Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Rate Of Progress!

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of "Lean In" released a women-in-the-workplace study of one hundred and eighteen companies and 30,000 employees and concluded, "At the current pace of progress, we are more than a hundred years away from gender equality in the C-suite." If capitalism lasts that long it's a good bet that she (or somebody) will be saying the same thing then

As proof of the above, tens of thousands African Americans converged on Washington calling for justice and equality. It came twenty years after the Million Man March and fifty-two years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Anyone taking bets that it will be necessary to do it all again? Maybe it's time to drop performing the same experiment and getting the same results and try a new experiment! John Ayers

To the people belongs the world

There is an alternative to the system we live under. Capitalism is not eternal and just as it succeeded feudalism, capitalism can be replaced socialism. Many in the mass media defend the capitalist system. Their aim is to discredit socialism, claiming it is no longer relevant. This means that Socialist Party must redouble its efforts to show that socialism is indeed a valid and necessary option. By using our traditional institutions and rights, we can transform Parliament into the effective instrument of the people’s will to end the rule of capitalists. Basing itself therefore on the interests of the working class and the oppressed toilers, the Socialist Party is not a mere parliamentary party, capturing and using the State machine for the exercise of its own class power for the building of socialism. When the working class has power it can build socialism  and, for the first time in history give the majority of the population, equality of opportunity, control over their daily lives and power to build the future. We can change capitalist democracy, dominated by wealth and privilege, into social democracy. Real democracy means the people being at once voters and administrators, collectively participating in the conduct of their own affairs, the running of industry and the organisation of social life. Working class power is the essential condition for far-reaching social change. It is possible to have a better world if we ourselves make it possible. Parliament is an instrument of capitalist class rule. This holds true regardless of the incumbent in Downing Street. To say otherwise is a denial of all historical fact. Whichever party is set to treat the ill they use the same medicine, only varying the manner of administering it and the dosage. Were their motives of the highest, and they are not, it would make no difference. Parties that claim to serve the interests of the working class are being increasingly shown up for the frauds that they are.

The Socialist Party is the enemy of capitalism and capitalist parties. It has as its aim the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a society in which the means of production will not be the private property of the few, a society which will not be based upon profit, will not be based on class division, will eradicate wars and abolish poverty forever. Socialist society will be very different from the society we know.  In the first place socialism will be a classless society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also schools and theatres and playing-fieldsso that people can lead full, physical and culturally rich lives. 

Socialism will be a worldwide society. It is not something which can be fully completed in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary it must embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to war.  It is obvious that by the time such a stage of human development has been reached many institutions which we accept today as essential, such as policemen and prisons, employers and workers, armies and civil servants, will have disappeared. Because no wars can take place in a truly international society there will be no need for armies. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions and organisations, will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family of nations, will be free to devote all its creative energies to completing the mastery of nature. Such a society implies tremendous changes in people themselves; not only in their economic position, but also in their whole moral and intellectual outlook. For instance, work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of men’s lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman wild develop their mental and physical capacities to the full.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Severe Consequences

On September 13, twenty-eight people seeking a better life in Europe drowned as they attempted a wind-swept crossing from Turkey to Greece. The Greek coastguard said the twenty-eight, including four infants and ten older children, died when their wooden boat collapsed near the island of Farmakonissi, which is one of the favoured places for smugglers sending thousands of people daily to the Greek islands. From the beginning of time people have wandered the earth searching for a better life, but today the consequences are more severe than they have ever been. Better a world where people can wander at their leisure in security. John Ayers

No Relief In Sight

Statistics Canada revealed that for the second quarter of 2015, household debt hit a record high. The ratio of debt to disposable income reached 164.4 per cent as debt loads grew faster than incomes. This means that for every dollar Canadians earned, they owed nearly $1.65 in credit debt. This included mortgages and other kinds of consumer loans. So things are not getting better, nor does there seem to be any relief in sight. It's a case of abolish capitalism and the money system, or suffer under it.

