The Socialislt Solution.

The refugee crisis continues unabated. The Toronto Star reported, August 29, that 71 people died cooped up in the back of a truck while 200 people were feared drowned in the Mediterranean off Lybia. This brings the death toll to 2, 636 for this year to date. Hasten the socialist society of open borders and healthy and secure places the world over from which no one has to flee! John Ayers.

A world family of humanity

The Socialist Party declares that life, liberty, and happiness depend upon equal political and economic rights. Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, is responsible for the insecurity of subsistence, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of the people. The present system of social production and private ownership created a society of two antagonistic classes — i.e., the capitalist class and the propertyless class. The Socialist Party declares its object to be the abolition of wage slavery by the establishment of a system of cooperative industry, based upon the social 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 socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism. The capture of political power by the Socialist Party will be tantamount to the abolition of all class rule. The solidarity of labour connecting the millions of class conscious fellow-workers throughout the civilized world will lead to world socialism.

Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is responsible for the ever-increasing uncertainty of livelihood and the poverty and misery of the workers. The possession of the means of livelihood givers to the capitalists the control of government, the media, and the educational system, and enables them to reduce the working men and women to a state of intellectual, physical, and social inferiority, political subservience, and virtual slavery. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit, wars are fomented between nations, indiscriminate slaughter is encouraged, and the destruction of whole peoples is sanctioned in order that the capitalist corporations may extend their commercial dominion abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. Socialism, which will abolish both the capitalist class and the class of wage workers. And the active force in bringing about this new and higher order of society is the working class. The workers can most effectively act as a class in their struggle against the collective powers of capitalism by constituting themselves into a political party, distinct from and opposed to all parties formed of the propertied classes and their proxies.

The socialist movement is as wide as the world and its mission is to win the world. The world the socialist movement is to win from capitalism — will be filled with wealth for all to have and to enjoy in its abundance.

And why not?

Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The earth is one vast mass of raw materials. Hidden in every passing breeze, in every wave, in the rays of sun are the natural forces to provide energy to produce the myriad forms of wealth, and in such fabulous abundance as to banish for all time the gaunt and hideous specter of want, and make the world fit for human habitation. An era of invention and new technology has brought us to this stage of human development. There are those of us who proclaim the machine has come to free, and not to enslave; to create and not to destroy. It can equalise burden of drudgery, bring joy and leisure for all, and, emancipated from toil, to rise mankind can reach heights of intellectual exaltation. To realize this great social ideal is a work of education and organisation. The working class must be aroused from its apathy. The means of production must belong to those who made use of it — whose freedom and very lives depend upon it. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism. With socialism a new power will be in control! The people! For the first time in history the working class will be free and no class will be in subjection.

 The trade union movement is the natural result of capitalist production and represents the economic side of the working class movement. We consider it the duty of socialists to join the unions of their respective trades and assist in building up and unifying the trade and labour organisations. We recognise that trade unions are by necessity should be organised on neutral grounds, as far as political affiliation is concerned. We call the attention of the trade unionists to the fact that the class struggle so nobly waged by the trade union forces today, while it may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. It is the duty of every trade unionist to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building a strong political movement of the working class, whose aim must be the abolition of wage slavery and the establishment of a cooperative society, based on the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution. The World Socialist Movement proclaims its mission to win the world from capitalist barbarism and help to turn it into a genuine common family of humanity.

Saving Civilisation

The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. Corporations are organised purely for private profit; the rights of the corporations to exploit the working class and exact tribute from the people are to be respected, according to the capitalists. The employing and owning class dictates legislation and has it constructed for its own interest. Capitalism is based on the class of those to whom belong the means of production of the whole world. These are linked together by connections of business and interest and by a political alliance. Parties, like individuals, act from motives of self-interest. The platform of a party is simply the political expression of the economic interests of the class it represents. The Labour Party differs from the Tory Party as the manufacturing capitalist differs from the financial capitalist. The Socialist Party differs from them both as the exploited wage worker differs from his exploiter; the difference here is not in business field but in kind.

Socialism has its social base in the working masses of the whole world. They are the real living force of the new society which must replace capitalism, but they continue to be tricked by their ignorant or treacherous leaders who do not give them a political line of their own and who have lined them up behind the plutocrats.  The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent insurrection. No sane person prefers violence to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the efficacy of a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish our end.

 The Socialist Party is necessarily a revolutionary party in the sense its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people. Economic freedom can result only from collective ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and collective ownership there can be no compromise.  One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaire elites and the other economic equals. The Socialist Party seeks to abolish class rule, wipe out class distinction, secure the peace of society, and make of this world a fit and habitable place. Sadly the workers sing the “Internationale” but do not presently apply it in practice. The workers must struggle against capitalists and must extricate themselves from their grasp. Capitalism inevitably produces exploitation and poverty, war, nationalism, racism and sexism, a poisoned environment and the waste of human and natural resources, none of which can be consistently eliminated without the socialist transformation of society.

Capitalism does not dare use to their fullest extent the productive forces of our present age. Its very existence depends upon limiting these forces. There are a number of ways in which this limiting of production takes place, but all involve fundamental principles of the profit system. Under capitalism the production of wealth is carried on for profit. The desire for profits is the motive force which drives the capitalist class to use its capital in the production of wealth. In order to secure profits the workers must be exploited. Part of the product of their labour must be turned over to the capitalist class in the shape of interest and dividends. Only through common ownership can society secure for all its members the benefit of an improved method of organisation. Once we establish common ownership of our industries we will throw off the 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 Socialist Party is an integral part of the World Socialist Movement and declares itself to be the political organisation and political expression of the working class. The Socialist Party, (in common with all political parties) is a class party. It frankly admits that a political organisation is but an expression of class interest. The party therefore exists for the sole purpose of representing the producers, that is to say, the working class. Representing, as it does, the working and dispossessed class of the state, and having for its platform the abolition of the exploitation of the workers through rent, interest, and profit, there can be no compromise between the Socialist Party and the political expression of the owning class.  The Social Party to clearly state the principles which guide its attitude believe that poverty is necessitated by an industrial system based upon individual ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, utilised for private profit. They fully understand that low wages, long hours, and scarcity of employment — that is, poverty — can only disappear with the disappearance of the capitalist system of which these things are the inevitable outcome. We have no hostility or jealous feeling with regard to the workers of any other country, and disavow any intention of gaining advantage at their expense.

Some say we in the Socialist Party are “idealists.” They say on the whole we are a fine bunch of chaps but utterly impractical. Now, what is this socialism we are accused of promoting. Socialism is defined as the common ownership of the social means of production and distribution. It is the name given to the next stage of civilisation, if civilisation is to survive.  The machinery and progress in the technology of production today we do not want to use to destroy, if we are to have civilisation. Modern humanity does not intend to go back to the barbarism of the Dark Ages. But as long as the instruments of production — land, machinery, raw materials, etc. — remain private property, only comparatively few can be sole owners and masters thereof. And so long as such is the case, they will naturally use this private ownership for their private advantage. If we are to remain a politically free people, the inevitable outcome will be that the people must take possession collectively of the social means of production and distribution. And this is called socialism. If civilisation is to survive, we must act that civilisation does survive and that can only be accomplished by establishing a socialist society. 

