted to this or that branch of production in proportion to the desires of the community. Work that, after all possible amelioration, remains dangerous or difficult will be shared by all of the community who are fit, instead of being relegated and imposed upon the poor. The standard of life for each and all will be far higher than anything ever yet achieved. The best possible conditions will be to the general benefit that raising the level of society will be the aim of each individual as of the whole community. Nearly all crimes are property crimes. Remove the incentive and these crimes will vanish.

The capitalist media frequently misrepresents socialism. Socialism would destroy individuality. Capitalism, on the other hand, exalts the individual. Capitalism is a fraud within a fraud. Proclaiming itself individualistic modern conditions of production and distribution that is, the institution of private property in the means of production, is itself the root and source of the coercion of the individual. Socialism proclaims itself in favor of collective ownership and control. By these means it would secure to labor the products of its toil, now confiscated by the few, and, in this way, preserve to the workers, the majority of the population, a greater individuality than that which they now attain. With freedom from the economic pressure due to the capitalist control of industry, such as socialism alone can provide, individuality will achieve proportions previously unattainable.

When from infancy and youth to old age the beauties of nature and the pleasure of perfect health can be enjoyed with none of the sordid and degrading drawbacks due to the dire poverty; when work is but the useful and pleasing expression performed voluntarily for the community and with  regard for the individual; when, through the longer, fuller and more active life which mankind will be heirs to, the minds of all will be more completely cultivated than those of the most gifted have ever yet been; when art naturally rises to higher and ever higher  achievement due to a keener public conception of beauty; when the whole world is fully, freely and rapidly open to the travel  – when all this is accomplished, death itself will be nothing more than a sigh of satisfied content at the close of  a banquet of life so religion, too, will lose its worshipers.

Fudging the Figures

The Scottish Government “airbrushed” the global financial crash from its official case for independence to avoid showing Scots would have been thousands of pounds worse off outside the UK. 2008 was omitted from the 670-page Scotland’s Future white paper because of the “temporary effect” it had on the long-term economic picture.

The blueprint for independence, unveiled in November, claims each Scot would have been £900 better off in recent decades with independence if the economy had matched other small European countries. The Scottish Government’s figures cover 1977 to 2007. But new figures published by Holyrood’s independent financial scrutiny unit yesterday cover the most recent 1982-2012 period and show that Scots would be about £2,500 worse off.

Alex Salmond  was accused of “handpicking” statistics to suit his own case and ignoring the most up-to-date picture. The financial crash had a major impact on Scotland and saw the country’s two biggest banks – Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland – bailed out by the UK Treasury after falling victim to the sub-prime mortgage scandal.

A Wasteful Society

One of the empty boasts beloved by supporters of capitalism is that it is the most efficient  ways to run modern society. We wonder what those supporters make of Bill Bryson's book "Mother Tongue". 'In 1987, the chairman of United Airlines, Richard Ferris, spent some $87 million changing the company's name to Allegis. ..... After just six weeks, Ferris was deposed. One of his successor's first moves was to change the name back to United Airlines.' (Page 208, Penquin) $87 million of human expenditure down the drain. Yeah, a really efficient social system! RD

The Environment's Enemies

A report cataloged the 2013 environmental and energy votes of the House in the 113th Congress, and found that in one year, the House voted in favor of anti-environment positions 109 times

The findings of the  report:

51: Number of times House members voted to “protect the interests of the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and human health,”
 Including voting multiple times to fast-track the approval process of the Keystone XL pipeline. The House also voted to ramp up drilling on public lands, including passing a bill that would have imposed a $5000 fee for citizens who wanted to protest a proposed drilling project and made it much easier for oil and gas companies to obtain permits for drilling on public lands.
20: Number of times House members voted to weaken the Clean Air Act,
 In August, for instance, the House took aim at the EPA’s ability to weigh the “social cost of carbon” when developing regulations, voting 234-178 for an amendment that would prevent the agency from factoring the social cost of carbon into rules.
27: Number of times House members voted to cut clean energy and energy efficiency funding and block clean energy policies, 
Including passing a bill that would have cut federal investments in renewable energy by nearly a billion dollars.
37: Number of times House members voted to weaken the Clean Water Act and other regulatory efforts to improve water quality,
Including voting three times to block federal agencies from using their money to implement the National Ocean Policy.

The scale of anti-environment votes isn’t totally surprising — 160 representatives from the 113th Congress have accepted more than $55.5 million from the fossil fuel industry, and 56 percent of the Republicans in 2013′s House of Representatives deny the reality of climate change.

Food for thought

Sears Canada Inc. announced in November that it will sell the leases on five of its stores including the Toronto Eaton's Centre for $400 million. The company suffered a loss of $48.8in the third quarter of the year, hence the downsizing. The Sears spokespeople never mentioned the effect of competition from Walmart and other retailers but that's how capitalism functions. In the mad dash to make profits some are left behind, go under and respond with worker lay-offs. You can bet the investors are taken care of while the unlucky workers will have to scramble to make ends meet. Things will never change unless we organize for socialism. John Ayers.