Organise for socialism

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE
The world needs socialism and automation and the new technology gives added weight to the argument for socialism. In the hands of capitalism it can only bring social chaos but with socialism it would bring immeasurable benefits. Yet there are a majority in the labour movement for whom common ownership holds little appeal, and they are content to follow orthodox labour leaders' paths and by-ways of social reform. In part, this contentment stems from a simple failure to grasp the fact that socialism without common ownership is an absurd contradiction in terms. It is surprising that the notion of common ownership, of the planned and rational use of society’s resources for the greatest good of the greatest number, should not exercise a powerful appeal to workers. There is no point in socialists thinking that the present indifference to our society’s economic base is going to change miraculously and overnight into a mass enthusiasm for its transformation that will suddenly make common ownership the policy of the labour movement. This is not to say that more favourable circumstances for the propagation of the socialist case will never occur but what it does mean is that it will take time. Socialists are in r the politics for the long haul. There is the need for socialists to make clear why common ownership of the means to life is the key to social change. This demands more than a pious repetition of the ‘common ownership of the means of production and distribution’ formula. The other task is to carry this clarification to the workers themselves. In other words, to make socialists.

Socialism is that form of society in which there is no such thing as a property-less class, but instead the whole community owns the means of production—the land, factories, mills, mines, transport and all the means whereby wealth is created and distributed to the community. Socialism is also the name given to a body of scientific and philosophic thought which explains why the socialist form of society is now a necessity, the forces upon which its achievement depends, the conditions under which and the methods whereby it can be achieved. Socialism is not a particularly complicated doctrine. Socialism stands for social (property owned in common.) Capitalism stands for private property. Socialism is a society without classes. Capitalism is divided into classes—the class owning property and the property-less working class.

It is impossible to provide more than this basic picture now of what socialism will be like, for it will depend in the particular details on the actual conditions at the time. For as long as anyone can remember, the ruling class have paraded one political representative after another before the people promising a lifetime of “peace with prosperity,” while they have subjected millions here and hundreds of millions around the world to agony and waged wars of plunder.

Most workers accept capitalism, believing it cannot be changed, and they view socialists who want to change it as idealists. We can easily understand, therefore, why the great majority of landlords, employers of labour, financiers and the like are opposed to socialism. Their very existence as the receivers of rent, interest and profit is at stake. They do not merely reject the theory of socialism, but actively and bitterly fight any movement which is in the slightest way associated with the struggle for socialism. But how do we account for the support of workers for a system built upon the exploitation of workers? The basic premise of socialism is that the development of capitalism itself drives workers into revolt against the system and in a revolutionary situation, workers change their ideas very, very quickly.

Capitalists disagree from time to time. They argue about tactics and squabble over their ill-gotten gains. But in the face of workers’ resistance, they join ranks and coordinate their forces. If the workers are to prevail, they have to organise. 


Monday, November 09, 2015

Sharing The Benefits? No Chance!

Socialists say the war is endemic to the capitalist mode of production, stemming from its competitive nature. One example is that of the Philippines who expelled the Americans from its naval bases twenty-five years ago but is contemplating inviting them back as China lays claim to lays claim to almost all the South China Sea in some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. China is currently putting military installations on many of the islands there even though many nations claim the same territory. Sharing the benefits, not surprisingly, is not an option. John Ayers

For world socialism!

A WORLD TO WIN,
 A PLANET TO SAVE 
 For world socialism! To this inspiring task, we summon the workers of the world, all who are oppressed by capitalism. Only a socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world totters on the brink of destruction. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain themselves and that system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people with continued insecurity and increasing hardships. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the building of socialism. The only road is the socialist road. The word “socialism” still carries the stigma of the distortions by those usurping the name. There are people fearful of the word, all across the political spectrum yet socialist principles are the values and aspirations that most people share. The change from capitalism to socialism, from capitalist dictatorship to rule of the working class, is a revolution, the most far-reaching revolution in human history. By socialism we understand the transformation from ownership and control by a few capitalists to ownership and control by the whole community of all the industries and services essential for the satisfaction of the people's needs. Capitalists are not interested in production to benefit the peoples of the world. They are interested only in profits. If the productive forces in the world were to be used for the purposes of construction, the entire planet could be transformed and the standards of living and level of culture raised to undreamed of heights. This is not possible under capitalism. Capitalism promises the people not amelioration of conditions but austerity, oppression, and the environmental destruction of mankind. 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 says that all the problems people experience in our present society — war, poverty, pollution, economic crises— flow from a cause, the nature of this profit-oriented society. We see that there are no real solutions to these problems until the entire society is changed. We should be very clear about the kind of change that we are talking about. When we say that we are revolutionaries we are not talking about a change in society that would take place when a small group takes over Parliament and runs up the red flag. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of workers consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other to the way that people relate to their jobs. We're out to change the whole system. A few workers see the need for socialism yet many more don't see that need. They think their problems can be solved by electing a government to enact reforms in their interest. 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 leap forward on the march to a socialist society.

