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

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.

Upper Class Arrogance

The arrogance of the owning class knows no bounds. Take the case of Yevgeny Chichvarkin the Russian reputed to have a fortune of £150m, who now lives in London and has opened a wine store in Mayfair for the super-rich called Hedonism. He currently offers a bottle of wine priced at £120,000 and has on offer a bottle of 55-year-old Glenfiddich whiskey at around £123,000. He blithely boasts of his customers. "It's a present for somebody who has seen everything in this world. For some people who have been rich for a long, long time. It is quite hard to make an impression." (Guardian, 28 December) RD

The SPGB Programme

SOCIALISM NOW 

People are aware that  political parties which claim their support have a programme which they put before them, explaining their point of view in relation to present-day questions. The Labour Party has one programme, the Conservative another and the LibDems possess one. At the back of all these programmes, there exists in the mind of those who are propagating them a particular point of view as to the nature of present-day society and of the tendencies of present-day society.  Conservative programme represents the interests of a different class from that of the worker he is trying to acquire a vote from.  It represents the programme of the capitalist class which looks at present-day society from a different point of view from that of the working class. The Socialist Party programme however is the simplest to understand. Our demand is solely for the establishment of socialism, not a wish-list of reforms we would like to see the ruling class implement. In order to understand that attitude it is necessary to understand the socialist  point of view in relation to present-day society.

If we look at the production of wealth in present-day society, we find that that production of wealth can only take place through the co-operation of many diverse trades and industries interlocked one with the other. Within a given workshop, the whole variety of workers, manual and mental, co-operate together in order to produce a common product. Within society as a whole all industries co-operate together in order to produce wealth, the raw material of one industry being the finished product of the other. Without this co-operation of all the useful elements of society in production, there can be no society as we understand it to-day. Wealth to-day can only be produced and industry maintained through this co-operation. The vast industries in which men co-operate to produce wealth to-day are not the creation of any particular class, but have only been created and can only be maintained by the co-operative labour of all useful elements in society. The technical knowledge, the science which is utilised by these industries is not the creation of any particular social class, but is the common product of men co-operating together in society.

This technical knowledge, this application of science to industry, is constantly increasing, and with it, the power to produce wealth quickly and efficiently. Within our own lifetime, we have seen tremendous progress in the application of science and technology to industry. The ability to produce wealth grows every year, and with it, in a rational system of society, the welfare of the mass of the people should grow also. In capitalist society the opposite process is taking place. Alongside growing power to produce wealth there is growing poverty. The wealth which is produced by the co-operative labour of all active workers in industry is divided in most hopelessly unequal fashion,  giving one class bountiful riches and power and condemning the majority of us to poverty and subjection. The cause of the rotten distribution of wealth lies in the nature of the capitalist order of society. While wealth is cooperatively produced these industries are not owned by the workers who operate them, but by a small idle class owning the land, the banks and the means of production. Because this class owns the means of life, it is able to dictate to the producers the terms on which they will work. These terms may vary for different classes of workers, in accordance with their scarcity, skill, or organisation, but they are always of such a character as to allow to the employing class the lion’s share of the wealth which is produced by the labour of others.

All this may seem the most elementary and unworthy of emphasis yet the very basics of socialism, however, are being forgotten by many people in the 'progressive’  movement to-day. At the moment the idea is being widely spread that by an improvement in the efficiency of capitalism the workers will be able to obtain a continuous improvement in their standard of life. The idea behinds this is that the more capitalism produces wealth the better off everyone will become. This is not the case. The more wealth capitalism produces the greater its difficulties as a functioning system; the more difficult it is to obtain markets, the more intensive international competition becomes; the greater becomes the danger of the antagonisms created by this competition ripening into war. Capitalism widens the gulf between  workers and the capitalists, increases the difficulties of capitalism to dispose of its product, and drives the capitalist states irresistibly towards war.

