Lunching At The Food Bank

Things have reached a sorry pass when even  a  pillar of society like an archbishop can recognise the poverty of the working class. 'Millions of low-paid workers are trapped in an unbreakable cycle of poverty, and are even turning up at food banks in their lunch breaks asking for help to feed their families, the Archbishop of York warns. Dr John Sentamu, writing in The Independent, says low pay is a "scourge on our society" and challenges David Cameron to back up his "warm words" with action to boost the incomes of the working poor.' (Independent, 10 February) An independent commission chaired by the Archbishop says the economic recovery will make no difference to the lives of the five million lowest-paid workers unless they paid the so-called "living wage". The commission is mistaken in thinking that the pittance of a "living wage" is the answer to the problem. They should try "living" on a "living wage" - more like existing than living. RD

The Communist Con Trick

One of the greatest con tricks in history was that Russia and China were communist countries. It is doubtful if any one is naive enough to make that claim about Russia today and surely it is impossible to make that claim for China on learning of this news. China's elite, including the brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping, have used secretive offshore companies that helped hide wealth in tax havens, including the British Virgin Islands and Samoa, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington, D.C. 'The group, whose website is now blocked in China, worked with reporters from Europe, North America, and Asia, sifting through leaked files from two offshore funds, Singapore-based Portcullis TrustNet and Commonwealth Trust Limited in the British Virgin Islands. The documents, which are part of a larger cache of 2.5 million files obtained by ICIJ and analyzed with its media partners, provide information on nearly 22,000 offshore clients with addresses in Hong Kong and mainland China.' (Bloomberg Businessweek, 22 January) RD

A Personal Re-appraisal

WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

It may be advisable to take a look round upon the position of the Socialist movement in this country, to take stock as it were, and to consider where we are and where we are going. We are bound to admit that there are grounds for disappointment.  The fact that we emerge from elections having been unsuccessful in winning a substantial vote seems to have led some to the conclusion that our policy and our methods have been wrong, that our work has been wasted, that we have utterly failed, and that we should adopt some other policy, apply other methods, and work in other directions. We do not at all share that view. We have failed. That is true. But failed how? And in what?

What are we out for? Nothing less than a social revolution, a complete transformation of human society from its base. That is not a little thing. It is about the biggest job that any body of men and women have ever set as their task. And what are the means at our disposal? We have no other material than ourselves and no other means other than those limited resources at hand. Apart from the tremendous forces set in motion by the economic development - forces which are hastening the revolution more rapidly every day, and which make it, as we believe, inevitable - the revolutionary tool we have  forged is a socialist political party. So far, our efforts in this direction have not been favourable. Indeed, it is just here that we have failed. But what of it? Didn't we know, when we started, that that was the most difficult part of our challenge? Didn't we know it would take years and decades? Didn't we know that we would meet with disappointments and set-backs? Didn't we know that many of our members would go to their graves without a glimpse of that free co-operative commonwealth of which they were unquestioningly assured, and which, even in their lifetime, seemed so near?

How many years ago is it since William Morris wrote the words: "Only three little words to speak: We will it!"? And the people do not will it yet! But the numbers grow of those who do; and slow as is the work, it is none the less sure. And bitter as may be the failures, every one brings us nearer to the goal. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way. Even were it otherwise, a political or intellectual leadership cannot "let the people go," even if they desired to do so.  The socialist movement is fundamentally a movement for the emancipation of the working-class, they cannot be emancipated against their will, and so far we have not succeeded in inspiring them with that consciousness of their present wage-slave status, or inspire that passionate desire for their own emancipation, which is essential to a revolutionary movement. That is where we have failed.

 But is the failure due to our own fault, and should it cause us discouragement and despair? We think not.  If we saw others succeeding where we have failed we might conclude that the fault was indeed ours. We have been frequently and constantly derided by critics, who we do not see having faired any better than we have. Over the long decades of our existence our political rivals have endeavoured to show what a poor, hopeless lot of ineffectual cranks we of the Socialist Party were, and proceeded to map out a "better” way for the realisation of socialism. They have at times rallied activists and academics to their ranks but now many have now been forgotten, lost on the wayside of their 'shortcuts' to socialism. The SLP. The ILP. The CP. None mustered  the workers to any significant greater extent than ourselves, and only achieved better success in their recruitment of card-carriers because their 'socialism' was more hazy and less definite, the proverbial all things to all people. Then came the Trotskyists,  red flags fluttering, their banners and placards proclaiming 'follow the vanguard'  They tried and also failed to accomplish what earlier left-wingers had hoped to do, i.e., organise a working-class political party, independent of, and hostile to, all capitalist parties, as an instrument for the political, economic and social emancipation of the working-class preferring instead to hold on to the shirt tails of the Labour Party and other out-and -out reformists. They failed completely in rallying the general body of the workers  for socialist independent action, or even for militant rank and file labourism.

It is not pleasing to dwell upon these failures to organise a mass socialist political party, and it is not recalled in any spirit of exultation or feeling of schadenfreude. On the contrary, we as equally suffering members of the working class would have been delighted had any one of them succeeded. We could then have heartily joined with them in their work and rejoiced in their victories. But honesty expect us to refer them, however, as evidence that the cause of our failure must be sought for deeper down than in their own supposed errors or blunders, and because the present weakened position of the socialist movement is not a matter of the sole failure of the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s case to rally the workers into a class-conscious political party, but the failure of all bodies calling themselves 'socialist' which have took up the challenge.

That is not to say that there is no occasion for self-examination, or for review of our tactics or methods. We have no occasion for complacency.  But we do claim that the road we have marked out is the right road, and that no other political organisation  has, as yet, discovered a faster or more direct way towards our goal.  Whatever may be the sins of omission or commission with which we have to reproach ourselves, it is scarcely a fault to be laid at our feet if the working class to whom we appeal decline to take the road we indicate to them, and persist in continually marching up and down a blind alley, spurred on by short-sighted or blinkered leaders. This is the chief difficulty and cause of our non-success - the people themselves remain chained to the prevailing chains of capitalist ideas of what is and what is not possible. Our fellow workers are imbued with the bourgeois ideology that we can reform society in our interest, rather than re-form it into something new.

But we ought not despair. For we knew it all along. It is a quite common mistake on the part of enthusiastic recruits to our movement to imagine the working class are in a state of seething discontent and latent revolt, only waiting for an opportunity to spring into revolutionary action. Such ardent spirits soon, as a rule, become discouraged by disillusionment. But we know better - have always known better. We did not raise false hopes or make rash promises.

For it has not been all failure. Not by any manner of means. Capitalist dominated as still are the ideas of the working class,  they are, thanks to the irresistible pressure of the economic development, far ahead of what they were only a few years ago. Their universal outlook and standpoint has changed. The basic tenets of socialism are increasingly generally accepted or, at least, acquiesced in, by the working-class. The mass protests such as Occupy rejecting the leadership of the mainstream Left has grown in prevalence worldwide and if we cannot claim the change of attitude towards socialist theories and principles as the result of our agitation and campaigns, we can, at least, point to it as evidence that our teaching and position have been in line, and in accord with the trend. Where we have failed is in disseminating the conscious application of our ideas and conceptions.

Let us look to and eliminate the defects of our own organisation, for it is not free from them. The causes which have operate to prevent our success in rallying the whole working-class to our banner do not supply the reasons for the fact that so many sincere and active socialists are outside our party.  Let us look into these reasons and if possible remedy them. In some cases, doubtless, they are purely accidental, but this may not generally be the case. Are we, as is often alleged, too narrow, too sectarian, too intolerant? Are we too discourteous, not to our class enemies, but to would-be comrades and allies? Do we seek to antagonise people rather than to win them over? These are questions to which it may be worth while to give some consideration. We do not desire anyone inside our party who is not committed to our common cause of establishing socialism by mutually agreed tactics but there should be no heresy-hunting; no undue emphasis of non-essential points of difference but rather seeking the essential points of agreement. In things doubtful, liberty; in things essential, unity.