The Socialist Party, if it is to fulfill its mission, must be uncompromising so far as its principles are concerned, true to the interests of the workers in every phase of the struggle, clean and above-board in all its methods. Support the Socialist Party, the only party that keeps the revolutionary banner unfurled. Forward to the Social Revolution!


‘Banish gods from the skies and capitalists from the earth.’ 

Sunday, November 08, 2015

No Cry For Abolition Of Wages System

In an article on income inequality (Toronto Star September 26) a columnist reveals that "overall, CEO pay climbed 937 per cent between 1978 and 2013, while the pay of the typical worker rose just 10.2 per cent" (quoted from "Saving Capitalism" by Robert Reich) and in Canada the one hundred highest paid CEOs made 195 times the average Canadian income of $47,358. Unfortunately, this just leads to the call for a slightly more equitable split instead of the cry for the abolition of the wages system. John Ayers.

This is what socialism is


The state – the police, army, courts, bureaucracy and similar institutions  – is set up and controlled by the capitalist class. These big businessmen consistently use the police, army, and courts to break workers’ strikes and generally to put down the rebellions of the poor who own little or no means of production. You yourself can decide how often the police and state officials are against the bankers and corporation executives when they break the laws of the land. Banking fraud, company bribery, tax-evasion...all gone unpunished by the courts. A tiny handful of profit-makers rule society and uses the state as their machine to protect their interests. The ruling class goes to great lengths to cover up their dictatorship under the mask of democracy, for it is extremely difficult for a minority of exploiters to rule by force alone. The capitalists are no more willing to “share” political power with the majority of people than it is to share the ownership of the means of production and the wealth that comes from this. For them to function as a capitalist class, they must exploit the working class; and to exploit the workers, who constantly resist this exploitation and oppression, they must use the state to suppress the workers. For sure, the ruling class has been forced to grant the workers some democratic rights such as the right to vote, free speech, free press, etc. But these freedoms mean one thing to the ruling class and quite another for the workers. For the capitalists, freedom of the press and free speech, as examples, mean the right to fill the air-waves and daily newspapers with their propaganda and lies and to use them freely to debate with each other. For the capitalists, elections are a way to settle differences among themselves, while making it look like everybody has equal say. For the working class, democratic rights are the fruits of previous struggles, and we fight to preserve them for they make it easier to organise and mobilise for the day when the capitalists will be overthrown. Nevertheless democratic rights for the masses are primarily a sham, a mask, to cover the real dictatorship of the capitalists. This becomes especially clear when democratic rights come into conflict with the most basic “freedom” of bourgeois society–the right of the capitalists to their “private property” and to exploit the labour of the workers.  In the final analysis all their talk about democracy boils down to one thing. The ruling class decides by struggle and compromise within its own ranks, and among its paid politicians, how it will maintain its system of exploitation over the people.

Socialism will replace capitalism, creating a new society and ending the old dog-eat-dog social system. Everyone in society will share equally in mental and manual work, in producing goods and services and managing the affairs of society; where the outlook of the working class, putting the common good above narrow, individual interests, has become “second nature” to members of society; when goods and services can be produced so abundantly that money is no longer needed to exchange them and they can be distributed to people solely according to their needs. Classes will have been completely eliminated, and the state as such will be replaced by the common administration of society by all its members. With socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. This will bring a qualitative improvement in the lives of the people.