At the present moment the difficulties of capitalism are increasing in every country. Capitalism has by no means solved the crisis into which the world has plunged it. There exists a scramble all over the world for control of oil fields and sources of supply of all kinds. The result of this scramble has been wars. Countries which had formerly been in the very forefront of capitalist “progress” are now almost ruined. New countries which had formerly been dependent upon them have thrown off their dependence and entering upon a period of expansion.

Under capitalism this state of affairs naturally leads to intensification of competition. In such a situation, the capitalists have only one solution of the difficulty, i.e., the increased exploitation of the working class. There are two ways in which the capitalists can increase this exploitation: (1) to reduce the wages of the working class, normally by de-valuing the value of money by Keynsian inflation (2) to speed up the working class while continuing to pay them the same wages by intensifying the work-process with new technology. These methods are not mutually exclusive. Very often both of them are adopted by the same body of employers, one after the other. The reformists hold that the crisis is not in a “normal” condition. If wage reductions will help in getting capitalism back to “normal,” then the majority of those leaders insist wage reductions ought to be agreed to by the working class. They have pursued this policy, not merely in theory, but in action as agreeing cuts to pay and pensions.  No amount of concessions by the workers can do more than meet the immediate difficulties which the capitalist class are faced with. Sooner or later new difficulties will arise in the development of the system, and the capitalists will call upon the workers for even further sacrifice.  The Socialist Party would like to know how to restore businesses to prosperity without reducing wages and without the employers giving up any of their claims on the profits of that industry. The only way is to induce the workers to forgo their customs and practices, allow the capitalists a free hand in utilising the labour-power which is available to them in order that an increased product may result at less cost.

 Even if the workers were to agree to facilitate production by abandoning their safeguards, there is no guarantee that they would get a share of the increased production. The division of the increased product would be settled like the division of the product to-day, by the relative economic strength of the workers on the one hand and the employers on the other. Waiting for the trickle down effect offers little hope to workers.

We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humankind.  It is capitalism that brings about great inequalities in living standards with more poor people now in the world than ever before, starts murderous wars to steal the resources of other countries and causes the growing devastation of our natural environment.  Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humanity. Urgent action is necessary. People know that capitalism has failed but few can see a way forward to a better type of society. There is nothing to fear from socialism but everything to gain. Socialists are not fighting for utopias or for a future ‘Workers State.' In a socialist society the capitalist with the whip disappears. Here all workers are free and on an equal footing, working for benefit and enjoyment, tolerating no waste of social wealth. The purpose of socialist propaganda intends to make it clear to all the working-classes that society  as it exists to-day, is founded on the robbery of the ‘lower’ class by the ‘upper’ class of the useful by the useless, of the many by the few; that so long as this privileged robbery goes on, those who do all the useful work that is done will be constantly deprived of the refinements of life.  Let it be clearly understood that only two systems of society are possible, wage-slavery and socialism.

The abolition of the rule of capitalism and the realisation of socialism – nothing less, this is the electoral policy of the Socialist Party. This is an huge work which can be born only of the conscious action of the mass of workers. The path of the revolution follows clearly from its ends, its method follows from its task. This is the guiding principle of all socialists. The familiar concept of revolution stems from that period which saw the transition from the feudal to the capitalist world. This concept will not be valid for the transition from capitalism to socialism. Our doctrine tells us that socialism can’t be built on the ruins of the existing society by a revolt of starving beggars in rags. It can only result from organised workers. The only viable way forward is  struggle to achieve socialism, a classless and stateless society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment.  To create a socialist world it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism and this can be done only through revolution.

perhaps, we should create more poverty among seniors?