Teaching Socialism

(with thanks to http://skewednews.net/ for the image)

To-day there is inequality and misery in the world and this is the outcome of our social conditions where the mass of the people, the working class, produce and distribute all commodities, yet a minority of the people control and possess these commodities. This tyranny of the possessing class over the producing class is based on the present wage-system and it maintains all other forms of oppression, and this tyranny of the few over the many is only possible because the few have obtained possession of the land, the raw materials, the machinery, the banks, the railways, in a word, of all the means of production and distribution of commodities, and have, as a class, obtained possession of these by no superior virtue, effort or self-denial, but by either force or fraud. The possessor can and does dictate terms to the man or woman of that non-possessing class. “You shall sell your labour to me. I will pay you only a fraction of its value in wage. The difference between that value and what I pay for your labour I pocket, as a member of the possessing class, and I am richer than before, not by labour of my own, but by your unpaid labour.” This is the teaching of socialism

To-day production is conducted by individual capitalists independently of all others. What and where commodities are to be produced, where, when and how the finished product is to be sold, is decided by the individual capitalist owner or corporation. Nowhere does the community or the worker have the slightest influence upon these questions. In a socialist society all this will change. Private ownership of the means of production and subsistence must disappear. Production will be carried on not for the enrichment of the shareholders but solely to supply the wants and needs of the people. To this end all the wealth and resources must be taken from their exploiting owners to become the common property of the entire people, placing them under social control. The time has come when big changes are necessary. In the words of Shelley “the system of human society as it exists at present must be overthrown from the foundations.”  The two classes at present existing will be replaced be a single people possessing all the means of production and distribution in common, and working in common for the production and distribution of commodities.

Wars, poverty, malnutrition, recessions and unemployment have been our lot the billionaires, the big industrialists and the great financiers have made their fortunes out of the people’s labour. The profits of the corporations are higher than they have ever been. The capitalists have done exceptionally well; indeed, they have never been better off. The Labour Party does not want to abolish capitalism. They defend the system of capitalist profit and exploitation, defend the position of the capitalists and seek to prop up the bankrupt capitalist social structure of riches for the few, poverty for the many, and ever-recurring threat of recession and of war. The Labour Party act as the main supporters of capitalism, and are doing their best to safeguard the privileges and profits of the investors and shareholders, providing them with opportunities to continue their exploitation of the rest of us. The Labour Party disrupts and demoralises the wider labour movement by its poisonous propaganda of collaboration with and capitulation to capitalism, and its betrayal of every principle on which the union and labour movement was formed.

Only by the establishment of socialism can the World’s problems be finally solved and its people guaranteed a good life, decent living standards and lasting peace. Socialism means an end to slumps, unemployment and poverty because it abolishes the capitalist profit system.  Socialism means an end to capitalist profit and exploitation, for it will deprive the capitalists of their ownership and control of the land and factories offices, mills and mines and transport, to ensure that production is organised for the use of the people and not for the profit of the tiny minority of capitalists. Socialism ends the gulf between poverty and plenty, and frees the creative energies of the people and the productive resources for gigantic economic, social and cultural advances on the basis of a planned socialist economy. Socialism means peace and an end to the danger of wars, because with socialism there are no longer capitalists who want to conquer new markets, and to exploit dependent peoples and cheap labour. The power of the working people, united in recognition for the need for social change and participating to carry it through, as expressed and laid down through Parliament, is capable of securing the establishment of socialism and transforming  the system of capitalist private ownership into socialised - people’s - ownership.

Inside a socialist society there are no markets, commodities, values, prices or wages. With socialism goods are no longer sold for a market, but are produced for use. The workers, through their delegates, guide their own destinies and organise themselves so that production may be purposefully controlled and managed. The allocation of material and workers to a particular industry is made, not according to the fluctuations of the market but by analysis of the needs of the community, of the productivity of the workers, and of how much resources is needed to fulfill these needs. There being no class struggles, there is now no need for a State, and the State withers away. The armed forces are not necessary. Police disappear, too because the basis for crime is gone, since all the wants of life easily can be obtained. The occasional criminal is treated as a maladjusted sick person and is given therapy until he or she is rehabilitated. The tremendously increased productivity of mankind will have reduced to a bare minimum the amount of time necessary for each to produce the wants of life. Elimination of all toil in work will enable the worker to become an artist, to find the greatest pleasure in the objective result of his labors, to fuse into one work and recreation, and to combine his constructive relations with nature with the construction and reconstruction of himself. If work becomes a pleasure, pleasure itself is work.

Time For Socialism

If socialism is nothing but an empty dream, then there is little to look forward to at all on this Earth. It means simply for each one of us to stave off pain of daily life and grasp at whatever passing pleasures come our way without regard to others. There are people who think that that is all we can do: and others who think that all our personal endeavours must be to secure a good career and some prestige. But those in the Socialist Party say that unless socialism is altogether a mirage, it will rise again. Socialists seek to give to existing society a new purpose.

By socialism we understand the system of society the material basis of which is social production for social use; that is, the production of all the means of social existence — including all the necessaries and comforts of life — carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. It is not the way society at the present time is organised. Production is carried on to-day purely in the interest and for the profit of the class which owns the instruments of production — by which we mean the land, the factories, the machinery, the mines and mills, in short, everything for human use. Socialism would substitute social ownership of these things for class ownership, and this would also involve the abolition of classes altogether. Socialism does not mean government ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class. State-owned businesses are run for profit just as outer businesses are; and the government, as the “executive committee”of the possessing class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated. The organised democratic society contemplated by socialists is a very different thing from the class state of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own affairs, and has acquired the possession of its own means of production, its delegates will not be the agents of a class, and production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. In socialist society the means of production have ceased to be capital, that is, to be a means of exploitation. In socialist society there are no longer classes with a monopoly of property in the means of production arid classes deprived of property in the means of production. In the conditions of socialism the means of production are social property.

The establishment of socialism means a complete change in society in all its aspects. Social property is the foundation of the socialist system. Far from abolishing personal ownership of objects of consumption, socialism provides the only real safeguard for the ever fuller satisfaction of the personal needs of all members of society. Social ownership means an end to the chaos and wasteful competition of production for profit and the development of new productive resources to provide what people really want. Socialism does not mean the levelling down of living standards. Nor does it bring bureaucracy and tyranny. On the contrary, socialism draws more and more people into planning and making their own future, and frees their creative energies for great economic, social and cultural advances. A socialist society means a better future for all where there are neither masters nor servants, but only people working together for a happy, prosperous life. In order to build socialism political power must be taken from the hands of the capitalist minority and firmly grasped by the majority of the people. Working class power means an end to this privileged position of the rich, which they use to protect and increase their profits and to maintain their power over the people. Socialist political power is only a means to an end. It is the instrument with which labour will achieve the complete, fundamental reconstruction of our entire capitalist system. The essence of socialist democracy is to replace the control of the rich by participation of the people in running the administrative affairs of community and industry, transforming existing organisations and changing them into instruments through which this principle can be applied. Ownership and control by the people of the productive resources provides the means for extending and improving the social services in a new spirit with a positive aim.