Our vision of socialism is that the  means of production – the factories, mines, mills, offices, agricultural fields, transportation system, media, communications, medical facilities, retailers, etc., will be transformed into socially-owned common property. Private ownership of the main means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Rational economic planning will replace the present anarchistic system. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by public agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people, and steadily advance.


Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Because capitalism already has a developed and centralised economy, socialism’s main task will be to re-orient this structure towards social needs. Although there may be a period of economic reconstruction after the revolution, we will not face the problem of building a modern economy. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. It is the next step in the further development of this world. Because the working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism is not more government control. Under capitalism the state serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Government ownership and control is a form of state capitalism. When the government intervenes in the economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and some experiment. There could be a combination of local and central planning and coordination. Workers will be able to manage democratically their own work places through workers’ councils and elected administrators. In this way workers will be able to make their work places safe and efficient places that can well serve their own interests as well as society’s. Various policies might be used, depending on what will be appropriate to changing conditions. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy will uphold the basic principles of collective ownership, production for the people’s needs, and the elimination of exploitation. Socialism will open the way for great changes in society. The protection of the environment would be ensured.

Saturday, November 07, 2015

To Hell With the Environment

Volkswagen sold 50,000 diesel cars with software that automatically cheated on air pollution tests leaving the company vulnerable to billions of dollars in fines and criminal prosecution. The company sold Volkswagen and Audi cars with a sophisticated algorithm that turns on full pollution controls only when the car is undergoing official testing, the Environmental protection Agency reported. During normal driving the system does not operate so that the cars pollute ten to forty times the legal limit. The company's purpose for using this sophisticated technology is because it was cheaper to install than producing low emission vehicles, so the bottom line is higher profit and to hell with the environment. Just another day in capitalism! John Ayers.

Help build a new world

Few can deny that the world today is in a constant state of upheaval and that is reflected in the widespread turmoil and conflict. The fact that such conditions prevail generally throughout the world, and have prevailed for a long time, suggests the presence of a common social factor. That common cause, the Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated, is the capitalist system that does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive.

The defenders of the capitalist economic dictatorship never tire of declaring it the "best of all possible systems." Yet, today, after decades of reforms, wars on poverty, civil rights legislation, government regulation, government deregulation and a host of other palliatives, capitalist society still depicts an obscene social picture. Millions who need and want jobs are still unemployed. Millions more are underemployed, working only part-time or temporary jobs though they need and want full-time work. Millions aren't earning enough to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves and their families despite the fact that they are working.  The education and health-care system still fails to meet the needs of most folk. Slums homelessness abounds. Racism and nationalism is on the upsurge with its contemptible discrimination against foreigners.

When the Socialist Party was founded, there was no particularly great concern regarding pollution of the land, air and water on which all species—humanity included—depend on for life. But there was widespread poverty, racial prejudice and discrimination, urban decay, brazen violations of democratic rights, and the material and economic conflicts that are the seeds of war, plus a host of other economic and social problems. All of those problems still plague the working class—but have grown to even more monumental proportions. These long-standing problems and the failure of seemingly unending reform efforts to solve or even alleviate them to any meaningful degree have imposed decades of misery and suffering on millions of families. Against this insane capitalist system, the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organized on the sane basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism. Accordingly, the SPGB calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating revolutionary change and building class consciousness among workers.

 Despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all, fully in harmony with the needs of the environment, stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realized only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising for socialism. Help build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation. Join in the effort to put an end to the existing class conflict by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society.

Friday, November 06, 2015

The accursed capitalist system

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. With the abolition of capitalist exploitation there is also end of the managerial despotism inseparable from it, and representing all-powerful capital, the arbitrariness of the owners and the employers. Under capitalism the working people look on those in charge such as directors, managers and supervisors as enemies, since they direct production in the interests of the capitalists and of their profits. In socialist society those who administer enjoy the trust of the people, since they execute the decision of the entire community in the interests of everybody, not for capitalist profits.