A study on global pensions by The Organization for Economic-operation and Development (What? Co-operation within capitalism?) concluded that Canadians over sixty-five are well-off compared to most others in the thirty-four-country group of advanced economies. The average poverty rate for seniors in Canada was 7.2% which was among the ten lowest and better than the 12.8% average. The inference is that for this the Canadian seniors should be grateful, or, perhaps, we should create more poverty among seniors so we are at the average! One wonders how satisfied the compilers of the report would be if they lived in poverty, that is especially desperate for the elderly who have passed any chance of earning more to supplement pensions. From cradle to grave ever becomes more of a struggle unless we are prepared to change things. John Ayers.

A New Year Resolution by the Clyde Workers , 1916

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Strengthened by a mutual recognition of the real danger o'ershadowing Labour, emancipated from that abject humility that has hitherto characterised too many of the self-appointed saviours of our class, untrammelled by the self-seeking lickspittles whose corruption has been responsible for the deplorable plight of the world movement to-day; the Clyde Workers’ Committee will stand unique in the annals of Labour Unionism. It is on account of the absolute distinctness of the C.W.C. that I am cheered by the advent of a new Labour publication. I feel perfectly satisfied that a paper produced by the men who suffer every day the horrors of industrial life and its multitudinous injustices, whose eyes have been opened to the sunshine of disillusionment shining through the massed black clouds of treachery and cant, will adequately minister to the. militants whose discontent to-day is the harbinger of a glorious to-morrow. The Worker is the “trumpet which sings to battle,” blown by the breath of the mighty inspiration – To the worker the tool. To the accomplishment of this the fighter will strive with renewed virility, now that a vehicle for the diffusion of righteous discontent and a weapon for redress of Labour’s wrongs is under the control of the men of the workshop. However, truly sympathetic the intellectual, professional, or upper class individual may be to the cause of working class emancipation, the efforts of such must necessarily fail to carry the conviction that accompanies the efforts of the workshop propagandist. There exists always the healthy suspicion that the person of polish is talking of something he cannot possibly have first-hand knowledge of. This is why Union Officials – men of the workshop who have been placed in positions of trust by their mates – have always been able to barter the confidence thus won for flattery or gold. The ruling class influence over Labour Unionism is an influence that would cease to exist if all officials were honest men, or men actuated by the knowledge that the class they represent can have nothing in common with the class which exploits it. It is by the recognition of these facts that the C.W.C. gives the promise of a fuller and more joyous future for the Labour movement. It is customary to wish a new journalistic venture long life. I go one better, I wish it with all my heart and soul a short life – but a successful one. May it bring the Revolution.

Yours, in the spirit and flesh,
JOHN S. CLARKE.

The Worker, No.1, 8, January 1916

The function of a trade union

The function of a trade union is to eliminate competition among workers on the labour market. But if the trade union, as an organization of living human beings, is to attain its goal, it can do so only through the will of its members. The transient personal interests of the individual worker often clash with the interests of the class as a whole. The organisation requires certain sacrifices: dues, expenditure of time, readiness to engage in struggle. Anyone who remains outside the union earns the good will of his employer and avoids conflicts, unemployment, or demotion. The stronger the trade unions become the more the entrepreneur strives to keep his workers out of them. He substitutes his own social security arrangements for those of the trade union, and deliberately exploits the conflict between personal and class interests. The trade union struggle is a struggle over the labour contract.

The capitalist is opposed by the individual worker while the individual employer is engaged in conflict with an organisation of workers, and organisations of workers are locked in battle with employers' organisations.  The existence of employers' organisations involves a change in the balance of power between capital and labour.  As long as the isolated employer confronted an organized workforce the trade union had a great many measures available to it which the development of employers' organisations has now rendered ineffective. The more fragmented an industry is, and the smaller the average size of the firms, the greater, in general, is the power of the trade union.