Exposing the myth - Explaining the reality

The Socialist Party of Great Britain faces the fact that if society is to be changed from what it is into what the workers wish it to be, many more other things are involved than just gaining a parliamentary majority in the House of Commons. To make it so that wealth is produced not for money-sale but for the direct satisfaction of the needs of the whole community involves a complete change in every detail of social life.

It may mean the scrapping or rationing of such luxuries available to only to a privileged few living in a life of ease at the expense of the toiling and suffering of the many. It will undoubtably also mean an increase in the things necessary to the health and well-being of the people,  of which they are deprived by the poverty they presently endure under in the existing system. It means, therefore, the creation of new methods of distribution.

 It is because it means all these things that the Socialist Party say that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. It cannot be done by legislative decree. At every stage it will require understanding, judgment, discernment, sympathy, and goodwill for the working mass in whose interest the change must be undertaken. Hence the preparation for the workers’ emancipation involves a whole series of considerations—whole worlds of experience.

Why does the Socialist Party run candidates for Parliament? Primarily because the employers will use parliament to give a show of fair play and legality to every act of dictatorial repression against the workers until the workers rob them of that pretence by taking Parliament away from them, to expose the fraud and the brutality and class-savagery camouflaged as government impartiality.  Parliament will be treated as an enemy encampment to be taken and dismantled.

However futile, in view of the present world situation, might be the attempt to struggle for socialism, it is still the only course for workers to adopt. Better the sense of futility than the wasted energy expended on false roads. We will preserve our sense of truth and reason at all cost, even at the cost of futility.

Fear permeates the capitalist system. Fear in the propertied ruling class and fear in the dominated oppressed working class.  The rich and wealthy fear loss of property and assets and they consider any social unrest as threats upon their  privileges.  While the workers fear destitution, unemployment, hunger, and humiliation. These two types of fears impact on the respective classes. The property owning employing class comprise of a few percents continue to profit, even from their own fear from the insurance and security industries who  profit from the fear within the dominating classes. Thus the dominating classes turn into a monster that even feeds on itself to satiate its thirst for profit.  Fear drives the controlling class to make them alienated from broader society by themselves with gated communities. They intend to exist alone, inconsiderate to the existence of others. Yet they fail to recognise their dependence upon the very people whom it subjugates and feeds on.

 The dominated classes are exploited more subtly by fear. Economic insecurity,  hunger, homelessness, destitution etc. are manifestations of the fear that lead the dominated classes to plunge into a race to serve the system. Fear is a controlling mechanism of the system. Seeds of fear are sowed deep in society by the system. The masses are thus driven to serve the system as best they can chained to the profit- system that squeezes out maximum possible profit from them all the time restraining any move to rise against the system.  Fear is also used to divide working class and create competition among them that work as a safety tool for the system. Fear is propagated and engineered by the media. The propagation of fear is a primal function of the system. Fear destabilises unity and the morale of the masses, which in turn helps the system.  By the suppression of class consciousness and sowing disunity, the ruling class enjoy an unhindered flow of profit.

The daily debasement heaped upon working men and women breeds anger and rage. Often this rage is turned inward and shows itself as depression, addiction, or suicide. Frequently it is directed against children, spouses, or against  “others” and “outsiders” like immigrants, or minorities, or gay people. But sometimes it is correctly aimed at the class enemy and takes the form of riots, sabotage, strikes, demonstrations, even revolution.  Then people try to take control of their daily lives and their labour and liveliehoods.

Nevertheless, within this  apparent powerlessness reside the very triggers and ingredients of political  power. In the midst of the fear of uncertainty, violence, and  confusion the possibility of revolution is very much alive. The Socialist Party task is to change the political environment, not succumb to it. One of  our  key principles is to avoid compromise. We are often told by those who want reform that the solution we are urging is “not on the table.” We need to refuse to accept the limits of the negotiating table that are designed to divide and conquer. People are given the fake choices to squabble over but never offered a real solution. We are seeking real solutions that require a paradigm shift.  We must advocate for transformational change and not for inadequate reforms that do not solve the problem but merely make it look like the system is responding to our concerns. Reformism co-opts the movement’s goals and allows those in power to undermine the movement through false solutions.

If the World Socialist Movement is be relevant we must begin reversing divide and rule into unite and win.  Some may become discouraged by our perceived lack of progress and success and may resort to advocating violent tactics believing that previous tactics failed. This path will actually undermine the socialist movement by giving openings for the government to infiltrate it and respond with their own state-violence. It would scare people away. When some say that the elections are rigged, people imagine that the machines or the counting is rigged. That may be so in a few minor instances, but that is not what gets one person elected over another. It is the mistaken votes of the people fooled into acting against their own interests that gives the bosses their political power.

The role of the socialist is to encourage thinking  not to dictate all the solutions, but engaging with others and  providing  informed opinion. There will be victories on the road to socialism. There will also be defeats. We should celebrate the successes and learn from the failures.