The socialist is one of hope and confidence. Working people, acting together, can take political power into their own hands, end the exploitation of man by man, and use resources to meet the needs of the people, a society organised on the principle that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

The Price of Education

Children from low-income families can be held back at school by the costs associated with meals, trips and every-day equipment, suggests a year-long study by the Child Poverty Action Group involved 340 pupils and 120 staff at eight primary and secondary schools across Glasgow.

It identified basic cost barriers to some pupils reaching their potential. These were identified as uniform, travel, learning, meals, trips, clubs, fun events and attitudes to poverty.

 Stephen Curran, the council's executive member for education and young people, said: "It is estimated in Glasgow that one in three children are in poverty - affecting almost 36,000 of our children. This can result in them feeling excluded from school activities, trips, meals or simply finding it difficult to take part in routine school tasks like submitting homework which requires online access.”

John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, added: "No child should ever miss out or be made to feel awkward at school just because their families are struggling on a low income but our work tells that all too often they do.”

The Party of dispossessed and exploited

No blueprint of socialism can be given. Many accuse the Socialist Party of not providing a prescriptive path forward or setting out how socialism should be run. We can only generalise on what kind of society will replace the irrational one we live in. The Socialist Party does possess a vision of a better society and holds a general agreement on how to achieve it. What is needed for peace and prosperity is not another wish-list of UN promises from the same old bandits – but a worldwide union of workers. What is needed is the death of capitalism and the birth of socialism. Power and profit – the motive force of capitalism – must perish. The peoples of the world will be able to exchange their goods and their resources according to their human needs. 

Most people in the world still struggle daily for food, clothing, and shelter. While a relative handful of people grow ever richer, the vast majority of people face a rapidly declining standard of living. Homelessness, unemployment, crime, inadequate education and health care, and mass alienation have become facts of life. For the first time in US history, present and future generations are confronted with the reality that they will be worse off than their parents. Millions of children are living in poverty, millions are homeless and millions of Americans have no health coverage. College education is now beyond the reach of many Americans. Impoverishment does not begin below the subsistence line of mere physical existence as defined by some authority. It can begin anywhere. A worker deprived of his or her car by unemployment or a falling real wage is just as much impoverished. And where his forefathers fought for bread he or she fights to meet the payments on the home or the central heating. Increasingly, people are looking for alternatives to the way of life currently available to them. We believe that society must be organised to put human needs not for profit. We believe future history will be made by people struggling to put society’s resources at the disposal of the majority of the people.

We reject Lenin’s view of the vanguard party. We do not believe that a single party can or should determine the direction, strategy and tactics of the struggle for fundamental change. We reject the idea that fundamental change can or should come about through a seizure of power by a vanguard party claiming to act in the interests of the working class and the majority of society. We reject the goal of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as it is currently understood. We reject the view that a single party can use its claim to represent the working class as a substitute for multi-party democracy and free elections. We are opposed to dictatorship in any and all forms, and we recognise that the application of this principle has in every case meant that a minority acts for and defines the interests of the majority of society. Such a view is antithetical to genuine democracy, and we believe that the socialist movement must practice and embody the values and principles that they strive to achieve in society.

Today workers live and work in a world dominated by far-flung corporate empires, of a scope and size unimaginable to previous generations, which treat the entire planet as their domain. They are a law unto themselves, free to roam the globe in search of cheaper labour, more exploitable resources, more pliant governments and greater profits. They now hold the power of life and death over every region and industry on our planet. By their dictates, our resources have been plundered. Workers are their pawns in a global game of mergers, shutdowns, and relocations. These multinational conglomerates have robbed us of our wealth and of the very power to determine our own future. The legacy of these profiteering monopolies is that they are incapable of turning their technology and organisation to the needs of people and have distorted the economic development of the world so fundamentally that the resources they waste on war production, for instance, could eliminate hunger in the world.

The new technology information revolution will only intensify massive permanent unemployment with further automation and robotics, leaving tedious and stressful jobs for the remaining workers, and terrifying concentrations of knowledge and control in the hands of private corporations. The central question posed by technology is political. What kind of society do we want to create with the most powerful extensions of human labour and intelligence since the industrial revolution? If harnessed to popular administration and planning, new technological innovation could help us achieve an era of abundance for all, release us from monotonous toil and enrich our store of accessible information. The socialist option is the only alternative. The needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of a socialist society. It will be accomplished by democratizing all levels of society, and by making workers’ participation the centre of industrial organisation. Under capitalism, labour is a commodity. Workers are used as replaceable parts, extensions of machines—as long as they provide dividends. Employers use their power of ownership to devastate the lives of workers through layoffs, shutdowns and neglect of health and safety. Unions, despite their courageous efforts, have encountered difficulties eliminating even the worst abuses of management power. Socialism will dissolve the economic foundation of one-sided management privilege by relying on the needs and creativity of people, enhancing the power that people can exercise over their own lives.

The Socialist Party is the party of the dispossessed and exploited struggling to build a new world. As socialists we support all struggles against the injustices of capitalism. The Socialist Party does not offer just a blueprint to a better future. We offer an invitation to all fellow workers to join us in our common efforts to eradicate a social system based on exploitation, discrimination, poverty and war. The capitalist system must be replaced by socialist democracy. That is the burning issue of our era, the only hope of humanity. 

Stealing to eat

Police in the Highlands and Islands have detected a rise in thefts of foodstuffs by shoplifters. Chief Supt. Julian Innes said it was believed that people were stealing to feed themselves.

The Highlands and Islands area commander added that this type of shoplifting had not been seen before in the region. He explained: 

"Shoplifting has seen a spike this year. We've seen more shoplifters than ever in the Highlands and our view is that people are stealing to feed themselves. The evidence that makes us believe that is what things people are stealing. People have always stolen from shops but we have been seeing an increase in people stealing foodstuffs."

When we stand together, there is no limit to what we can do

In capitalism, most people most of the time, are chronically and justifiably discontent because of the unavoidable consequences of the capitalist system. The story is as old as capitalism itself. When sufficient numbers of people become sufficiently fed up with what the capitalist system is doing to them, they resist, expectations rise, and nothing changes – not for the better, anyway. One way or another, the Establishment wins. The Occupy Movement never made the leap from creative protest to effective political struggle but that is hardly news these days. Support for Bernie Sanders is now offered as the antidote, but is it? Sanders is running as a Democrat. Has he talked about the once thriving active American socialist tradition?  Sanders, instead, describes his socialism as “Scandinavian”, his models are Finland and Sweden not the Presidential electoral platform of Eugene Debs or even the watered down reformist politics of Victor Berger. The Scandinavian model does not replace capitalism and the welfare benefits, (admittedly generous compared with the US,) are now being gradually dismantled by the election of right-wing governments. No Scandinavian country has yet, in practice, done much of anything to replace private with social ownership of major means of production. The gap between the 1% and the 99% still remains and just to give one example Finland’s IKEA, a supposedly not-for-profit charitable Foundation thus exempt from taxation but still making billions for its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was listed as the eighth wealthiest person in the world in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $43.2 billion.