 In a socialist society there is production is not for profit but for use, socially planned production. A socialist economy is a planned economy. In capitalist society, the capitalists own the means of production and engage in production for the sole purpose of making profits and satisfying their private interests. Therefore, though there may be planned production in a few enterprises, competition is rife and lack of co-ordination prevails among the different enterprises and economic departments as a whole. Cyclical economic crises which break out in capitalist society are the inevitable result of anarchy in production. Engels pointed out: “With the seizing of the means of production by society…Anarchy in social production is replaced by plan-conforming, conscious organisation.” Socialism has freed the workers from exploitation and has replaced work in subjection to the exploiters by free labour for oneself, for the whole of society. Labour in socialist society has a creative character, and is organised in a planned way.

Nationalisation in a capitalist class society is not socialism, nor is the “mixed economy”. Such nationalisation is simply a degree of state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. The “welfare state” is not socialist as “welfare” in a capitalist state is to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker and is another form of state capitalism (aka the means test State). It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. Social production is aimed at meeting the ever increasing needs of the entire society in the interest of all the people, instead of catering to the private interests of the few. The establishment of common ownership of the means of production and the fundamental identity of the interests of the working people in socialist society make it possible for a socialist society to arrange the whole society’s labour force and means of production in a unified way. Capitalism makes the worker an appendage of the machine and stifles man’s abilities. Socialism, on the contrary, liberates labour from exploitation and gives all citizens free access to the fruits of society’s collective production. Socialism heralds a new and higher stage development of co-operation of labour, compared with preceding forms of society. Socialist co­operation is the co-operation of workers freed from exploitation, and linked with each other by relations of comradely mutual aid.

To use the word “socialism” for anything less than “from each according to ability, to each according to need” is to misuse the term. Members of the Socialist Party capably demonstrate how socialism could end poverty, unemployment and war by eliminating private ownership of the means of producing the things of life, national and international competition, and the struggle for existence by the overwhelming majority of the population in this and all other countries. They merciless expose of the evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy in human relations, and the most evident feature of its class character: the impoverishment of the masses and the enrichment of a small class of capitalists. The SPGB understands the necessity of building the movement for socialism requires the the art of socialist campaigning and agitation, to tell millions what socialism is, its relation and comparison to capitalism, and how it can be achieved. We need to reveal how thoroughly rotten capitalism is, how it is an outlived system capable of producing nothing but poverty, war and suppression of the will of the people. The Socialist Party is pledged to over-turn this accursed capitalist system, with its wars, its reaction, its vileness, brutality and savagery so that in the memory of people in future times of capitalism will remain only as a ghastly nightmare.

Thursday, November 05, 2015

No Security Here.

One thing nobody hears about today is "Freedom 55", a smart financial way to retire early, though I did hear someone joke about having "freedom 95". People invested in it believing they would retire at 55 and live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but when the economy went belly up, so did their illusion. This shows that there is no such thing as security under capitalism. John Ayers.

Build the socialist commonwealth


The Socialist Party always makes it quite clear as to our exact aim and object. We as socialists, wish to advance the case for socialism, and by socialism we mean the common ownership of all the agencies of wealth production, and this involves the complete supercession of the capitalist system, and the conducting of all production on a co-operative basis. We seek to overthrow capitalism, and build the socialist commonwealth. Socialism is the highest stage of human society, economically, socially, and intellectually. All the accumulated treasures in machines and technical appliances created by the genius of man, all that science and art had given to the human race in generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, will provide the basis for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