As long as trade unions confront individual employers their position is a favourable one. They can bring their concentrated power to bear upon the isolated employer. The wage struggle is thus a series of individual strikes. The workers of the employer concerned are supported by the whole financial strength of the trade union, which does not diminish during the struggle because the members who are still working continue to pay their dues, and perhaps special levies. The employer has to fear that his customers will be taken from him by employers who continue to produce, and that his sales will be considerably reduced even after the strike has ended. He has to make concessions, and from that moment it is in his interest that the terms to which he has agreed should become general throughout the industry, that all the other employers, whether voluntarily or under duress, should concede the same terms of employment. The isolation of the employers enables the trade unions to compel them to come to terms one after the other, through systematically conducted individual strikes, without these strikes putting too great a strain upon the resources of the unions themselves. Their successes increase their power by increasing membership and income from dues, and they emerge from the struggle stronger than before.
 It is clear that these tactics can be employed all the more successfully, the more tenuous the co-operation between employers, the keener the competition among them, the greater the number of employers involved, and the smaller the power of resistance of each individual employer. It is here that the influence and power of the unions is greatest. Large-scale industry resists such individual strikes much more strongly. In this case a strike can only be successful if it is general throughout the industry. An individual strike encounters much greater resistance which is far more difficult to overcome because the power of even a single large employer is far more considerable, and an understanding among a relatively small number of employers can be achieved more rapidly. The combination of workers is now confronted by the combined power of the employers which makes it more difficult for a trade union to achieve success in an isolated struggle, since the individual employer is now backed by his organisation, which compensates him for losses, ensures that the striking workers do not find other jobs, and makes every effort to fill the firm's most pressing orders itself.  If necessary it resorts to the offensive by extending the struggle and declaring a lockout in order to weaken the union and force it to capitulate. In such a struggle between the combined employers and the trade unions, the employers' organization is quite often the stronger of the two.

As long as labour organisations are in conflict with individual employers the choice of timing rests with the workers, and timing is a decisive factor in determining the outcome of a struggle. A work stoppage is most damaging during a boom, when the rate of profit is at its highest and the opportunities for extra profit are greatest, and in order not to lose his whole profit even a major employer would try to avoid a conflict at such a time, for the opportunity to earn that profit will not recur, at least not until the next boom. From the standpoint of the union's chances of success, a strike should be called at a time when production is at its maximum, and it is one of the difficult tasks of trade union educational work to persuade the members of the wisdom of these tactics. For it is precisely at this time that workers' incomes are highest, as a result of regular employment and overtime, and the psychological incentive to go on strike is consequently weakest. This also explains why most strikes occur during a period of prosperity before the peak of the boom is reached.

This choice of timing, however, ceases to be the prerogative of the trade unions once the employers' organisation becomes well established, for the latter can now determine the time of the conflict. For them the lockout is a form of preventive war, which can best be waged during a depression when overproduction makes it quite useful to halt production, and the workers' power of resistance is at its lowest because of the excessive supply of labour on the market and the financial weakening of their organizations as a result of the large demand for financial aid and the decline in membership. This ability to postpone the occurrence of a conflict, which results from the development of an employers' organisation, in itself represents a massive transfer of power. The employers' associations attempt, by a process of careful selection, to retain unorganized workers, rather than those who are organised, in employment, the most dangerous among the latter are proscribed by the use of blacklists. By organising company unions - institutions for breeding class traitors - the employers try to divide the workers with the aid of bribes and the granting of special privileges, and to ensure the availability of a strike-breaking squad. By refusing to negotiate with the union leaders they seek to undermine their moral influence. But they are fighting a vain battle, for in the final analysis the class interests of the workers are identical with their personal interests, and the trade union organization has become a matter of life and death for them. But the battle does retard the progress of the trade union movement and restrict its influence.

 The guerrilla war of the trade unions against individual employers has given way to mass struggles which affect whole branches of industry, and if they grip the most vital sectors of production, which have become interdependent through the division of labour, they threaten to bring all social production to a standstill. The trade union struggle thus expands beyond its own sphere, ceases to be the concern only of the employers and workers directly affected, and becomes a general concern of society as a whole, that is to say, political.  There is growing pressure from those who are not directly involved to end the original wage conflict, and since there is no other means available for this purpose they call for intervention by the state. The question of ending the strike is thus transformed from a trade union question into one of political power. The balance of power is tilted in favour of the employers by their de facto control of government.