For the Socialist Party the struggle against capitalism has not been an easy fight, and far from triumphant. But if enough socialists remained true to their case and principles to keep alive the convictions of the world socialist movement, then there is still hope for a free, socialist future. Our confidence in the Socialist Party is strengthened by the fact that it has remained true to its internationalism and to the interests of working men and women at a time when it counts – during war. We have not retreated from our principles, we have not vacillated, we have not given up an inch of them or sought to gloss them over in the hope of gaining a deceptive and momentary popularity. And that is how we shall continue to be. Unite with those of you who are ready for a brighter day, for a new age, for a society free of war and oppression, of exploitation and inequality, for world socialism, sometimes called the co-operative commonwealth.

Mankind now must contemplate the destruction and the ruin, the pain and the heartbreak, which capitalism has caused. The fear of what a capitalist future holds is driving the workers to revolutionary political conclusions. Reformists want to sidetrack the workers from the struggle to end the capitalist system and establish socialism. Socialism – or perish! These are the alternatives. There is none other. Only the working class, which suffers the cruelties of capitalism in peace and war, can deal the death-blow to this foul system. The workers can rally to their liberating banner and can change the world. Having abolished capitalism, they can harness the productive forces and the wondrous discoveries of science to the service of human needs. It holds the promise of eliminating all poverty and raising the living standards of all peoples to undreamed-of heights. Hazardous and unhealthy occupations can become things of the past. The drudgery and servitude of ugly and unnecessary toil can be ended. There can be leisure and comfort and cultural advancement for every man, woman and child on earth. The Socialist Party appeals to you to the struggle for the socialist revolution.  Enlist with us in class war for a new world in which permanent peace and well-being will be assured for all!

To be effective in the highest degree the Socialist Party must disregard entirely the interests of capitalism and the class which is its beneficiary, disregard entirely the “sacred right" of private property which is only the right of the capitalists to exploit and oppress the people, and direct itself exclusively to defending and promoting the class interests of the working class. The main task of an organisation like the Socialist Party is to help develop the class consciousness of our fellow workers. Socialism is not the conquest of the state by a political party: it is the conquest of society by the working people through industrial and political action. Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry. Socialism is not state capitalism, which is simply a means of protecting and promoting capitalist interests and more easily oppressing the people. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things. The Socialist Party’s objective is the realisation of a humane human community. The aim of socialism is not to impose a uniform way of life but exactly the opposite: the full development of individual capacity.

The historic mission of the working class is the overthrow capitalism and the establishment of socialism/communism. Socialism is not some distant dream. It is the only road out of exploitation and oppression for workers. There can be no real doubt as to the correctness of the Marxist predictions.

Socialist Standard No.1334 October 2015

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Our Common Future

We are not a party like other parties. We retain an unshakable confidence in the socialist future of humanity. We in the Socialist Party conceive of socialism, not as model society constructed from a preconceived plan, but as the next stage of social evolution which will grow out of the class struggle. The architects and builders of the socialist society of the future will be the socialist generations themselves. The people in the future society will be wiser than we are. We can only anticipate and point out the general direction of development, and we should not try to do more. The future belongs to the Socialist Party. It needs only to be true to itself, hold firm, dig in and prepare the future. The road we travel has many twists and turns; we will see and experience many things, but the goal is clearer than ever in our vision; but we haven’t found a smoother or more direct road yet. The Socialist Party has always believed in the primacy of ideas and taught others to believe it. We take Marxist theory seriously, study it attentively, and teach it to others. Our theory is a guide to action, not only for the party but for each individual member. It is only by action that one can give valid testimony to his or her theoretical convictions. Faith without deeds is dead. The true revolutionist lives and acts the way he or she thinks and talks. Capitalism can offer no prospect but the destruction of civilisation. Only socialism can save humanity from this abyss. This is the truth. Against the mad chorus of national hatreds we advance once more the old slogan of socialist internationalism: Workers of the World Unite!

Most people who call themselves left-wingers are dominated by the idea that socialism is about expanding the sphere of activity of the state. For them, the key criterion of socialism is the nationalisation of property. The more militant they are, they assume, the more they must favour state property. Marx and Engels did not identify socialism with nationalisation of property. Their attitude to the state was one of unremitting hostility. Far from wishing to expand its activities, they sought to do away with it. In 1844, Marx declared that the most useful thing the state could do for society was to commit suicide. The following year, he and Engels declared ‘... if the proletarians wish to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the state.’ Marx celebrated the Paris Commune of 1871 on the grounds that it was ‘a Revolution against the State itself’. And in 1884, Engels looked forward to the day when the state would end its life ‘in the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.’ Stateless societies did not lack social regulation; life within them could be orderly, and remarkably affluent. We keep each other ‘in line’ by various forms of peer pressure.

If the working class is to be successful in its struggles with capitalism, it must be united and organised. Only by all the workers acting together as if they were one person can we rival the power of the capitalists. The idea of socialism is powerless without a social force powerful enough to see to its implementation. There is but one such force in modern society – the working class. The achievement of socialism awaits the building of socialists. Capitalism must be replaced by socialism, by the common ownership of the means of production in the interests of the people as a whole. By bringing men and women together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity, capitalism has always been inherently alienating. A socialist transformation of society will return to mankind’s sense of humanity, to remove this sense of being a commodity. Socialist democracy implies control of our immediate surroundings so community democracy is vital. Socialists strive for democracy at those levels that most directly affect us all — in our neighbourhoods, our schools, and our places of work, where people directly struggle to control their own destinies. Workers' participation in all institutions promises to release creative energies, promote decentralisation, and restore human and social priorities.

The decisive battles to assure humanity of its socialist future, to abolish war and misery and halt the degradation of the planet, are approaching. It is up to you to organise under the banner of the world socialist revolution. The victory of the world revolution will put an end to all exploitation, all oppression and all violence among mankind. The dawn of socialism, created by the people and for the people, is on the horizon. Turn toward it resolutely. In an epoch like the present, ravaged by cynicism, doubt, disillusionment and despair, our collective voice reaches out and speaks of better days to come, or rather of better days to be made.

Demand the impossible – everything depends on our ability to imagine a new world.

We Can Transform The World

The peoples of the world are confronted today with enormous problems which include the poverty, malnutrition, disease, war and the threat of environmental destruction. This need not be so for we possess advances in science and technology that provide such opportunities for the full development of every human being. The wealth, effort and ingenuity which could be used to improve the living conditions of working people are, instead, used to expand the profits of the giant corporations and banks that dominate the economy and society. The Socialist Party aims to replace the insecurity, profiteering, inequality and social conflict of capitalist society with socialism. A socialist world would be run by and for the people, not for private capitalist profit. Production for use would be socially controlled and planned to guarantee everyone comfort and dignity. For over a century, the Socialist Party of Great Britain have had this aspiration to create a fundamentally humane, democratic and just society. It’s difficult for many socialists to have faith in the ability of the working class to change society. There will be those who still insist that the socialist movement has suffered more than a temporary defeat. Again and again, governments have cut public spending and attacked workers’ living standards through wage controls. Socialists need to be realistic about the present situation, recognising just how bad things are, not giving way to fake optimism. At the same time, we have equally to resist despair. The working class is far from finished, and our job is to prepare for coming struggles. If we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past, we must learn from those mistakes.