  Our immediate duty is to strengthen our organisation; to muster new recruits under our banner; to disarm hostility and to bring together all those sharing our viewpoints into a united Socialist Party, a live, active, vigorous instrument for the realisation of socialism - the emancipation of humanity. It behoves us not to yield to political pessimism and persist in the direction of building up our class-conscious working-class Socialist Party. Agitate! Educate! Organise!

AJJ

Selective Justice

Two fugitive owners of a Bangladesh garment factory turned themselves in to face homicide charges for the deaths of 112 workers in the country's worst factory fire, but of course the foreign firms that utilised the factory will face no charges. 'The owners of Tazreen Fashions, Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter, were sent to jail after being refused bail. They were among six fugitives wanted in connection with the November 24, 2012, fire on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka. Many of those who died in the multi-storey building perished because supervisors ordered workers back to their stations even as an alarm rang and smoke rose through an internal staircase.' (New York Times, 9 February) The $22 billion export industry, which supplies many Western brands, came under scrutiny when a building housing factories collapsed in April, five months after the Tazreen fire, killing more than 1,130 people. After the Tazreen blaze, both Wal-Mart Stores inc WMT.N and Sears Holdings Inc said that goods were being manufactured for them at the factory. RD

For A Socialist One World

WORLD SOCIALISM

Socialists are indifferent to the national interests of any particular country, our own included. The thing to which we are not indifferent to are the principles of socialism. Socialism involves internationalism*. The internationalism of socialism is other than the mere internationalism we hear so much of in the present day, the internationalism of particular interests, scientific, literary, or what not. This internationalism though undoubtedly itself a sign of the times, is an internationalism of expediency. The internationalism of socialism is an internationalism of principle. Socialist internationalism joins hands with that of anti-patriotism, with that of anti-nationalism. Our regret that all this heroism and devotion at the service of the modern nation-State is not always forthcoming when it is a question of fighting, not for the  independence of one nation, but for a new society for all peoples – for the socialist commonwealth. Would the time might come when the socialist ideal shall inspire men as much as nationality can do now.

We need the conviction that socialism is of more value than an independent national State. But let us not forget that the international workers’ solidarity can sap the importance of the nation-state, and thereby weaken the call of nationalism. The cause of the working class is lost if we allow ourselves to be caught in the net of patriotism, with all the vicious and false sentiment clinging to it, and liable to be evoked in a virulent form on the slightest occasion at the will of the dominant classes. Socialism adopts a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism. The hoax of “my country right or wrong” must be seen for the abomination that it is. Even if the country is committing a crime the blind patriot  wishes to see that crime succeed, or at least will not rejoice at the frustration of this crime by the defeat of his or her country. Patriotism is an objectionable belief since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. The Scot who wants to see his or her country great and strong invariably wants to see it so, if need be, at the expense of the welfare and interests of other countries.

Nationalism claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they would be scorned and laughed at. Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This may have been so in the past , but increased means of communication, the internet,  satellite tv, and air travel  have caused nations to exchange ideas and traditions until today there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even the English language is tending to become universal. More people understand each other today than ever before. Governments are coming to resemble each other. Codes of ethics are becoming international. It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive.

National struggles are a form of expression of the class struggle. The nation is the expression of a particular social and economic system and the class representing that system, today - capitalism and the capitalist class. In the coming decisive struggles against capitalism, socialism recognises and emphasises that the class struggle determines all our action – that the national ideology is a fetter upon the emancipation of the proletariat – and that the Social Revolution is international in scope and purpose. Divide and conquer has ever been a capitalist weapon against the working class.  Nothing could have been more dangerous for the ruling classes than that Scots and English workers should make common cause and instead of fighting each other join forces and fight our mutual employers. Working class internationalism, must replace the narrow isolationist nationalism.

A country’s flag is a commercial asset, its trademark, but this commercial asset only represents the economic and political interests of the capitalist classes.  The concept of the nation-state is based upon narrow class interests. It is common knowledge that the class interests of the employers are built on the foundation of capitalist exploitation. They seek profits and still more profits.  In their pursuit of profits, the capitalists not only unscrupulously exploit the workers; even within their own class the capitalists do not scruple to swallow up their rivals in competition - the big fish swallows the little fish, Big Business swallows the smaller businesses, one group squeezes out and swallows another group. The capitalist strives to possess the means of production and the market of his own country. And since his greed for profits knows no limits, the capitalist strives to expand beyond its own country, to seize foreign markets, sources of raw materials and areas for capital investment, thus subjugating other nations and exploiting them. At the same time it squeezes out the rival capitalists of other countries.

The exploitation of wage labour, competition, the s suppression of competitors among the capitalists themselves, the resorting to war and even world war, the utilisation of all means to secure a monopoly position in its own country and throughout the world - such is the inherent character of the profit-seeking employing class. This is the class basis of nationalism. At home, the capitalist subordinates the interests of the nation as a whole to its own class interests. It places its class interests or the interests of a certain top stratum of society above the interests of the whole people. Moreover, the bosses pose as the spokespersons of the nation and the defender of national interests in order to deceive the people. Abroad, at the same time, it counterposes the interests of its own nation (in essence, of its bourgeois top stratum) to the interests of other nations. The bourgeoisie strives to place its own nation above other nations and, whenever possible, to oppress and exploit other nations, completely disregarding their interests. Oppressor nations may become oppressed nations and vice versa.

The victorious working class will have neither to keep its ancient nationalities nor to constitute new ones, because by becoming free it will abolish classes: the world will be its father/mother/homeland. The peoples of the globe will fraternise and they will stretch out their hands to one another. Mankind will continue to set itself new tasks and their accomplishment will lead to a stage of cultural development which will not know national hatred, wars, religions strife and similar remnants of the past. It is the duty of the socialist party of every country to combat patriotism and nationalism at home, i.e., from within, at every turn.  In these times when the poisonous fumes of nationalism are corroding society, we have ought to do all in our power to keep alive the spirit of internationalism.

Rather than  the slogan “Workers of the World Unite!” Left nationalist separatists seek to  replaced it by: “Nations divide!” Nationalism is a curse. It leads to chauvinism and to national aggression. It leads to a patriotism for the soil, for the particular bit of the Earth’s surface on which a particular person has been born. It leads to bigotry, to national jealousy and petty pride. nationalism is the best of cloaks for the intrigues and
machinations of politicians and capitalists.

*Although the term internationalism has been used we should understand that we mean the worldwide (rather than international) character of socialism. Socialism can only be a united world community without frontiers and not the federation of countries suggested by the word ‘inter-national’.

Scots are Anti-Immigration

A decade ago Scotland had the fastest falling population in Europe, with the birth rate at an all-time low and more people leaving the country than were arriving from overseas. The population of Scotland was hovering just above five million at the end of 2003 after a decline of almost a quarter of a million in the previous 30 years. All the projections said the decline would continue but since 2004 there has been a dramatic change which has seen the Scottish population grow past its 1974 peak to its highest level ever.

Economists say Scotland's population needs to grow by 24,000 people a year just to keep pace with European economies.

The majority of immigrants to Scotland have traditionally been from Pakistan and India but over the past decade the number of people from Poland has risen from just a couple of thousand to about 60,000.

Despite the rise over the past decade Scotland still has a relatively small immigrant population relative to England, especially London. About 7% of Scots were born outside the UK, whereas the figure for the rest of the UK is almost 14%.

Robert Wright, professor of economics at the University of Strathclyde, says Scotland has not really been tested with mass immigration. "So the fact I think there is more tolerance here is because there has been less of it. That does not mean there will be tolerance in the future when there is more immigration, so this will be a hurdle we have to jump later."

Professor Christina Boswell, professor of politics at University of Edinburgh, says that tolerant immigration policies do not tend to be vote winners.  "It is really quite easy and quite tempting for political parties to tap into those political concerns about immigration and try to mobilise support on the basis of an anti-immigrant position, or at least of a less liberal position on immigration. You don't win votes by adopting a liberal progressive labour migration policy and, in fact, the Labour government in the UK has found that in the past few years and it has obviously had to backtrack on its more expansive policy of the early-2000s." Prof Boswell says there is much research to show that immigrants do not create high unemployment and generally do not create a high burden on the welfare state. However, she says: "Immigration is often used as a lightning rod for channeling a lot of anxieties about employment, about welfare, about social cohesion."