To substitute common, for private, ownership in the means of production, this it is what economic development is urging upon us with ever-increasing force. The abolition of the present system of production means replacing for production for sale with production for use. In a socialist system the people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically controlled workers councils, cooperatives, or other collective groups. The primary goal of economic activity is to provide the necessities of life, including food, shelter, health care, education, child care, cultural opportunities, and social services. The Socialist Party strives to establish a radical democracy that places people’s lives under their own control in which people cooperate at work, at home, and in the community. Planning takes place at the community, regional, and world levels, and is determined democratically with the input of workers, consumers, and the public to be served. Socialism is not government ownership, a welfare state, or a repressive bureaucracy. Socialism is a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighbourhoods, homes, hospitals and schools. Democracy in daily life is the core of our socialism. State ownership is a fraud as decisions are made by distant bureaucrats or authoritarian managers. In socialist society power resides in worker-managed and cooperative enterprises. Community-based cooperatives help provide the flexibility and innovation required in a dynamic socialist economy. The production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. Socialism produces a constantly renewed future by not plundering the resources of the earth. The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the workplaces, profit from these workers’ labour, and use the government to maintain their privileged position. The inevitable product of the capitalist system is a class society with gross inequality, draining productive wealth and goods of the society into military purposes and war in which workers are compelled to fight other workers. People around the world have more in common with each other than with their rulers. We condemn war, preparation for war, and the militaristic culture. We ally with no nation, but only with working people throughout the world. A socialist society carefully plans its way of life and technology to be a harmonious part of our natural environment. The cleanup of the polluted and contaminated environment will be among the first tasks of a socialist society.

Socialism and democracy are one and indivisible. The Socialist Party is democratic, with its structure and practices visible and accessible to all members. It ought to be obvious to every socialist that socialism will not come into existence unless the majority of the people are willing to struggle for socialism and that means that they have to understand what it is. If the people who vote for a socialist candidate do not do so because he or she is a socialist then of what earthly use can that be for achieving the socialist goal? Socialism must depend upon the consciousness of the workers and not upon their lack of knowledge. The idea that we should first be elected and then teach socialism is absurd. It can be stated with the greatest of assurance that a socialist candidate who refrains from advocating and explaining socialism during the campaign, with the idea that he or she will do so after elected will forget all about socialism.  The building of socialism requires widespread understanding and participation, and will not be achieved by an elite working “on behalf of” the people. The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future – to a real radical democracy from below. Socialists participate in the electoral process to present socialist alternatives. The process of struggle profoundly shapes the ends achieved. Our tactics in the struggle for radical democratic change reflect our ultimate goal of a society founded on principles of egalitarian and non-exploitative relations among all people. Our aim is the creation of a new social order, a society in which the commanding value is the preciousness of every woman, man and child.



Wednesday, November 04, 2015

The Capitalists Are Blood-Sucking Leeches

We in the Socialist Party are not reformers but revolutionaries. We do not propose to change outward appearances. We want to change the essence of society. Reformism skims the surface. The socialist movement cannot exist unless carried on by men and women because in the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions. The only path before workers is revolution. Only socialism can bring the solution and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for everyone. This is the aim of the socialist revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, can drive the capitalists from possession, and can organise social production to create a free and equal society. All production is directed solely to supplying people’s needs. It is for use, not for profit. Therefore every expansion of production means greater abundance and leisure for everybody. Because production is for ourselves and administered by our own organisations, it will spur on initiative and enthusiasm unattainable under capitalism. Through the rule of the people we can immediately realise the fruits of the revolution and end the present reign of inequality — inequality in respect of every elementary human need of food, clothing, shelter, conditions of labour health, education, etc., and bring the material conditions of real freedom and development to all. In this way we shall immediately banish poverty, offering a new life for all. The capitalists hold up the spectre that revolution means “starvation,” that the workers depend on capitalism for their existence. The contrary is the truth. The workers can by the method of social revolution, and by the method of social revolution alone can rapidly reconstruct this redundant social system and win prosperity for all of us.

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing only – to make the most profits possible for a few people. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mined the mines, built the buildings, manufactured all the products: and then got just enough to live on – if we fought hard enough for it! On the other hand, the capitalist class reaps their huge fortunes from our toil and do no work themselves, except spending the money that we made for them. Class consciousness means that workers come to see that united in action they have enormous power—they can bring the entire economy to a halt and stop profit-making in its tracks. Our class becomes conscious of its true interests and the need for revolution not simply by reading textbooks but through practical action. Mass action is the only way even to defend past gains and to win new ones. Workers learn through experience, through fighting the capitalists in the living class struggle. And whatever the initial outlook of most of the participants, mass working-class action always carries the potential threat of a revolutionary challenge to the system.