The struggle against the capitalist class is a struggle against all who live by the labour of others, and against all exploitation. Employers do not assist in the production of wealth, they only manage or mismanage it with a view to getting as much for themselves, and as little for anybody else, as possible. Workers must strike not only just against the effects of wage slavery, not merely against the conditions which their employers impose upon them, but against the power of the bosses to impose conditions at all. This can be done by exercising our sovereignty as the PEOPLE, and declaring void all the legal claims and customs by which the owning class hold possession of their wealth and dominion over the workers’ lives, for it is only in the name of and by the assumed consent of the people that their privileges are preserved by the legal statutes and the power of the military and police; and so soon as the people choose, they can in their own name, and of their own will, revoke these statutes; and, if need be, call upon the military and police to give effect to their decrees, or, what would be more effectual, disband these discredited agents of law and order altogether. Violent rebellion on the part of a portion of the workers is a hopeless expedient, so long as they must count upon the opposition of the forces of the State, backed up by the political support of the majority of the working class. It is not the power of the capitalists, nor of their armies nor police which keeps the workers in servitude but the ignorance and apathy of the workers themselves.

If one had to seek the reason why the workers’ movement is in such an abject condition, it would be due to the mistaken trust in the Labour Party and the forlorn hope in the reformism they offered. The Socialist Party aim to widen the audience for revolutionary change. With socialism, we can use the world’s resources, and human beings’ accumulated knowledge and skill to change the face of the world, to create a world in which poverty, exploitation, and war are only bad memories. It is with that goal in mind that we in the Socialist Party set out. We have no illusions about the scale of the task, or about the limitations imposed by our size, influence, and talents. We don’t regard ourselves as the elect, the bearers of the truth. We know that only the working class can transform society. We don’t seek to put ourselves in place of that class. We seek only to make workers conscious of their interests and their power, and to direct that power at the capitalist state. We appeal to all who agree with us, to join us. Together we have a world to win.

Surely, the realisation of a society where the old, the sick, the physically or mentally unwell would be as tenderly cared for as our own children, and neither hardship for today nor anxiety for tomorrow would mar the excellence of our lives. Surely, everyone should have an opportunity of enjoying life that is worth striving for.

Tenners for fivers (1990)

From the April 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The privatisation of the water industry has seen "tens of thousands" of individual buyers cashing in by selling their shares at the first opportunity. This merely repeats what has happened in every previous privitisation. When British Gas was sold off in 1986 there were 4.2 million shareholders. That figure is now 2.6 million. Of the original 650,000 who bought British Steel shares in 1988 only 400,000 remained six months later. British Airways can boast the most spectacular fall—from 1.2 million shareholders down to just 420,000 in only months. And it's the same story with British Telecom, TSB, Jaguar and the others.

Research shows that between one quarter and one third of all investors in previous privitisation issue have pulled out within the first six weeks. (Guardian, 20 December, 1989.)

Why, then, do these sellers buy shares in the first place? Simply to make some easy money. After all, the government is so anxious to make sure that each flotation doesn't flop that it sells the shares well below market value and this has been well described as "selling tenners for fivers". Indeed, buying shares in privatised industries is such a sure money maker that people withdraw savings from building societies and even borrow to buy the shares, and this, more than any belief in the "enterprise culture", is what accounts for the growth in share buying.

Of course the government has other reasons for selling privatised industries cheaply. One is the genuine desire to get government out of business. Another is to raise cash to give away in tax cuts before general elections, but the most important is the wish to create "popular capitalism" in which a shareholding population will identify with capitalism and, especially when they have shares in the company they work for, never go on strike for higher pay in case this harms their dividends. This dotty idea ignores the fact the workers depend primarily for their living in their wages and salaries which far outweigh any puny dividends they may get. Anyway, owning shares in the company which employs them didn't stop workers in British Telecom and Jaguar from striking for higher pay.

The myth of "a nation of shareholders" isn't new. Back in the mid 1800s The Economist claimed: "Everybody is in stocks now. Needy clerks, poor tradesmen's apprentices, discharged serving men and bankrupts—all have entered the ranks of the great moneyed interests." This drivel is quoted by Colin Chapman in his excellent book, How the Stock Exchange Works. And during the boom in the American stock market in the 1920s which led to the Wall Street crash the popular the popular notion was that everyone, from housewives to waiters, was "in the market". J. K. Galbraith exposed this nonsense in his book, The Great Crash 1929:

Then as now, to the great majority of workers, farmers, white-collar workers, indeed to the great majority of all Americans, the stock market . . . was in every respect as remote from life as the casino at Monte Carlo.

Supporters of popular capitalism argue that buying shares could become a national pastime if it were made easier by having American-style "share shops" in every high street much as there are betting shops now, but these share shops haven't stopped the decline of individual share owning in America.

Can Britain ever become a nation of small investors? First of all, dealers in the City don't want it because it produces a vast increase in unprofitable, small transactions and try to discourage the small fry by charging them double commission on deals. meanwhile the dealers have halved charges for the big institutional investors which own two thirds of all company shares. However, the main obstacle is that most people couldn't buy shares even if they wanted to. Peter Morris of MORI, the research and opinion poll agency, confirms that at least half the public are excluded from buying because they have no cash (Colin Chapman).

Of course there will be more privitisations in the future and if the government continues to sell the shares cheaply then many of those who buy will take the money and run but, like every other scheme for soothing working class discontent within capitalism and eliminating the class struggle, it hasn't got a hope.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Branch

LABOUR IS ALSO THE BOSSES’ PARTY

Taken with thanks from the http://skewednews.net/ website 

The Socialist Party objective is the social revolution – the abolition of capitalism and wage slavery – and the emancipation of the working class. In countries with parliamentary democracy we use elections, because it is there to use; but in doing so the immediate is to win the people to socialism – to make socialists, in short – and to organise the working class for the social revolution. The winning of seats in the Commons, at this moment of time, is of quite secondary importance. What is important is to win votes – not merely as votes, but as evidence of the growing strength of the socialist movement. And to our anti-parliamentary rivals we say it is vital that we count heads instead of heads getting broken. The Socialist Party enters into politics hostile to all other parties and to the existing regime. It regards the present class society as only a passing phase in social development, and works to hasten its destruction. Its objective is not the maintenance or the palliation of existing conditions but their termination by the abolition of class domination and the emancipation of the working class. It pursues socialism by parliamentary means because parliamentary means are those most effective at the present time.

The two mainstream parties, Labour and Tory, spend much of their time attacking each blaming one another for the conditions of the people. Between them they are covering up the fact that it is the capitalist system which is the real enemy of the people. Both parties in their own way work to protect the system and the interests of the ruling class. The Left who claim that a change of Labour Party “policy” will bring relief to the people are doing nothing but prettifying the mirage of a Labour future. The Labour Party opposes the revolutionary transformation of society and even attacks the economic struggle of the working class and its basic democratic rights. Because of its false facade of “socialism” it becomes the “best” of the bosses’ parties. It is best placed to stab workers in the back.