The very scale and intensity of the unions struggles gives them a political character and demonstrates to workers how trade union activity is necessarily complemented by political action. Hence a point is inevitably reached in trade union development when the formation of an independent political labour party becomes a requirement of the trade union struggle itself. Once an independent political party of the workers exists its policy is not confined for long to those issues which led to its creation, but becomes a policy which seeks to represent the class interests of workers as a whole, thus moving beyond the struggle within capitalism into a struggle against capitalism - the struggle for socialism

Taken from here

Bankrupt Scots

Twenty Scottish businesses are forecast to go bust each week this year, with 40 Scots being declared bankrupt each day as the nation continues to struggle under a mountain of historic debt.

Just under 15,000 Scots were sequestrated – the Scottish term for bankruptcy – or took out a protected trust deed (PTD) last year and a similar figure will go bust by the end of this year, BDO warned.  Bryan Jackson, a partner at accountancy firm BDO, which made the predictions said that “rising utility bills, higher food costs and frozen wages” meant that people struggling with debts were also only able to pay off the interest rather than the amount they borrowed. Such individuals could be “tipped over the edge” by increases in their living costs or reductions in eg, overtime payments, he added, or by changes in personal ­circumstances such as divorce or unemployment. Jackson added: “Although the number of Scots being made bankrupt has reduced in the past few years from a peak of 23,500 in 2009, it has settled at a disturbingly high level. Prior to 2008, a figure of 15,000 Scots a year being bankrupted would have seemed outrageous but we have got used to a very high level of personal insolvency since the recession began and seem to accept these numbers as the inevitable consequence of the economic downturn. They may use payday loans to cover themselves in the short term but the debts will simply accumulate and eventually they will be made bankrupt.”

Many companies are only managing to service the interest on their debts rather than paying off the money they owe. This leaves firms in a precarious situation if interest rates begin to rise, as they will be unable to meet their repayments. Jackson  said: “Worryingly, many businesses are simply paying interest on debts that are never reduced. A rise in interest rates, reduced income, or a change in the marketplace and these businesses will collapse.”

Tightening gun laws?

In the year since the shootings at Sandy Hook elementary school, twenty-five more school shootings have occurred killing seventeen and wounding twenty-four. No progress whatsoever has been made in tightening gun laws due to the power of the gun lobby, but eighty state laws to arm school staff have been passed. Sounds like a good business proposition for the gun manufacturers, arming even more people. John Ayers.

Thoughts on socialism

Once the capitalist class have been able to concentrate wealth into their hands they have, throughout history, emasculated government, turned the press into lap dogs and courtiers, corrupted the courts and hollowed out public institutions, including universities, to justify their looting and greed. Today capitalists have created grotesque financial mechanisms that do not make money directly from the means of production.  The banking business are parasites. They feed off the carcass of industrial capitalism. They produce nothing. They make nothing. They just manipulate money.

It is labour alone which supplies all human wants. It has produced in the past all the capital it now employs, and it is producing all the capital which will be employed in the future.  Dividends do not create themselves – they are all filched from labour. Thus all workers are bled.

And what about the capitalist? What is his place in our social system? That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all who have studied it. It has rendered the many subservient to the few and facilitated every method of exploitation. It disinherits the great mass and foreordains their lifelong misery before they are even born. It creates jealousies, hatreds, and mutual injustice. All  political institutions are destructive and those in power are self-seeking, dishonest, and tyrannical, and ever ready to dominate and oppress those over whom they exert authority. Our social system is continually driving people to poverty. The world’s wealth is concentrating in fewer hands; millionaires and paupers are both on the increase and the bIg capitalists are swallowing up the little ones. The governments of the world are at the beck and call of its plutocrats while life is getting intolerable precarious to the many. Men and women are wretched with discontent everywhere.  Laws are made to protect property and proprietors alone. There is no law for the poor. Plutocracy rules the world.