There are other parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of various forms of capitalism. There are many who say that they are for socialism and claim to be in favour of the emancipation of workers. However, we mustn’t be taken in. Many of these “socialists” have abandoned the principles of Marxism.

Socialist revolution will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished from the surface of the globe. The Socialist Party always stand for class solidarity in the course of workers’ struggle. We do not drop our support for the fight against the bosses because we do not like particular trade union leaders or their policies.

It is time no for to turn away from the capitalist system, with its mounting mass misery, exploitation, war and terrorism, and look towards socialism. Socialism abolishes the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production and social organisation; it does away with the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalist industry, breeder of commercial crises and war. It sets up instead a planned system of economy in harmony with the worldwide character of modern industry and social relationships. Capitalism robs the toilers of what they produce. Under capitalism everywhere wealth piles up automatically in the hands of the parasitic owners of the industries, while the masses of actual producers live at the bare subsistence line. But in socialism this is fundamentally different. Production is carried on for the benefit of all those in the ommunity. There are no artificial limits placed upon production by the need to sell. There can be no “exploited” when there is no ruling, owning class, no class to get a rake-off from the worker’s production? With private property abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State, which in its essence, is an organ of class repression. The State will, in the words of Engels, “wither away” and be replaced by a scientific technical “administration of things.” The guiding principle will be: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Production for use, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for pinch-penny measuring and weighing.


The road to this social development can only be opened by revolution. This is because the question of power is involved. The capitalist class, like an insatiable blood-sucking leech, clings to the body of the working people and has to be dislodged.  

Tuesday, November 03, 2015

For the socialist revolution – join us.

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually striving towards? This question, long a subject of debate is receiving even more attention today because of the inability of capitalism to address its mounting crises. Nothing less than the fate of humanity hinges upon the speediest implementation of the socialist solution yet hardly anyone nowadays retain hope in the anti-capitalist strivings and sentiments of the working people or believe that they can in time participate in a mighty movement oriented toward socialist objectives. For adhering to these convictions and being guided by them, the Socialist Party is looked upon as a political dinosaur, ridiculed as a relic of a by-gone age, dogmatists to outworn views who cannot understand that the world has changed. Indeed, it may seem odd to argue against the preponderance of public opinion so why not go along with the prevailing mood? Unfashionable and unpopular as it may be, we in the Socialist Party have solid reasons for our principled stand and our convictions are not those of religious-like faith but derived from a scientific conception of the course and driving forces of world history, a reasoned analysis of the decisive trends of our time, and an understanding of the mainsprings and the necessities of capitalist development. Socialist ideas  have clarified many perplexing problems in philosophy, sociology, history, economics, and politics, explaining the key role of the working class in history. Nothing less is at stake than the destiny of civilisation and with it the future of mankind.

Too often, too many radicals place too much importance upon the undeniable shortcomings of the labour movement than by any of its positive accomplishments. They disparage the significance of the sheer existence of trade union organisations which act as a shield against lowering wages and working conditions and check the aggressions of capitalist reaction. They ignore the working conditions of a century ago, before unionisation, the fourteen- to sixteen-hour day, the exploitation of child labor, the early mortality rate for all workers; and they neglect to study what happens when unions are exceptionally weak and fragmented. The widespread under-estimation of the working class comes from a short-term perspective. We are living in a world of rapidly changing events and many unexpected developments. The working class will be roused from its slumber by events beyond anyone’s control. We do not believe that they can be summoned into battle on anyone’s command. The class struggle unfolds with a rhythm of its own, determined by historical conditions. The Socialist Party takes full advantage of opportunities in good times or bad. That is its reason for its existence. We are no idle dreamers. We want to make things happen.


But how was this new society to be achieved? The critical first step, in our view, is taking political power, replacing the government of the capitalist class with the rule of the working class. People should rule society in their own interests. Socialism is a society dedicated to the interests of the vast majority of the population. The basic means by which society produces its wealth – factories, mines and farms – are transferred from private to public ownership, and exploitation is for the most part eliminated. Socialism unleashes the creativity of the common people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not laboring under a system of exploitation. The key to the solution of the problem lies, for us, in a social revolution throughout the capitalist world. There is no other way. Socialism has to become a tool and a weapon again for going to the roots of existing social problems and pointing the way to their solution. If you want to fight the only battle worth fighting, for the socialist revolution – join us.