Prof Boswell adds: "It is much easier to sell the benefits of labour migration where an economy is facing very tangible acute shortages in particular sectors or regions. It is much easier as well to sell labour migration when it is about recruiting highly-skilled migrants. I think it is much more difficult for governments to make a case or sell the case for recruiting semi or low-skilled migrants. If it were to become a major issue of concern, for example with Romanian or Bulgarian immigration, then I would expect the SNP to water down its claims about a more liberal immigration policy, at least not to emphasise those in the election campaign because it clearly would not be a vote-winner."

58% of people in Scotland wanted to see immigration reduced a little or a lot.(The figure for England and Wales was 75%.)
45% of people thought an independent Scotland should be less welcoming to immigration. When asked if they thought Scotland would actually be less open to immigration just 22% said it would.
12% of Scots think of people coming from England as immigrants.

Food for Thought

The incessant drive for bigger and bigger profits ensure that the capitalist system continually strives in its efforts even when that means breaking the law.Scientists made a "disturbing" discovery that more than a third of foods sampled by a lab were either mislabelled or not what they claimed to be. 'Councils in West Yorkshire carried out tests on 900 food samples to unearth the concerning results. Problems included mozzarella that was less than 50 per cent cheese, ham on pizzas found to be made from poultry or "meat emulsion" and prawns that were 50 per cent water. Other worrying finds included beef mince which was found to contain pork and poultry, while a herbal "slimming" tea was found to be neither herbal or contain tea, instead containing high levels of a prescription slimming drug.' (Daily Express, 8 February) RD

We make the revolution

Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto "The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority".

Some only pay lip-service to this idea. Many do not take it seriously. A number even fail to understand its implications. ‘Self-conscious’ implies that the class itself must understand the full significance of its actions. 'Independent' implies that the class itself must decide the objectives and methods of its struggle.

It is reaffirmed by the First International declaration “The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". The working class cannot entrust its historical task to anyone else.

Even the lyric of the workers’ anthem, ‘The International’, states “no saviours from on high will deliver” socialism.

 In an official manifesto addressed to the National Labour Union of the US, Marx explains:
“On you, then, devolves the glorious task to prove to the world that now at last the working classes are bestriding the scene of history no longer as servile retainers, but as independent actors, conscious of their own responsibility . ..”

Trade unionism first arose in England, where industrial capitalism first developed. Trade unions first arose out of the battles of working people to defend themselves from the abuses and oppressive conditions imposed by the very system of wage labour. The rise of capitalism brought an increasingly greater concentration of industrial production in factories and mills, with ownership concentrated in the hands of a small class of capitalists. Stripped of any means of survival other than the sale of their labour power; workers were forced to compete against each other, thereby enabling profit-hungry capitalists to drive down wages and force long hours and inhuman conditions on the masses of people. In this situation workers were bound to resist. In the days of the industrial revolution, this resistance tended to take the form of smashing the very machines which seemed to be the immediate cause of their enslavement and impoverishment. In the course of these outbreaks and through their own experience, workers soon learned that their most effective weapon against the combined power of capital was to combine their own resources, to unite the working people in one craft or one factory so they could exact better conditions for work and also better terms for the sale of their labor power. Workers began to form various societies, organizations and common funds for mutual protection.

When the unions were in their early of development, carrying out guerrilla war against different employers, Karl Marx recognized the enormous potential of the unions far beyond the fight against day-to-day abuses. In “Wages, Price and Profit,” written in 1865, Marx warned that workers should not be “exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerrilla fights.” The trade unions failed as centers of the working-class struggle, he noted, when they limited themselves to fighting only the effects of the capitalist system, “instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wage system.” In addition to their original tasks in defending workers, the trade unions, as Marx pointed out, “must learn how to act consciously as focal points for organizing the working class in the greater interests of its complete emancipation.” In supporting every social and political movement directed towards this aim, the unions “must convince the whole world that they are not fighting to further their narrow personal interests, but to free millions of oppressed people.”

Political parties are the product of the class struggle. In a classless society which has rid itself of the remnants of class interests and ideology there will be no political parties. They will be unnecessary. But we have not reached the classless society. We are in the midst of a society torn by class struggle, and the political parties of necessity express and reflect the interests of classes in conflict. The more fierce the class struggle becomes, the more society is divided into two camps marshalled for decisive struggle, the greater is the tendency for a fusion of parties in terms of the classes upon which they are based.

The simplistic critique against the Socialist Party is the belief that we declare that until the masses are educated in socialism by ourselves we can’t have socialism. If the changes in society from one social system to another lead waited upon the development of the individual and the education of each individual, then mankind would still not have progressed beyond  primitive society. But society has not waited in this way. The intellectual and moral transformation of society depends upon and follows in the tracks of economic change. This is described in the concept of the historic materialism. Man is the maker of history, but he makes that history with the tools and material at his disposal. His relationship to these instruments of production is a dialectical relationship changing the materials and the tools and himself in the process. At each successive stage when property relations became a fetter upon the development of the forces of production those property relations had to be changed. They were changed. But they were changed when the class which was primarily interested in their transformation developed the will to fight for the change and fought and conquered.

Revolution occur because of the objective conflict between the new forces of production and the old relations of production. In other words, the way this society is organized holds back the development of the material well-being of the society.  The vast resources and wealth of the world have gone to a handful of rich capitalists and corporations , while the masses of people struggle to even survive in the face of unemployment,  the threat of war, and hunger. The problem is not that there isn’t enough to go around, the problem is that what is there exists an abundance but it is hoarded by this small minority. The objective conditions for revolution fully exist. But the objective conditions alone are not sufficient to successfully make revolution. It is the relationship of the objective to the subjective conditions which determines the victory of the revolution. The level of class conscious struggle on the part of the working class is expressed in many ways, but the most important expression is the existence of the political party of .the working class, the socialist/communist party. It is the masses who make revolution, but it is the socialist party which must bring forth organisation.

Sanctioned Crime

It sounds like a wild TV or cinema plot. It has certainly grabbed international press headlines, but there is a more important issue at stake here. 'A woman who allegedly stole diamonds belonging to the Sultan of Brunei's ex-wife and replaced them with worthless replicas made a full confession to local police, a court heard on Friday. Fatimah Lim, 35, pocketed the gems while Madam Mariam Aziz's bodyguard and  jetted off to Geneva to see a diamond merchant for over $7m (£4.3m), it is claimed.' (Daily Telegraph, 7 February) Never mind the bodyguard's alleged crime. How does one individual inside the capitalist system like Aziz accumulate wealth of $7m? We are talking here of a much greater legally sanctioned crime. It is called exploitation of the working class. RD

What to do and not what to do

The trade unions are the organising centres of the working class, the most important mass organisations of workers. Trade unions first arose in order to eliminate the existing competition among the workers. They arose as organising centers that provided the workers with their initial lessons in class struggle. The solidarity learned in the course of the trade union struggle was a school of socialism. The immediate aims of the first trade unions were to win the basic economic demands of the workers, through collective action. The boss tries to squeeze as much profit out of the worker as he can. The worker tries to wring as close to a living wage out of the boss as he or she can. And if the workers stopped struggling, they’d just be squeezed more, that’s all. That’s why there’s a class struggle.

Immediately it became apparent that the function of the trade unions was not only to fight on the economic front, but to fight for the abolition of wage slavery itself, to fight to end the rule of capitalism. We want to get rid of the class struggle too. We’re going to do it by getting rid of the profit system, which exists only because there is a class of exploiters and a class of the exploited.

Many of the fundamental rights of the working class today were a result of the early trade union struggles, such as the eight hour day. Today this advance is being eroded by the capitalists. But certainly, in response to the austerity cuts of the recession,  the class struggle is sharpening. The storm clouds of great battles ahead are filling the air. The task of Socialist Party is to assist  linking these with the aim of our movement–the establishment of  socialism. This task can only be accomplished through patient and careful work, challenging any viewpoint which denies the necessity of trade unions, or that belittles the nature of the class struggle to be waged, and suggests trade unions engage in the line of class collaboration.