The Left Labourites claim to stand for “socialism” because they support nationalisation. Anyone who works in a nationalised industry knows what a farce that claim is! State-ownership has nothing to do with socialism. The Labour Party and its Trotskyist hangers-on stand for state-capitalism. Industries get nationalised in order to rationalise them. In periods of crisis, capitalist competition means individual firms cannot raise the investment. The state steps in, feeds in the investment to make it more efficient and profitable. The Labour Party in the past have carried out an attack on real wages. The Labour Party defends the old order, capitalism and seeks to impede the coming of the new.

Principles are fundamental and by showing that the principles of the Left-wing parties are wrong, we can proceed to demonstrate the incorrectness of their tactics. And at the same time, by contrast, it will be conclusively proven that the principles and therefore the tactics of the Socialist Party are the only logical ones to be followed. If the Socialist Party’s analysis is correct, then it follows that the tactics reflected by this analysis are also correct. We must not be swept off our feet by revolutionary sounding phrases and rhetoric. The SPGB knows that no leaders are going to pull the workers into socialism. As Marx stated, “The emancipation of the working class must be the class conscious act of the working class itself.” A muddleheaded working class will never be able to act correctly or move in the proper direction no matter how brainy the leaders may be. In order to get the masses, the Left caters to the ignorance of the masses and so we find its platforms filled with all kinds of to attempt to garner a large vote. The Socialist Party holds that the political party must be a party of no compromise. Its mission is to point the way to the goal and it refuses to leave the main road to follow the small by-ways that lead into the swamp of reformism. The banner of revolutionary socialism is to be held high and not dragged down into the mire of petty reform and gradualism. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It must be overthrown.

The Socialist Party never compromises truth to make a friend, never withholds a blow at error lest it make an enemy. We pursue our course unswervingly and not to gain temporary advantage. In word and deed, we are ever outspoken and straightforward, believing that the integrity of purpose is the path which in the long run, win the respect and confidence of those whom it aims to weld into a class-conscious, organized body for socialism. Our propaganda is not alone to educate, it is to organize the working class for the conquest of power, for the complete overthrow of capitalism. Until that mission is accomplished the Socialist Party will yield nothing.

Against Labourism - For Socialism

 All around us are the signs of a world in crisis, yet men and women seem unable to do anything about it. Resources that should be used to feed the hungry are squandered in the name of commerce and profits towards the few. Of course, the greatest threat comes from the threat of climate change. In the past many loyal Labour supporters have found it difficult to distinguish the policies of Labour governments from those of their Tory rivals. Jeremy Corbyn as the new party leader has infused fresh hope and a new anticipation of for a ‘radical’ Labour Party. But the new influx of activists are not homogeneous in ideological and political terms.

The continuing hold of Labourism over the working class is an issue which confronts all socialists. The Labour Party, not being socialist, is useless. Facts show that the Labour Party opposes socialism. The Labour Party is a party of capitalism, a party of liberal reformers on to which have been grafted some features and language of social democracy. By social democracy we mean the political position that in the name of the working class nominally subscribes to socialism, promotes the gradual evolution to socialism and places reforms under capitalism as the solution of the problems to which capitalism gives rise. It has always acted within the boundaries of capitalism. It has “explained” and “interpreted” the socialist argument in such a way as to make it virtually unrecognizable to genuine socialists as having anything to do with socialism. By presenting itself as a workers’ party, the Labour Party has, nevertheless, attracted working class support. It serves no purpose whatever to think that the Labour Party would or could act in any way other than it does.

The only real solution for the working class is the socialist revolution: the construction of a revolutionary socialist party. The struggle for socialism is the struggle for socialist consciousness. We would contend that only the Socialist Party is capable of winning the battle of ideas. Some may question that claim considering our small size and lack of influence but we believe we are the practical base for building a party really capable of serving workers’ interests. We can be the party with the organizational integrity and political honesty that forces the Labour Party to drop their mask of “socialism”, revealing their true face so that the workers, who are still following them, will see the ugliness. We decline to separate the Labour Party from its origin, its evolution, its deeds, its leaders, and the attitude of the rank and file. Because the Labour Party is in the capitalist camp, it must meet with the opposition of Marxists. When the Left attempts to persuade socialists to devote themselves to an impossible ‘reform’ of the Labour Party, it becomes an accomplice of the Labour Party and becomes itself a reformist roadblock in the path of the socialist movement. 

The Socialist Party is said to be dogmatic and sectarian. We are dogmatic in so far as we hold ideas that make us strive to end capitalism. We are dogmatic because we talk about surplus value, another expression for rent, interest, dividends. We are sectarian because we preach the class war, another way of asking the workers to stop supporting the capitalist parties. We fight for nothing short socialism, because we believe that nothing short of that will save the workers. There can be no substitute for the basic ideas of socialism and the principles of socialism, for common ownership of the means of production and distribution. The day is arriving when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain or whether we intend to be free. The Socialist Party comes forward to explain to our fellow workers the nature of the struggle in. which they are participating. To tell them of the principles for which we work and fight. We set out the way for our class to end the horrid nightmare of the competitive struggle which sets nation against nation, class against class, and individual against individual. The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of financiers sets nation against nation, and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit employees. Hence under capitalism the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour-power to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers, and are but mere commodities. In opposition to the Labour Party we affirm that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community are compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no peace between them.

The Labour Party leaders have not led the movement astray but, rather, the general movement of the working class, as represented by the Labour Party, refused to follow the socialist movement. There was a party which has been for more than a hundred years endeavouring to impress the truths of what capitalism is and what socialism could be upon the working class – that they could not trust Labour or Tory, and that if they wanted anything done politically, and if they wanted socialism, they must join the Socialist Party, and agitate, educate, and organise for socialism. The Socialist Party has never wearied in pointing out the right road; but the reality is that the mass of the workers have preferred to take the wrong path, and there are those who have actively encouraged them in doing so. Every obstacle placed in our way by our opponents must be used to show that this opposition is really opposition to the interests of the workers and in favour of the capitalists. Socialist work means something very different for a socialist party than the kind of political activity of labourism. ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise’ is a valid slogan and tactic for the future and the coming years may give it more effective meaning than it has ever had in the past. The Labour Party will not lead us to socialism.

Are elections important?

We use elections to place before the workers the demand of the Socialist Party in sharp contrast to those of the capitalist parties. We take advantage at election times on the greater readiness of the workers to read political literature, attend political meetings and take part in political discussions to familiarise the worker with the socialist case. We use the election to teach workers the the connection between their employer and the state, the connection between their status and the economic system. We use elections as the time to rally all our support.  We also closely analyse election results to read from them the shifts in the moods and sentiments of our class. The purpose is of the Socialist Party is to bring together, to organise into an effective force, all supporters of its principles who seek to win others to the socialist objective. The first requirement for the workers in all countries of the world is to break cleanly from the capitalist class and their political parties with the aim of taking the power out of the hands of the capitalist class and into their own hands. The Labour Party programme is reformist when the task is revolutionary—that is, socialist. 