The fact that the Left over the decades has suffered a serious set-backs; in numbers, spirit, organisation, and ideology, is no secret. Some of the causes for the Left’s decline were outside its own control. The truth of the matter is that the long-sustained boom and its long prosperity had undermined  the confidence in Marxist economic analysis. The end of World War Two was firmly expected to produce a return to the depression of the thirties as post World War One had done - it didn’t happen. But the 2007/8 Great Recession changed that perspective. Now ‘radical’ economists working as research directors for labour unions secretly believe that they are surreptitiously bringing back Marxism when they present superficial analyses  about ‘the worker not being able to buy back what produces’, misrepresenting this redistributionist under-consumptionist theory as Marxist economics. The over-simplified theory of the reformists is that in a boom, profits rise faster than wages, thus producing a shortage of purchasing power. This takes effect for cause, and fails to dig deeply enough for the underlying reasons. The theory falls down when one considers that the remedy it proposes—rising wages—is a feature of every boom period has never yet succeeded in preventing the collapse.

Frederick Engels dubiously attributed the slowness of socialist development in English workers to the ‘share’ in the benefits of ‘England’s industrial monopoly’ which fell to the working class.‘With the breakdown of that monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position; it will find itself generally—the privileged and leading minority not excepted—on a level with its and these soon install themselves as the new elite. Such is the eternal design of the universe fellow workers abroad. that is the reason why there will be socialism again in England.’ The same proposition holds here. Socialism will come again  only when economic conditions prepare the way.

In ‘Poverty of Philosophy,’ Marx states: ‘The domination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital but not yet for itself. In this struggle of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests.’

Whether one agrees or not, Marx’s thought seems perfectly clear. The working class is formed and exists through the organization of the social process. It is an objective fact regardless of anyone’s understanding, or how various individuals picture to themselves their class position. But for a class to understand its own interests and engage in political battles in its own interests, it needs class consciousness. This consciousness is attained however in the course of its inevitable experiences and conflicts with the employing class.

The unique feature of the Marxist analysis is that it describes a basic problems in the capitalist economy which cannot be solved short of doing away with capitalism. Every boom hits its stride because of a growing strength in purchasing power, but this in turn produces a frenzy of competition and expansion in industry which is bound to far outrace the population’s consuming power. The mechanics which force capitalism to this end are not primarily psychological, although that element plays a role in the later stages of an upswing, but are directly economic in character. In the law of the jungle of capitalist competition, each capitalist is forced to fight for his profit position and competitive standing; the race of technology and productivity grows exceedingly swift; every possible particle of capital and credit is drawn into the maelstrom in which money miraculously breeds money; and every encouragement in the way of a boost in purchasing power drives the boom to more dangerous speculative heights and over-expansion of industry. To eliminate depression by a rise in wages adds a trifle of consuming power and keeps the bubble going a while, but only inflates it bigger in the long run.

Poets have written of the existence of a golden age in the dim past. This was just poetic license and an effort to escape from an unsatisfactory present. There never was such an age in antiquity. Man’s ascent from the jungle has been painful and slow, and his history since the dawn of civilization is written in agony, in and in violence. But a golden age has now become a possibility. The means are at hand to abolish poverty and to eliminate want, to escape from drudgery, to alleviate the struggle between man and man for the good of life by providing abundance for all.

We socialists are up against the fact of life that another new generation has to be convinced afresh that socialism does in fact represent a superior system for the people, that the idea of the  withering away of the state is not a pipe-dream, but a realistic if rough sketch of the future state of human society. The most basic criticism of the Socialist Party is that we have succumbed to utopianism by imagining that socialism will bring an end to the class struggle and usher in a new classless and stateless society of free brotherhood.  Socialism will be created only when people believe these things again, and only by reasoned argument can we hope to convince them.