To increase profits and expand investments, capitalists have to pay workers lower wages and benefits and keep down the expenses needed to provide safe and healthy conditions. Therefore, workers have to fight both to maintain any gains they have won and make any new advances.

As socialists, our approach recognises that the class interests of workers and capitalists are in basic conflict. We are also concerned that working people do not narrow their attention just to the economic struggle (wages, benefits, working conditions) in their particular workplace. When working people take an active role in struggling with major social and political issues they increase their strength and help both themselves and all oppressed people worldwide. This means taking stands that offer solutions for discrimination, war, pollution and other problems that nobody can really afford to ignore.

There is no kind of labour unionism by itself which is going to provide a solution to the exploitation of the working class. Unions helps to strengthen the working class’ position against the capitalists, and therefore it can contribute to building a  movement of the working class to overthrow the capitalist system and construct a socialist society. Only in socialism do working people have the means to collectively decide the direction their society will take and how they will participate in it.

 As socialists we believe society’s main problem is the capitalist system itself and always uphold that the only real solution is socialism and political rule by working people, not capitalists. A socialist party fights for the interests of the working class as a whole and doesn’t take a narrow sectional view of just looking out for the interests of a few trades. A socialist party struggles for the long-term, political interests of working people, and not just a few short-term economic gains. Socialists also recognise that international borders should not be allowed to divide workers from other working people around the world because we are all fighting one international capitalist system.

Of course, not everyone who calls him or herself a socialists is one. Some leftists who may have the best of intentions cannot be considered socialists because they have the wrong idea of what a socialist society is and advocate the wrong strategy for making a revolution. Too many left-wing activists engage in adventurist acts as publicity stunts to gain attention primarily for their own organisation. They try to be impressive to other working people by striking a “militant” pose, but often their reckless actions just make them end up looking irresponsible and foolish. Typically, a group like this overestimates the conditions that could create a revolutionary situation because it needs to justify its adventurist actions because it has an over-inflated view of its own importance. They cause unnecessary divisions among the working class, and it ends up strengthening the position of the repressive political forces. What is most serious is that it tends to fan anti-socialism by discrediting genuine socialists in the eyes of the working class.

Essential Information

Most workers rely on the daily press for information about world events, but we are also indebted to Fleet Street for other essential information. For instance did you know that Champagne should be kept in the fridge to prolong its shelf life, according to recent research?  'Scientists in America found bubbly kept at lower temperatures was less likely to develop a browning compound called 5-MMF that turns wine bad. They concluded that fizzy wines like Champagne, Prosecco and Cava should be refrigerated to 4C (39F), rather than a cellar at around 16C (61F).' (Daily Telegraph, 7 February) This important information is almost as essential as where our masters are sunning themselves this winter or what billionaire is romancing what starlet. Where would we be without the newspapers? RD

Trade unions and the socialist party - class symbiosis

The aim of trade unions is to serve workers’ struggles and the role of a socialist party is to push forward the fundamental battle to eliminate capitalist exploitation. Unions are the means of defence developed by the working class in its struggle against their employers. They were the result of concerted efforts by workers to organise and fight collectively for better working conditions, wage increases and a shorter working day. The establishment and organisation of unions is no gift from the capitalist class, but the result of the workers’ struggles against their exploiters. Unions are essential for the working class and have done much to advance its cause. Without them, workers would still be subject to the every whim and fancy of the employers. Unions have not been able to remain as combinations of workers of one employer, or even groups of employers in associated industries. They have developed from a unity of workers against a particular employer to unity against employers in one whole field of production, to unity of workers in entire areas. They form a massive unified network from local, to national, to international union. The union movement has proven itself to be a powerful instrument of a defensive character. But unions, while indispensable in the struggle of the workers against capital, have limits as well. They require to restrict themselves to economic struggles and struggles for reforms, and to stay outside the political struggle to abolish capitalism, the source of the workers’ misery.

 It is a socialist party that expresses the experience of the workers in many different unions across the country and provide an orientation for the workers’ fight against the capitalist system. and acts as a force that poses the possibility of a fundamental transformation in socio-economic relations from wage labour to a free association of labour and common ownership of its product - socialism. What the unions has won through battles on the picket lines has often been lost, due, not only to the operation of the laws governing the capitalist system itself, inflation for instance, but to counter attacks by the representatives of the employers as a class in control of parliament, and the state in its totality. The employers, through their agents in control of parliament and the entire state apparatus, have erected a whole network of laws and regulations designed to hamstring the labour movement.

Socialism is the proclaimed goal of many trade unionists who turned to the Labour Party, however the Labour Party cannot even be said to be socialistic. By introducing State management under preserving State-guaranteed profits for the capitalists, it strengthens capitalist domination and perpetuates the exploitation of the workers. The socialist goal cannot be reached by creating a new governing class substituting the capitalists. It can only be realised by the workers themselves being masters over production. The socialist party’s function is to spread insight and knowledge, to study, discuss and formulate social ideas, and by their propaganda to enlighten the minds of the masses. Their work forms an indispensable part in the self-liberation of the working class.

Within the capitalist economic system there are ranged on the one side all those who owned the means of production, and on the other those who use but do not possess them. The class struggle is the ceaseless struggle to obtain some advantage over the other.  It may take the form of more wages or shorter hours or the alteration of some workshop practice; but the particular point really does not matter, the opposing forces are always the same – the employing class and the employed class. It is like a huge market where two commodity possessors come to sell their goods.  The capitalist brings his commodity – money to pay wages , and the worker his or her commodity – the ability to work.  The worker sells his labor power in exchange for gold which is the commodity that will bring him the subsistence of life.  But it must be remembered that the commodity of labor power is free, that is to say, that the worker has no personal ties like the feudal slaves.  He can either sell his labour power or withhold it; but his well-being depends on materials, things he must eat and drink.  The capitalist has accumulated these necessities which he sells by means of his gold, consequently the free laborer with his empty stomach is forced to sell his labor power in return for the commodities without which he cannot live.  The wage laborer therefore is in the grip of a system that beats him down to the lowest – that is to say, to a bare subsistence.  The supporters of a system are those who have gained control of it or control of the means of production, those whose interests are bound up in it.  The system is capitalism, and those who control it are capitalists.  To manage it effectively and to their interests they must have a group of people to assist them and to operate the machinery.  The section or class who assist must be subject to their controllers or, in other words, must be slaves.  In return for their slavery they receive only sufficient of the gold commodity to enable them to continue operating the machinery from day to day, and to perpetuate their class.  It would be a catastrophe to the capitalist system if slaves did not breed more slaves. From this picture we see that for any material advantage one class must take from the other class.  This attempt to take, the one from the other, goes on all over the world, day in and day out.  It is like a tug of war.  There is a long rope – if you can imagine your bread and butter in the form of a rope – with the capitalists at one end and the workers at the other.  The more of the rope that is won, the more material comfort is acquired.

This, then, is the class struggle. It follows  from a Marxian analysis that socialist politics is very different in KIND from all other politics. Its aim, the expression of the interests of the revolutionary class, is quite precisely to overthrow existing social relations, to capture the existing state machine to facilitate the task of establishing a new society. Politics of the other conventional sort revolve within the framework of the existing order. Non-revolutionary political parties, contending for votes and office, represent different sections of the ruling class struggling for the major share of profits and privilege, different groups seeking the lucrative control of the governmental bureaucracy, different theories of how best to maintain the existing order and keep for it the support or at least the tolerance of the people, different organised attempts to secure this or that reform or concession for this or that section of the population. But all varieties of non-revolutionary politics PRESUPPOSE the continuance of the existing order in its fundamental structure: that is to say in capitalist society, non-revolutionary politics presupposes capitalist property relations, the exploitation of the masses by the propertied minority, the class domination of the bourgeoisie, the maintenance of the bourgeois state.