While capitalism is moving to slash the many gains already won, imposing new burdensome taxes, straight-jacketing organised labour with union-busting laws, cutting down on social legislation, and throwing hundreds of thousands into unemployment reformists talk in terms of the amelioration of class conflicts. They project a perspective of merely removing what they present as minor defects in the existing capitalist order of things, of patching capitalism up and making it more tolerable, instead of a perspective of fundamental change. The Labour Party preaches conciliation, peaceful co-existence with capitalism, not class struggle against it. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality and democracy for which they aspire. The Socialist Party supports all actions which heighten the consciousness of the working class of the situations confronting them; it endorses any action which further cements their unity against capitalism and which would strengthen their capacity to struggle.

The Socialist Party views this as one the most revolutionary period in human history. Capitalism promises people not amelioration of conditions but austerity, oppression, dictatorship and the environmental destruction of mankind. Technological progress is now reaping vast profits for the industrial and financial oligarchy and condemning thousands to permanent unemployment. Socialism itself will organise the benefits of technological change for the workers by establishing the shorter working hours and better conditions. The establishment of industrial democracy, participation of the people in the productive processes and the planning of the economy for the service of the people, is not some abstract principle or the expression of an ultimate objective but the immediate necessity. The Socialist Party opens up the tremendous possibilities that lies before working people. But to realise the potential it must present itself as a real alternative to the capitalist parties. The working class is the only class in modern capitalist society in profound and persistent conflict with the tiny handful of financial and industrial tycoons who control the economy and state apparatus. The socialist movement must be democratic—open to all who commit themselves to its support. It must have an internal life which not only permits, but consciously encourages the full play and exchange of ideas. We are confident that the experiences ahead will prove the validity of our ideas which have been forged in the debates and of the past and will be re-tempered in the discussions ahead. Despite the campaign of lies and distortions about the socialist viewpoint we are confident that developing realities, together with the conscious participation of all who consider themselves socialists will bring a powerful step forward on our march towards the socialist objective. With the will to power, a genuine socialist movement can transform the structure of world capitalism into a real Socialist Commonwealth, for the benefit of all – white, brown, black, yellow. Only along this road will people find lasting security, economic prosperity and social well-being.

The Socialist Party Choice

The Socialist Party is the party of the workers organised to express in political terms their determination to break their fetters. Socialists are no better, cleverer or sharper than anyone else but when we act together we have far more influence than we would have as isolated individuals. Socialists come together in an organisation committed to campaign against capitalist society in whatever guise it appears. Socialists seek a cooperative society where we pool our abilities and resources to create more for everyone, and to share it out fairly. The rich and powerful for their part combine with their own class consciousness to confound our aspirations. There is a crying need is for socialist organisation, in which socialists unite to produce their own media and organise solidarity for those who have taken the bosses on. There will be the people who have no truck with the bosses’ attacks upon workers’ living standards; no truck with wage cuts; no truck with cuts in welfare benefits or cuts in the public services. They will be the people who know that every sacrifice demanded from workers is just another way of protecting the wealth and power of the minority who control the wealth. In other words, there will be class struggle. Nevertheless workers’ struggles for wage increases or better conditions, even when successful, do not result in the anticipated rise in living standards, because in time gains are always  canceled out.

The living conditions of workers can only be improved when production is administered by the working class instead of the employers. An essential condition of victory in this struggle is that workers must break with not only the outright lackeys of capital but also with the reformers who compromise with our avowed enemy – the ruling class. A struggle which limits itself to merely obtaining a new re-distribution of our poverty is not yet a political struggle because it is not directed against the social structure of the production relations. Marx argued that the prevailing ideas will always be those of the ruling class. Socialists have to challenge these ideas and success is far more likely when its socialists are strong, confident, acting together, than weak, uncertain, fragmented and left to think things out on their own, at the mercy of these prevailing ideas.

The most important political work Socialist Party members do is among their own family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. The democratic nature of a socialist revolution depends on its enjoying the support of the majority of the people. The winning of a majority is considered essential not only on grounds of expediency, but also because of the democratic nature of the socialist project. From the outset Marx rejected the elitist approach which proclaimed, ‘Here is the truth, kneel down before it!’ As against that, he wrote in 1843: ‘We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.’ Moreover the prospect of the withering away of the state was based, as Engels made clear, on ‘a free and equal association of producers’ to the effective development of which minority rule would constitute an insurmountable obstacle. Marx and Engels were convinced ‘that in no social order will personal freedom be so assured as in a society based upon communal ownership’.

The Socialist Party has made some original and creative advances in Marxist theory, it is for us to now communicate these political ideas imaginatively and organise effectively to make political change. The Socialist Party party is not the future ruling class of a state, or a directing dictatorial body, but that section of the working class which is most politically and class conscious and which seeks to argue, agitate, and mobilise for mass working class struggle and self-activity. Pannekoek and Gorter agreed at key moments on the need for exactly such a party. Pannekoek noted, ‘The function of a revolutionary party lies in propagating clear understanding in advance, so that throughout the masses there will be elements who know what must be done and who are capable of judging the situation for themselves’, while Gorter argued for the need ‘to unite the section of the proletariat that has a large and profound understanding within one organisation ... to overcome or relieve all the weaknesses ... to which the factory organisation is subject’.

The task of building a mass socialist party today is vital. We should seize the day in a non-sectarian spirit, using measured language, which takes into account the existing and long-term needs of the labour movement. In these conditions we should generalise our agitation on a broad range of questions, eschewing like the plague left-talk sloganising. The first and most obvious lesson is the importance of socialist organization is we keep our socialist commitment not just in the flow of the tide – which is easy – but in its ebb as well. When the workers’ confidence turns down, when employers rule the day, the only way to keep high the aspirations for a new social order is through association with other socialists, learning from and teaching one another, extending our understanding of how the revolutionary tide has ebbed and flowed in the past. No matter how great the victory of the ruling class, it can never escape the continuing class struggle. Since the society it governs is founded on exploitation, there will always be people resisting it, sometimes aggressively, confidently and successfully; more often defensively, and unsuccessfully. This resistance is the only real hope for lasting change. Association with it by organised socialists is the best guarantee that the socialist ideas which inspire us can be kept alive and relevant in the bad times as easily as they can in the good. In this way we never lose contact with socialist aspirations or the living battles of real people on which they depend.

Our most dangerous enemies are our so-called ‘friends.’ The Socialist Party shall continue to oppose the Left because we are working and fighting for socialism. We want cures instead of palliatives. The more misery increases, the more working people sink into despair and become the hopeless prey of all the most reactionary influences and movements. By far the great majority of workers will stay ‘reformist’ because either they do not see an alternative or because they fear the alternative. Our task in the Socialist Party is to offer the socialist choice as the only feasible practical option. 