The Profit System's Awful Cost

The development of capitalism grows at breakneck speed in China, but at a terrible human cost. 'Between 350,000 and 500,000 Chinese die prematurely each year because of the   country's disastrous air pollution, says China's former health minister. The equivalent of the population of Bristol dies each year in China because of   lethal air pollution, according to Chen Zhu, who was the country's Health minister until last year.' (Daily Telegraph, 7 January) In the mindless drive for bigger and bigger profits for the owning class, the working class have to pay, in ill health and premature death. RD

Everything will change but stay the same.

WORLD SOCIALISM

“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions” - Michael Collins, Gemini 10 & Apollo 11 

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’ ”- Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 

 “Clearly, the highest loyalty we should have is not to our own country or our own religion or our hometown or even to ourselves. It should be to, number two, the family of man, and number one, the planet at large. This is our home, and this is all we've got."— Scott Carpenter, Mecury 7


The Socialist Party’s Scottish branches admit its limitations in the independence referendum debate. All we can do is educate ourselves and as many people as we can, giving them the means and the methods to educate others so they too can change other people's minds. This is the continuous educational process that the Socialist Party of Great Britain engages in. Our immediate task is to counter all this nationalist propaganda, either for separatism or maintaining the union. It is painful to watch otherwise intelligent people lend support to something that’s such an obviously bad idea. Too many live in denial and it is time for the rest of us to proceed towards a rational discussion about the real solution. The only real option is a sane social system.

The SNP has been promised that Scotland will keep the same queen, the same single market and same regulatory regime of the Bank of England , the same currency and EU membership. Separatists pledge the same TV programming and continued membership of Nato. Yet, in Scotland,  as in all other parts of the globe, capitalism and the quest for larger profits control every single part of our lives – from the day we’re born, until we take our last breath. Throughout our lives, we are forced into wage slavery. Capitalism has a stranglehold on our entire existence, and it has turned our entire lives into a profit-making venture. It has  commercialised everything that we do and turned ourselves into actual marketable commodities. An independent Scotland won’t change that, although it may change the person who holds the chains. The SNP is a capitalist party. It works on behalf of the capitalists. Nothing could be further from the truth when Left-Nationalists claim the independence of Scotland would not mean a step forward towards socialism. It would be a step backwards.  Whatever twists and turns lie down the road in the fight for socialism, one thing is certain: the success of that struggle depends on achieving the greatest possible unity of the working class, it is utterly ridiculous to argue that the working class ought to divide itself into two different countries in order to accomplish this unity. It is completely absurd to justify this with the false argument, disproven many times, that the battle for socialism would be easier if it were led by a more militant, nationally pure and homogeneous working class. People are not going to win by dividing themselves. The Left- Nationalists would have us believe that the national demands of the Scottish people can only be met through independence. Thus, they claim, the task is to transform bourgeois independence into a socialist independence. In reality, they find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class. Supporting independence for Scotland  in the name of socialism is a hoax.

Nationalists promote a romantic picture of the future. In their ideal scenario, in a ‘free’ Scotland the economy would bounce back into a robust recovery, jobs would be plentiful, and all those paycheques would bolster a lively and politically stable economic scene with the Edinburgh government aiding entrepreneurial ventures with tax incentives. They would like us to believe and have others accept that home-grown national monopolies are somehow less exploitative than foreign monopolies and less subject to the impact of the general capitalist crisis. Capitalist enterprises, inevitably move towards becoming monopolies, regardless of the nationality of their owners.

The real referendum question is this - “Do you want to take your chances with fake promises of a better Scotland through independence or work towards a positive socialist future through revolution?"

At the onset of 2014, many people are now anticipating the prospect of a ‘global revolution'. There is no way of predicting where a mass protest movement will kick off next or what form it will take, but expect it to be an even larger-scale version of an Occupy movement. There is a  growing understanding among everyday people that we cannot rely on governments to affect the necessary transformation. In the now-famous words of Russell Brand there will be a “total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic systems”. In short, a revolution in our sense of self as global citizens , in which we equate our own interests with those of people anywhere in the world and we no longer conform to the capitalist vision of society in which we are forced to compete with everyone else as ‘others'. The Socialist Party is for a revolution in every sense of the word – in our values, our imaginations, our lifestyles and our social relations, as well as in our political and economic structures. The growing call for revolutionary change is shared beyond national borders and is for the common good of all people in all countries.

 Realistic proposals for planetary change do exist, as individuals and groups everywhere are discussing the necessary objectives for how the economy should be run democratically at all levels, from the local to global. An abundance of  thinking outlines the need for changes in every aspect of our economic and political systems which altogether articulate a basic but an effective blueprint for a new and better world. The Socialist Party calls for global revolution, not devolution. It is up to the working class to show that it will not be duped by nationalist nonsense and deceitful rhetoric.

 “The view of the earth from the moon fascinated me—a small disk, 240,000 miles away. It was hard to think that that little thing held so many problems, so many frustrations. Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from that distance. I’m convinced that some wayward stranger would certainly know instinctively that if the earth were inhabited, then the destinies of all who lived on it must be inevitably interwoven and joined. We are one hunk of ground, water, air, clouds, floating around in space. From out there it really is one world.” 
“When you're finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you're going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people."— Frank Borman, Apollo 8