Furthermore, the chief function of mainstream politics is to deceive the working class as to the real and central issue which confronts them. So long as the electorate believe that their significant political choices lie WITHIN the capitalist order, capitalism itself, no matter what internal shifts take place, is not threatened. Every device serves: two or more avowed capitalist parties stage “life-and-death struggles” for “the fate of the nation”; when that sham is seen through, a populist party to slough off mass dissatisfaction into safe channels within the limitations of the capitalist state; when all else fails, a dictatorship to maintain capitalist property with guns. A socialist party pose directly the central issue: the class struggle for workers’ power and for socialism. Their success in an election campaign is not to be measured in votes or offices won, but in the extent and the depth to which they have succeeded in bringing the central issue before the consciousness of the masses.  The main issue for the working class, the only issue  is the CLASS issue:

 The two main political parties are two wings of a single bird of prey. The Conservative Party plays the “hard man” towards the working class. The Labour Party plays the “soft man”, who poses as the friend of the working class. Both unite in trying to fool and confuse the working class and to keep it trapped within the draconian  clutches of the capitalist class. Tory leaders make clear that what they  propose is a return to the good old days. The future of capitalism and profits, they would like to believe, lies in free enterprise, in a balanced budget, rugged individualism, competition, no government “interference” in business.  Equally devoted to the preservation of capitalism and the fullest possible capitalist prosperity (i.e., profits), the Labour Party politicians believe that the traditional methods are no longer adequate either to preserve profits or to keep the tolerance of the masses for the capitalist order. They advocate an “enlightened” capitalism, tempering the harsh exploitation with fine phrases about human rights and public works, and collective bargaining. In this way, Labour aim to oil the wheels of capitalism.

Pessimism V Optimism

Capital must accumulate in order to survive. It grows by keeping for itself the surplus value produced by workers after they have reproduced the value of their labour power, their wages. Surplus value is the source of all profit. The unending search for surplus value, for profit, is the motive force of capitalist production. In its restless search for maximum profits, spurred on by ruthless competition, each capitalist company is bound to attempt to increase its productive strength to the full.

Capitalism can produce only for profit. It is forced constantly to seek new ways to achieve the maximum rate of profit. Competition between rival capitals ensures the destruction of all capitals which do not conform to the blind laws of capitalist production. The bosses cut their costs of production mainly by stepping up their already vicious exploitation of the working class. They cut their wage bills by reducing wages and sacking workers. They also make the remaining workers work longer hours and they increase the intensity of labour.

Capitalists also reduce their wage bill by buying more advanced machinery in order to produce the same goods with less labour. The cut-throat competition between employers, particularly at times of crisis, means that eventually factories using outdated machinery will inevitably be closed down unless the owners can make a profit by installing new machinery, and have the capital to do so. In many cases they cannot. And so repeatedly the  capitalists are forced by the laws of capitalist production to destroy the means of production on a massive scale and make thousands of workers unemployed.

At times of crisis management  tell us to tighten our belts and slave harder for them, “in the national interest”. They try to increase exploitation so as to get the huge profit needed to start capital expanding again. Competition among the capitalists to minimise losses is very fierce. In this battle the winners as well as the losers lay workers off and further reduce living standards.

The government is an executive committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. With the great sharpening of the crisis of capitalism on all fronts, governments inevitably plays a greater and greater part in the economy, whatever the desires of any individual particular capitalist on this matter. Capitalism is increasingly openly becoming state-interventionist capitalism.

As section after section of British financial capitalism tottered towards complete bankruptcy, more and more only the state  provided massive source of funds to bail out the banks. Northern Rock, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland were taken under state control whether it is called “nationalisation” or “government assistance” the essence of the matter is the same.

The Labour Party is a capitalist political party. This is determined by the class it serves politically and the  class character of its ideology. The Labour Party is especially valuable to the ruling class  in hiding the class nature of their control. In words the Labor Party claims to be the party of the working class but in deeds it serves the rich and powerful. The Labour Party is “the best bosses’ party”. By posing as a friend of the working class it can get the cooperation of the trade unions for its capitalist policies of attacking the working class, in a way that the Conservative Party cannot. Thus it success fully binds the workers’ economic organisations, the Trade Unions, into the capitalist system.

The Left-wing versus Right-wing feuds within the Labour Party are not accidental but a deliberate and conscious balancing act, essential if the Labour Party is to fool the working class to give into the demands of the employer class. Compared to the Conservative Party, the Labour Party represents that section of employers which favours greater state intervention. Although this is disliked by other employers. Between the two main political parties, the Labour Party is not “the lesser evil”. The Labour Party is the greater danger! Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. Our enemy is the capitalist class and all those in league with them.

The  main force in the socialist revolution is the working class. Capitalism brings into being and unites the working class into one great mass and teaches them to fight in a disciplined and united way. It is only the working class that is most far-sighted, most unselfish and most thoroughly progressive. Only the working class,  the great majority of the people,   can struggle for socialism. We place our trust in the people. The working class is always organising against oppression. The capitalist class is forever trying to grind the working class down, and where there is oppression, there is always resistance. Now the capitalist class is increasing the attack on the working class. A drive to break the power and influence of trade unions is under way. Wage, benefits and working condition gains are being taken away.

 Labour struggles being conducted are mostly defensive - maintaining concessions won previously. Educational and social services and welfare funding is being reduced. This is a capitalist attack. The working class resists. True, the resistance is still scattered over many issues, but struggles are merging into mighty currents something activists should help to be achieved.

We are in a period of sharpening class struggle. Pessimists see only half the struggle, only the capitalist attack. The capitalist class has no alternative but to attack the working class’s life in every respect. And the workers are in struggle. Students no longer stand passive as they once did during the Thatcher years. Government workers defend their pensions.The private sector protect their jobs. There is deep distrust and rejection of the official channels into which the capitalist class tries to divert politics. The old faith in electoral politics is disappearing. The links are at the base, among concerned people in the grass roots of the various movements, organising horizontally or structuring themselves from the bottom up. Newspapers and television are read and watched cynically. The percentage of people who vote at elections is at a historical low point but social consciousness is deeper. There is a sense of mutual support and solidarity of each others’ struggles. New connections between the labour and environmental movements are being made.

We are not at the brink of a revolutionary period yet by any means. Yet now more than ever, it can be said that the workers question capitalism on a much broader scope than ever before. It is a time for optimism

FOR SOCIALISM

Behind The Hollywood Facade

Thousands of US military veterans face homelessness and chronic conditions like alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, despite millions of dollars in government spending on the group. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has said it is extending a grant program designed to help reduce homelessness among veterans, making $600 million available over the next two years. There were roughly 58,000 homeless veterans last year, according to the New York Times, citing government officials. 'The high rate of unemployment, post traumatic stress disorder and combat injuries among veterans have sharply raised the rate of suicide among them. New figures show that the number of young American veterans committing suicide soared from 2009 to 2011. ....  The suicide rate among veterans remains well above that for the general US population, with roughly 22 veterans a day taking their own lives.' (ALALAM, 19 January) This harsh reality clashes with the usual Hollywood fiction of military heroism and bravery. RD

Growing Consciousness

Some writers in have been saying that the Marxist theories have become antiquated owing to the facts of economic science, and that therefore it would be necessary to proceed to a complete revision of the theories expounded by Karl Marx. To make a long story short, nothing has really changed within the camp of the capitalist. Exploitation, oppression and reaction still reign supreme. And violent repression is always present, available as often as necessary.The Socialist Party makes no apology for our  principles.  We seek  the common of all wealth production, and this involves the complete elimination of the capitalist system.

There are doubtless many sincere people who shudder at the word socialism yet who, nevertheless wish  to see better conditions and who think things are steadily improving. Ask them how and they will answer you with vague platitudes and some cherry-picked statistics. Ask how soon will be the abolition of  poverty for all and the answer becomes even more hazy. Yet it we socialists who are charged by them for not being explicit enough in our ideas and aspirations and they turn a deaf ear to our education and agitation.

The aim of Socialism has always been to abolish squalid conditions of life, and  replace with by at least sufficiency, if not abundance or even luxury,  for all alike without discrimination. Socialism has never proclaimed itself proponents of spartan austerity or puritanical abstinence. On the contrary, we demand good living for all.