Prods vs Papes in Glasgow (1982)

From the May 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1878 the City of Glasgow Bank crashed to financial ruin. In the same year the Scottish Roman Catholic Hierarchy was restored by the Pope and Charles Eyre became Archbishop of Glasgow. Protestant extremists, such as members of the Orange Lodges (who even today see almost every calamity as part of a global papist conspiracy), probably saw some connection between the two events. Whatever they thought they were certain of one thing: the restoration of Catholic Hierarchy was nothing less than "papal aggression". In response they protested in Glasgow Green. The Army was sent to prevent rioting but fortunately, for Glaswegian working-class skulls, the troops were not called into action.

The main factor leading to both the restoration of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the religious intolerance in Glasgow was the vast influx of Irish immigrants who, since the 1840s, had been entering the industrial areas of Britain to escape the famine. From December 1847 to March 1848 alone, about 43,000 Irish arrived in Glasgow, "a mass of broken wretches".

These immigrants were generally unskilled workers who had been forced to live in conditions even more squalid and degrading than those of the indigenous proletariat. They were able, therefore, to subsist on lower wages and consequently occupied the worst slums in the city.

It is a matter of fact that competition for employment between the Irish and the similarly unskilled Glaswegian workers led to a fall in wages for the latter. The native workers did not fail to notice this and, in their brutalised ignorance, blamed the Irish. That the majority of these unfortunate Irish workers adhered to the Roman Catholic brand of religious superstition, instead of the Protestant, was yet another focal point for hatred. The presence, too, of immigrants from the North of Ireland led to violent feuds of the Orange and Green variety among the Irish themselves. Added to this was the quarrelsome nature of the various Scottish Protestant sects who were already squabbling among themselves and were quite prepared to enter into hostilities with the adherents of the "one true church".

Nowadays, in Glasgow and the South of Scotland in general, fewer people are committed to any form of religious superstition; "of 20,000 Roman Catholics registered in Clydebank, only about a third attend church regularly" (Current Account, BBC1 Scotland, 25 February, 1982). Similarly an even greater proportion of those describing themselves as Protestants will only be seen inside a church at their funeral.

This decline in church attendance may seem encouraging, but unfortunately "religious" bigotry still flourishes among many of these non-churchgoers in the form of allegiance to certain football teams" Glasgow Rangers ("Prods") and Glasgow Celtic ("Papes"). These unfortunate and bigoted workers blame each other for all manner of social problems and it is almost incumbent upon Socialist Party of Great Britain speakers in Glasgow to criticise King Billy, the Queen, the Pope and the Catholic church in one breath lest, by reference to one alone, it is assumed by one side that we are in alliance with the other. Sellers of the Socialist Standard in Glasgow pubs must beware of the occasional IRA-supporting Catholics and UDA-supporting Protestants, neither of whom will hesitate to kick one's head in if given the chance; and there are certain pubs, particularly in the East End, into which we dare not go. Regular readers of the Standard will recall that our propaganda meeting of 29 July last year (the Day of the Nonsensical Nuptials) was disrupted by a frenzied gang of Orange thugs and it is a likely attack upon us by some papal-jerseyed hooligans which will prevent us from holding a similar meeting on June 1 (the day of the mumbo-jumbo at Bellahouston Park).

A woman from Livingston, West Lothian, told us (Current Account, BBC1 Scotland, 25 February 1982) that she has no need to think about anything she finds too complicated " . . . the priests, the bishops, the archbishops and the Pope are better equipped to deal with this kind of thing. To advise me". An old man, asked what his religion meant to him, was not quite sure except that he knew it was "great"  . . . "You must go to the chapel". When asked if he had ever rebelled against the church he replied: "No! Rebel? No! No!", as though shocked that anyone could conceive of such a thing.

A widow then informed us that her wayward husband's death-bed return to the faith convinced her of the existence of god. Although she was prepared to listen to other people's opinions, she was not prepared to change her ideas in any way: "I do respect other people's religions . . . I am willing to listen to other people, but I feel, basically, we were all Catholics at one time and . . . it's more the pity that they lapsed from our faith, for maybe good reasons, but basically we should all be Catholic and there's nothing in our religion that I want to give up." ("No Surrender!" seems to be a Catholic slogan as well as a Protestant one.)

The above examples of Catholic "thought" clearly illustrate the harmful effects of religious belief. The Catholic church and the Orange Lodge are very good at producing ignorant, docile and fervently religious wage-slaves, and so long as workers remain in these organisations so long will they neglect to deal with the cause of their poverty.

A leaflet, issued by the Orange Lodge in protest against this month's Papal visit and the Catholic Church's insistence on having its own schools, declares: "As absolute ruler of the Roman Church, Pope John Paul II bears the ultimate responsibility for this disgraceful school "apartheid" (Leaflet:Why Should We Welcome This Man?—He is no Friend of Ours). But responsibility for this lies with those workers who believe the superstitious twaddle preached by the Pope and who therefore find it necessary to obey his instructions to send their children to schools which specialise in the Catholic form of indoctrination. The Protestant variety of religious indoctrination is carried out, not only by their churches and the state schools, but by the juvenile section of the Orange Lodge.

Pastor Jack Glass (who thinks even Ian Paisley is "pro-romanist") also sees the Pope's visit as a major problem, so much so that he stood in the recent Hillhead by-election as the candidate for the Protestant Crusade Against the Papal Visit (388 votes—lost deposit). Another group of religious maniacs has been holding a series of meetings with titles such as "The Papal Visit Examined Doctrinally; the Papal Visit Examined Politically" (Glasgow Evening Times, 6 march 1982). They say: "Does not the sacrifice of our martyred forefathers suffer a grave insult by the permitting of the Pope to come . . . ". On March 24, in Bellahouston Park, about 20 Protestants tried to prevent the uprooting of some trees for the Pope's visit and one woman was arrested while trying to chain herself to a tree. It is most regrettable that so many members of the working class consider it worthwhile to waste so much of their time. It is also regrettable that so many others are eager to see the Pope and will pay £5.00 each to hear his inane incantations.

Socialists hope that the Pope's visit will fail; we hope the lapsed will stay away from the church and that believers will continue to decrease in number. There are no reasonable grounds for belief in the supernatural, or in gods, just as there are no grounds for belief in the existence of pink elephants, leprechauns, fairies or flying pigs. Socialists actively oppose all forms of religious superstition not only because such beliefs are unscientific and act as a barrier to understanding the society in which we live and its historical development, but also because of the socially divisive nature of religion. Workers who suffer from the delusions of religion are prepared to kill their fellow-workers in time of war; there are churches in America where blacks are not allowed; women are often considered subordinate to men and the Catholic Church will neither allow its women to become priests nor decide how many children they will have (although many Catholics now ignore the Pope's ruling on the latter).

The Catholic Church, with its roots in feudalism and its still feudal structure, has adapted very well to capitalism. It has shareholdings in many major companies throughout the world including those producing armaments. Nowadays the Vatican is a major financial institution and it is not surprising that the Pope is such a vehement supporter of capitalism. Only three years ago Pope John II warned his priests in South America against a too injudicious support of workers and peasants in their struggles against poverty.

Had not the Catholic Church an appalling record as a force against social progress, were not the Pope a peddler of reactionary views and religious nonsense, socialists would still not welcome him. Like his opponents in the Orange Lodge, he is no friend of ours.

Johnny Cadillac