The labour movement arose not to mirror the corruptions and exploitations of our acquisitive society, but to eradicate them. To the extent that trade unionism succumbs to the practices of the business world, it loses its raison d’etre.  It does not evoke an image as the protector of the underdog, the champion of progress, the advocate of the brotherhood of man. It is, in the mind of the general public, another special vested interest lobby group. But socialists to be realistic, cannot demand very much more from trade unions than they are doing, that unions by its nature cannot go beyond the specific job of rendering a business service. We hold that they represent the wishes of the union membership. Left to their own devices, the union officials will perpetuate themselves in office and continue to follow the lines of least resistance. A basic redirection of union policies can only be visualised  as a consequence of an insurgent mood sweeping the working class as a whole, and finding reflection in union ranks. It is hard to see the unions as initiators of such a change. They will, rather, be beneficiaries of it. But there is no reason to suppose that the pendulum will not swing again in the opposite direction from the present depending on economic and social  circumstances. And any new upheaval inside the unions will necessarily assume different forms from previous upsurges to meet new conditions and situations.  The union becomes vibrant only when workers are in motion and  are interested in alternative lines to official policy,  seeking to participate in decision-making. It is a historical fact that democratic participation and spirited controversy occur most commonly when the membership is in a militant state. Discontent can spread through a number of unions, and reflect broader social issues rather than particular local grievances.

Many critics of the socialist idea rest their case on the argument that all previously studied societies have been dominated by a ruling elite, and since it has always been that way, it will always be that way. And of course as their coup de grace those critics eagerly point to the Soviet Union  to prove that socialism represented simply the rule of a new elite based on the control of the state assets which was more  tyrannical and ruthless than any capitalist free-enterprise system. The supposed rule of the majority, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat’, for the first time in history, has been proven a utopia; that given the opportunity, the working class demonstrated its incapacity to rule, and spawned out of its midst a new exploitative bureaucratic elite. Socialism has unfortunately been presented as a system not of abundance but of scarcity, as a system not of increased leisure and comfort, but of unusual sacrifice and back-breaking toil.  Decades of Russian ‘socialism’ has  appeared as a system which offered not political democracy and a wider freedom, but conspicuously less freedom than exists in the most advanced capitalist countries. Workers knew they ate and lived better than the Russians, and that was good enough to hold them as camp followers of the capitalists. Socialism renounced its old ambition of world revolution and has shrunk into a number of separate ‘national liberation’ movements

Many so-called thinkers believe in a veritable law of the social development, namely, that in all society there is, and must always be, a ruling minority that grabs all sorts of special privileges for itself, and a ruled majority, whose destiny is to be directed and controlled by the minority and to toil on its behalf. This remains true whether the society is feudal, capitalist, slave, or socialist, or whether its form be monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, and this will always remain the situation because the majority cannot rule itself.  So, while revolutions are sometimes necessary in order to pep up an old worn-out elite, or replace it entirely with an new fresh elite, it does not and cannot change the basic law of minority rule. Even where majority enter into the revolutionary fray, nothing is changed, because masses can only succeed when the have leaders, because that’s the way human nature works. Such a world-view is expressed by Robert Michels in his “iron law of oligarchy” supporting such the proposition that society cannot exist without a dominant ruling group and that “The social revolution would not effect any real modification of the internal structure of the mass. The socialists might conquer, but not socialism, which would perish in the moment of its adherents’ triumph.” It is a view of history according to which, humanity continues to wage its fruitless struggles over and over again, with society ever revolving around the same series cycle of stages, almost without any sense or reason. The career politician, with his or her inevitable pre-occupation with maneuvers and expediencies, dominates the political field.

This constitutes just one more capitalist attack on socialism which is largely a variation of the "you can’t change human nature” argument.