 Those whose sympathies are with the economic demand of socialism, but who still hold reservations ask what attitude socialism takes up as regards other questions of personal and social life, apart from its strictly economic aspects.  We don’t want hard-and-fast lines drawn, but  nor evasions, to many questions continually being asked but our aspiration is a social ideal,  not a personal goal.

We are well acquainted with the critics of socialism declaring human ‘nature’ being what it is all men and women are greedy and lazy. We live in a post-scarcity society. It is now possible for the whole world, not just the lucky minority, to live a comfortable life with more than just adequate food clothing and shelter. We can produce abundance, enough for everybody. The doomsters and catastrophists are wrong.

Of course, if we all lived the American lifestyle where 5 percent of the world’s population uses 25 percent of its resources, we would require four Planet Earths. The average American eat too much meat, drive too many miles, live in houses that are too big and too far apart, shop too much for stuff they don’t really need. America’s poor are wealthier than most of the world. Depictions of  consumerism tend to suggest that blame lies with the ravenous, grasping masses.

Yet it is the top five hundred million people by income, comprising about 8 percent of global population, are responsible for 50 percent of all carbon emissions. It’s a truly global elite, with high emitters present in all countries of the world. In Western Europe, the transportation footprint of the top income earners is 250 percent of that of the poor.

People drive cars instead of taking the bus or train, move to a house with a garden instead of going to the park, buy books and home entertainment systems instead of going to libraries and museums, drink bottled water instead of tap—if they can afford to. It doesn’t make us any  happier. Rather, the status-symbol treadmill of keeping up with the Jones frequently produces and fuels  anxiety, inadequacy and debt under the banner of individual liberty and freedom of choice.

 The sociologist Juliet Schor says we could work four-hour days without any decline in the standard of living; similarly, the New Economics Foundation proposes we could get by on a 21-hour workweek. This is not a new message. In the 19th century Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law, was arguing for the right to be lazy.

At a certain stage in the life of every individual acquires a “consciousness” of personal identity and  becomes aware of their own  distinctiveness, physically and mentally. This sense of individuality, this power of ordered thought (“consciousness”), is the result of the development of the requisite brain-organ; and, as each individual from conception to maturity successively reproduces the stages through which the species as a whole has passed, by comparison we can ascertain the relative degree of development reached by any individual. When an individual has become “conscious”,  arrived at that stage of growth at which one perceives both the distinction and relation between oneself and the rest of creation— he or she  has acquired a power of reacting upon their environment; a power (limited but real) of “self-determination,” within, of course, the possibilities set by his physical powers and the said environment.

When conditions are ripe the working class will acquire, with the recognition of their place in society, and of their constraint and that which constrains them, and a perception of the vital organic force impelling them to struggle, their consciousness as a class—their power of “self-determination.” To make the working class thus “conscious,” it is necessary to make it understand the relation between it and the rest of (i.e., the other classes in) society.

Class-consciousness on the part of any one worker thus entails the recognition by him of his place as a unit in a class, at present politically ruled and economically enslaved, whose historic mission it is to carry Society forward into a higher stage of development: the recognition that the interests and therefore impulses of the individuals composing either ruling or ruled classes respectively are mutual and those of the two classes antagonistic, and consequently that the development of Society more and more produces a class-struggle for the possession of political power as a necessary pre-condition on the one hand for rule and on the other for emancipation.

The working-class-consciousness will express itself in a political organisation for the purpose of accomplishing this emancipation. That worker is class-conscious who has seen the duty of enlisting under the banner of Revolution—in the political party of the workers —a socialist party.

Recovery? What Recovery?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer may speak encouragingly about an economic recovery but for millions of workers this is a complete sham. 'Up to four million Britons who display signs of having run up 'problem debts' are underestimating the seriousness of their situations, Stepchange has said. The debt charity conducted a survey that found as many as 15 million people in the UK have run into problems that mean they're having to rely on credit cards or overdrafts to get them to payday, or are falling behind on household bill payments. ...... This follows a study by Shelter released last week that found that around a million Britons had used payday loans to cover essential payments like mortgage or rental costs.' (Daily Mail, 20 January) When even a right wing government supporter like the Daily Mail can report this poverty the Chancellor's words do not ring true. RD

A Sense of Perspective

Capitalism is a crazy society with mad values but surely nothing better sums up its madness than this. 'Tickets to the National Football League's first cold-weather Super Bowl are a hot item, with some climate-controlled suites in New Jersey's MetLife Stadium priced at $1 million. Following Sunday's conference championships that set up a Denver-Seattle Super Bowl on February 2, the average resale price of tickets on secondary markets was $3,721, the highest figure in five years of tracking, according to SeatGeek.' (Business Insider, 20 January) We are talking about a society where millions die because they cannot afford $2 a day in order to survive and yet some bloated member of the capitalist class spends a £1 million on himself and his pals for a stupid football game. RD

Class Struggle and the Nation

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

In the Communist Manifesto we read the following:

"Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie."

 This passage only means that the  British workers, for instance,  cannot wage the class struggle against the French capitalists, nor can the French workers wage the class struggle against the British  employers, but that the British  bourgeoisie and the power of the UK State can be attacked and defeated only by the British working class.

The nation naturally arises as a community of interests of the bourgeois classes. But it is the State which is the real solid organisation of the capitalist class for protecting its interests. The State protects property, it takes care of administration, puts the rmed forces in order, collects the taxes and keeps the masses under control. The "nations", or, more precisely: the active organisations which use the nation's name, that is, the pro-capitalist parties, have no other purpose than to fight for the conquest of a fitting share of influence over the State, for participation in State power. For  Big Business, whose economic interests embrace the whole State and even other countries, and which needs direct privileges, customs duties, State purchases and protection overseas, it is its natural community of interests, rather than the nation, which defines the State and its limitations.  State power is an instrument at the service of big capital.

Nations are not just groups of people who have the same cultural interests and who, for that reason, want to live in peace with other nations; they are combat organisations of the bourgeoisie which are used to gain power within the State. Every national bourgeoisie hopes to extend the territory where it exercises its rule at the expense of its adversaries; it is therefore totally erroneous to think that the bourgeoisie could through its own initiative put an end to these exhausting struggles, just as it is utterly out of the question that the capitalist world powers will usher in an epoch of eternal world peace, through a sensible settlement of their differences. Does the bourgeoisie really have an interest in putting an end to national struggles? Not at all, it has the greatest interest in not putting an end to them, especially since the class struggle has reached a high point. Just like religious antagonisms, national antagonisms constitute excellent means to divide the proletariat, to divert its attention from the class struggle with the aid of ideological slogans and to prevent its class unity.

 The struggle for socialism is a struggle for State power against the capitalist parties. State power is the fiefdom of the owning classes.  The workers  cannot free themselves, they cannot defeat capitalism unless it first defeats this powerful organisation. The conquest of political hegemony is not a struggle for State power; it is a struggle against State power. The social revolution which shall issue into socialism consists essentially of defeating State power with the power of the working class  organisation. This is why it must be carried out by the workers of the entire State. This common liberation struggle against a common enemy is the most important experience in the entire history of the life of the proletariat from its first awakening until its victory. The international character of the proletariat develops rapidly.

 The workers of different countries exchange theory and practice, methods of struggle and ideas, and they consider these topics to be matters common to all. The struggles, the victories and the defeats in one country have profound impacts on the class struggle in other countries. The struggles waged by our class comrades in other countries against their bourgeoisie are our affairs not only on the terrain of ideas, but also on the practical plane; they form part of our own fight and we feel them as such. The workers of the whole world perceives itself as a single army, as a great association which is only obliged for practical reasons to split into numerous battalions which must fight the enemy separately, since the bourgeoisie is organized into States and there are as a result numerous fortresses to reduce. This is also the way the press informs us of struggles in foreign countries: Occupy Movement, the Indignados, and the demonstrations on the streets of Rio or Phnom Penh are all of interest to our class organisation. In this manner the international class struggle becomes the common experience of the workers of all countries.

Through the overthrow of the State by the power of the working class majority, the State disappears as a coercive power. It takes on a new function: "The government of persons gives way to the administration of things." as Engels describes it in Anti-Dühring.

For the purpose of production, we need organisation and administration; but the extremely strict centralization such as that practiced by today's State is neither necessary nor can it possibly be employed in pursuit of that goal. Such centralisation will give way to full decentralisation and self-administration inside socialism.  According to the size of each sector of production, the organisations will cover larger or smaller areas; while bread, for example, will be produced on a local scale, steel production and the operation of railroad networks require regional-sized economic entities. There will be production units of the most various sizes, from the workshop and the local municipality to the district and the regions, and even, for certain industries, global . Those naturally-occurring human groups will they not then take the place of the vanished nation-states as organisational units? This may be the case in the beginning, for the simple practical reason, that they are communities of the same language and all of man's relations are mediated through language. Some regions will merge, others will dissolve.  All partially manage their own affairs and all depend upon the whole, as parts of that whole. National differences will totally lose the economic roots which today give them such an extraordinary vigour. The whole notion of autonomy comes from the capitalist era, when the conditions of domination led to their opposite, that is, freedom in respect to a particular form of domination.

The socialist mode of production does not develop oppositions of interest between nations, as is the case with capitalist competition and rivalry. The economic unit is neither the State nor the nation, but the world. This mode of production is much more than a network of national productive units connected to one another by an intelligent policy of communications and by international conventions; it is an organisation of world production in one unit and the common affair of all humanity. This material basis of the collectivity, organised world production, transforms the future of humanity into a single community.

 Linguistic diversity will be no obstacle, since every human community which maintains real communication with another human community will create a common language. Without attempting here to examine the question of a universal language, we shall only point out that today it is easy to learn various languages once one has advanced beyond the level of primary instruction. This is why it is useless to examine the question of to what degree the current linguistic boundaries and differences are of a permanent nature. Already we see English growing to be the lingua franca of the world. There cannot be independent communities of culture because every community, without exception, will find itself, under the influence of the culture of all of humanity, in cultural communication, in an exchange of ideas, with humanity in its entirety.

Powerful economic forces generate national isolation, antagonism and the whole nationalist ideology of the capitalist class. These features are absent among the working class. They are replaced by the class struggle, which gives the lives of the worker their essential character, and creates an international community in which nations as linguistic groups have no practical significance. Socialist tactics are based on the science of social development. The way a working class assumes responsibility for pursuing its own interests is determined by its conception of the future evolution of its conditions. Its tactics must not yield to the influence of every desire and every goal which arise among the oppressed workers, or by every idea that dominates the latter's mentality; if these are in contradiction with the effective development they are unrealisable, so all the energy and all the work devoted to them are in vain and can even be harmful. The priority of our tactics is to favour that which will inevitably realise our socialist goal. Nationalism is nothing but capitalist ideology which does not have material roots in the working class movement and which will therefore disappear as the class struggle develops. It constitutes, like all ruling class ideology, an obstacle for the class struggle whose harmful influence must be eliminated as much as possible.

 Nationalist slogans distract the workers from their own specifically class aspirations. They divide the workers of different nations; they provoke the mutual hostility of the workers and thus destroy the necessary unity of the proletariat. They line up the workers and the ruling clas shoulder to shoulder in one front, thus obscuring the workers' class consciousness and transforming the workers into the executors of plutocrat’s policy. National struggles prevent the assertion of social questions and proletarian interests in politics and condemn this important means of struggle of the proletariat to sterility. All of this is encouraged by ‘socialist’ propaganda when the left nationalists presents nationalist slogans to the workers as valid, regardless of the very goal of their struggle, and when it utilises the language of nationalism in the description of our socialist goals. It is indispensable that class feeling and class struggle should be deeply rooted in the minds of the workers; then they will progressively become aware of the unreality and futility of nationalist slogans for their class.

This is why the nation-State as a goal in itself, such as the re-establishment of an independent national State in Scotland, has no place in socialist propaganda. Socialism is based upon the recognition of the real class interests of the workers. It cannot be led astray by ideologies, even when the latter seem to be rooted in men's minds. Our tactic consists in making the workers more aware of their real class interests, showing them the reality of this society and its life in order to orient their minds more towards the real world of today. Socialists only speak of capitalism, exploitation, class interests, and the need for the workers to collectively wage the class struggle. In this way the mind is steered away from secondary ideas of the past in order to focus on present-day reality; these ideas of the past are thus deprived of their power to lead the workers astray from the class struggle and the defense of their class interests. Our emphasis is upon the class struggle, to awaken class feeling in order to turn attention away from national problems.

Our propaganda could appear to be useless against the power of nationalist ideology and it could seem that nationalism is making the most progress among the workers. But insofar as nationalist movements are in practice capable only of following in the wake of the ruling class and thus of arousing the feeling of the working class against them, they will progressively lose their power.

 We would, however,  have gone completely off the rails if we wanted to win the working class over to socialism by being more nationalist than the capitalist class as some on the Left appear intent upon doing. Such nationalist opportunism would allow the appearance of workers being   won over, but this does not win them over to our cause, to socialist ideas. Capitalist conceptions will continue to dominate their minds as before. And when the decisive moment arrives when they must choose between national and class interests, the internal weakness of this workers movement will become apparent, as is currently taking place in the separatist crisis. How can we rally the masses under our banner if we allow them to flock to the banner of nationalism? Our principle of class struggle can only prevail when the other principles that manipulate and divide men are rendered ineffective; but if our propaganda enhances the reputation of those other principles, we subvert our own cause.

Even though we do not get involved in the slogans and watchwords of nationalism and continue to use the slogans of socialism, this does not mean that we are pursuing a kind of ostrich policy in regard to national questions. These are, after all, real questions which are of concern to men and which they want to solve. We are trying to get the workers to become conscious of the fact that, for them, it is not these questions, but exploitation and the class struggle, which are the most vital and important questions which cast their shadows over everything. But this does not make the other questions disappear and we have to show that we are capable of resolving them.

To all the nationalist slogans and arguments, the response will be: exploitation, surplus value, bourgeoisie, class rule, class struggle.  If they speak of free higher education, we shall call attention to the insufficiency of all teaching dispensed to the children of the workers, who learn no more than what is necessary for their subsequent life of back-breaking toil at the service of capital. If they speak of  local job creation, we will speak of the misery which compels Scots to emigrate. If they speak of the unity of the nation, we will speak of exploitation and class oppression. If they speak of the greatness of the nation, we will speak of the solidarity of the workers of the whole world.

Only when the great reality of today's world—capitalist development, exploitation, the class struggle and its final goal, socialism—has entirely impregnated the minds of the workers, will the  ideals of nationalism fade away. The class struggle and propaganda for socialism comprise the sole effective means of breaking the power of nationalism.

Adapted from Anton Pannekoek’s Class Struggle and Nation,
available in full and unabridged here

A STRANGE DEMOCRACY

Supporters of capitalism in the USA are forever boasting about what a wonderful democratic political system they have but Charles and David Koch  are American billionaire brothers who as lavish political spenders have made the headlines and make a mockery of any claims of the USA to be democratic. 'A recent study estimated that in the 2012 election cycle some 17 different Koch-backed groups spent a combined $400m (£240m) trying to influence the outcome of the presidential race and scores of other elections across the US. (Independent, 31 January) This vast expenditure would dwarf any that could be afforded by the working class. RD

The Banksters at RBS

The crimes of Royal Bank of Scotland as described on this website.

UK: PPI mis-selling - Estimated liability: £2.65 billion
RBS has set aside £2.65 billion in provisions to cover the cost of compensating customers to whom it mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI). This often redundant product was highly lucrative for the banks but was useless to many of the people who bought it. The bank now has 1,800 staff working full-time on PPI redress. It threw an additional £250 million into the compensation pot on Friday.

UK: Rights issue class action - Liability: up to £13 billion
The bank is fighting the UK’s largest ever class action case in the High Court. The suit comes from 13,000 RBS investors who allege that the bank duped them into putting £12.3 billion into a rights issue in April 2008. On 30 July, the RBoS Shareholders Action Group was ordered to amalgamate its £4.3 billion claim with those of two other investor groups. A QC’s opinion last year found that asset-management firms that bought into the rights issues that fail to participate in the action could risk being sued by investors. The bank said: “RBS considers its has substantial and credible legal and factual defences to these claims.”

UK: Card and identity protection insurance - Estimated liability: £200 million (based on RBS’s market share)
The bank misled customers into buying insurance for their credit cards and identity theft insurance from London-based Card Protection Plan. On 22 August, the FCA declared that CPP and RBS, alongside 12 other banks and credit card issuers, had agreed to a £1.3 billion compensation scheme.

UK and Ireland: IT meltdown - Estimated liability: up to £300 million
On 19 June 2012, RBS suffered one of the worst IT meltdowns in banking history, with millions of customers locked out of their accounts for days and customer transactions going awry. The bank has promised to reimburse customers for any losses they suffered and paid out £175 million in 2012. The incident is also the subject of regulatory inquiries in both the UK and Ireland, and RBS may also face claims for damages through the courts.

UK: “Systemic abuse” in restructuring and recovery - Estimated liability: up to £5 billion
Allegations of “systemic institutionalised fraud” in RBS’s recovery and restructuring division (West Register and Global Restructuring Group) are being investigated by a number of civil and criminal UK authorities. Lawrence Tomlinson, chairman of Leeds-based LNT Group and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, alleges: “This is a massive scandal. It’s about the bank creating situations that put people into a corner where it can hit them with outrageous fees and transformed into zombie companies.” He is providing 300-400 case studies to business secretary Vince Cable.

UK: Interest rate swaps mis-selling - Liability: up to £1.5 billion (if FCA fines RBS)
In February, RBS booked a £750 million provision to cover compensation for small businesses to which it mis-sold interest-rated hedging products, a figure that experts believe may be too low. After initially denying it had done anything wrong, the bank now says it will provide “fair and reasonable redress” to eligible customers under a redress scheme agreed with the FCA. Speaking on the BBC’s Panorama last month, FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley warned the regulator may also fine banks involved in the scandal.

EU: Credit default swaps anti-competitive behaviour - Estimated liability: unknown
EU cartel-busters are investigating RBS’s role in the credit default swap (CDS) market and handed the bank a statement of objections in July. The EC has raised concerns that a number of banks, plus data provider Markit and industry group the International Swaps and Derivatives Association may have jointly blocked exchanges from entering the CDS market. RBS said: “At this stage, the RBS group cannot estimate reliably what effect the outcome of the investigation may have on the group, which may be material.”

Singapore: Benchmark rigging - Estimated liability: £500 million-£600 million
RBS was one of 20 banks penalised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in June for rigging Sibor (the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate) and other benchmarks between 2007 and 2011. RBS has set aside additional statutory reserves with MAS of Singapore $1 billion-$1.2bn (£500 million-£600m) and has been forced to improve its systems and controls in Singapore.

US: SEC “Wells” notice for ­defective residential mortgage-backed securities - Estimated liability: unknown
The US Securities and Exchange Commission slapped a “Wells” notice on RBS on 28 March, giving notice of its intention to sue. The suit relates to allegedly faulty mortgage-backed securities dating from 2007. The SEC started its probe in September 2010, when it asked RBS for information concerning residential mortgage-backed securities underwritten by US subsidiaries of RBS in the period September 2006 to July 2007.

US: Defective mortgage bond issuance - Estimated liability: $4 billion-$6 billion
RBS, through Greenwich Capital, sold $32 billion of allegedly defective mortgage-backed securities to American state-owned mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is suing RBS over these the bonds. The FHFA alleges that RBS routinely breached mortgage-lending rules and bullied surveyors into inflating property valuations. Overall, RBS is being sued for $91bn of mortgage-backed securities and has been named as defendant in 45 lawsuits related to mortgage-backed securities.

US: Weak anti-money-laundering controls - Estimated liability: up to $1.5 billion
On 27 July 2011, RBS was hit with a cease-and-desist order by the US Federal Reserve over violations of money-laundering laws. This required RBS to improve risk management and compliance to ensure does not get used as “washing machine” for the laundering of funds for countries subject to US economic blockade, such as Iran. RBS is “continuing to co-operate” with inquiries led by the Department of Justice and has “conducted disciplinary proceedings against a number of employees”.

US: Mortgages – loan repurchases and indemnities - Estimated liabilities: $750 million
When bundling mortgages into mortgage-backed securities, the bank’s M&IB arm (formerly GBM) and Citizens asked issuers of the underlying mortgages to provide certain warranties. In instances where issuers refused, M&IB tended to issue the “representations and warranties” itself. In such cases, the bank is liable to repurchase the bonds or else “indemnify certain parties against losses”. Between early 2009 and June 2013, RBS received $741 million in repurchase demands, which it is striving to resist. The bank said: “The volume of repurchase demands is increasing and is expected to continue to increase.”

US: Credit default swaps anti-competitive behaviour - Estimated liability: unknown
In May and August 2013, RBS and other banks were sued in anti-trust class action suits filed in courts in Illinois and New York state. The complaints allege that RBS broke competition law in the market for credit default swaps, driving up bid-offer spreads. The bank admits the cases could lead to “investigatory or other action being taken by governmental and regulatory authorities” and could have a “material adverse effect” on RBS group.

US: Other allegedly faulty securitisations - Estimated liability: unknown
In January 2011, the SEC launched a formal inquiry into inadequate documentation relating to RBS’s US mortgage securitisations. This followed subpoenas in 2007 of several players in the US securitisation industry, focusing on information underwriters obtained from independent firms that performed due diligence on underlying loans. RBS gave relevant documentation to the New York attorney general in 2008. RBS said: “The investigation is ongoing and the RBS Group continues to provide the requested information.”

Global: Libor - Estimated liability: RBS already fined £390 million; the ultimate cost could be as high as £80 billion
On 6 February, the US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the UK’s Financial Services Authority fined RBS $612m (£390m) fine for rigging Libor, the benchmark interbank interest rate. Other banks and brokers penalised for similar offences include Barclays, UBS and Rabobank. RBS faces further penalties from the EU and Canadian Competition Bureau, plus civil claims from US investors, the most recent of which came from mortgage giant Fannie Mae last Thursday. Analyst Sandy Chen has said if there was just 0.05% mispricing in interbank rates over four years – less than the 0.4% some class action lawsuits allege – RBS faces possible damages of £80bn.

Global: ISDAfix - Estimated liability: unknown
Multiple agencies and regulators around the world are investigating RBS for possible rigging of IDSAfix, a benchmark used in the interest rate swaps market. America’s CFTC is examining about one million emails and phone call recordings related to the alleged manipulation, involving traders from RBS and more than ten other global banks and brokerages.

Global: FX market rigging - Estimated liability: unknown
On Thursday it emerged that two of RBS’s currency traders have been suspended as part of an inquiry by global regulators into suspected manipulation of foreign exchange markets. The regulators, which include the UK Financial Conduct Authority, America’s FBI and Switzerland’s FINMA suspect that global banks including RBS colluded to manipulate exchange rates in the global, $5.3 trillion a day, foreign exchange markets. RBS has provided the FCA with e-chats that a former senior RBS dealer – Richard “Dick” Usher who left the bank in 2010 – had with traders at other banks. The traders’ group was variously known as “The Bandits” and “The Cartel”.

Health and the Profit Motive.

Medical research by major pharmaceutical firms is apparently a noble effort to combat diseases but we live inside capitalism so that nobility is tempered by the profit motive.   AstraZeneca, Britain's second-largest drugs company has decided to shut down its research into tropical diseases, tuberculosis and malaria because Pascal Soriot, its chief executive wants to cut expenditure and halt a decline in profits.  'Bayer landed in hot water last week when Marijn Dekkers, the German company's chief executive described one of the company's cancer drugs as a medicine "developed for Western patients who can afford it" and said it was not for Indians".' (Times, 31 January) These cuts in medical research are happening in a society where 1.3 million deaths occur because of tuberculosis and 1,300 children die every day from malaria according to World Health Organisation figures. RD