Monday, November 02, 2015

We are the SPGB


For some people the day for socialist struggle never seems to come around. The time for the struggle for socialism never arrives. Time and time again the struggle for socialism has been sidetracked by the so-called radical parties who have held out the promise of immediate salvation for the people. Again and again people believed in the false prophets and voted him into power, only to reap a heavy harvest of bitter disappointment. It is in the light of this fact that the importance of the Socialist Party must be measured. Not a party of mere patchwork reform, nor a party of sham revolutionary phrases, but a socialist party, rooted in the working class movement, based upon principles of education and organisation, both indispensable for a party that is a socialist party in the true meaning of the term. The soul of our party is to be an effective instrument for the coming social reconstruction. We call upon workers to join the Socialist Party, the party of revolution. We stand before them as the party of the fellow workers, of the poor and oppressed. We stand for no economic, political or social privilege, but consider that the oppressed of the world must act together to gain peace, prosperity, security, equality; with abundance for all but special privilege for none. This is the only way to save the world from the catastrophes unleashed by capitalism. The Socialist Party has never under any circumstances forsaken or subordinated the needs of the struggle in the interests of alliance with class enemies.

Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital. On average in half the working week it produces value sufficient to cover wages to maintain workers and their families. The value produced in the remainder of the working week constitutes surplus value, the source of profit. The goods and services produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by capitalists. They will continue to be produced so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. The system of capitalist production leads inevitably to the alternating cycle of boom and bust and periodical crisis under capitalism. It is inevitable that sooner or later these social conditions will impel people to organise to end the conflict between the socialised labour process and the private ownership of the means of production, the big factories, mines and farms, by the establishment of socialism. With socialism, production is planned and rational, and takes place for peoples’ use. When socialists speak of a society organised on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean doing away with production for profit.

Capitalism is a system based on production for profit, not for human need. This system is driven by the necessity to accumulate profit, which means that capitalists compete with one another, both nationally and internationally. The capitalist class is a ruling class whose ownership and control of the means of production is based on the exploitation of the working class. Thus, a small minority rules society. The contradictions between competing capitalists, produce war, poverty and crisis. The struggle between the classes will produce the overthrow of capitalist society. The working class has the capacity to end exploitation and oppression. It is a law of capitalism that capital moves to wherever the rate of profit is highest. Capitalism is a system of production for profit: for the accumulation of more capital. Companies therefore produce only the products that give them the greatest profit, and they try to set up their enterprises whenever the most favorable conditions for making maximum profits are to be found. The welfare of the people is simply trampled on by the profit-hungry monopolies: their search for profits is a ruthless rampage that leaves a trail of misery, ruin, hardship and poverty. This is how capitalism works. Capitalism needs the working class; the working class does not need capitalism.

Every state is the dictatorship of some class over another. It is a body of armed men organized by the class in power to carry out that class’ will unrestrained by any laws and to suppress the rights of those classes opposed to the continued rule of the dominant class. The present state, which claims to be a “democracy” of all the people, of all classes, is no such thing. It is a special body organized by the capitalist class to protect that class’s property and to keep the workers subserviant in the factories of the rich. All the laws passed have as their purpose the enslavement of the masses and the protection of the unjustly acquired wealth of the wealthy, who produce nothing of value, but appropriate the product of the sweat and blood of the workers. No matter how fine-sounding these laws they were only written to deceive the people rob them. We can count on nothing but their own numbers. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the working class.


Sunday, November 01, 2015

The System

By 'The System' we mean capitalism. To the casual observer investments seem to grow as if by a force of nature, like a seed which sprouts a plant if well-treated. "Let your money work for you" say the ads. Getting rich is generally seen as a matter of foresight and some luck. This is equivalent to thinking that water comes from a tap, milk comes from the supermarket , and electricity from the wall outlet. What actually happens is that investors get paid out of the profits of companies their money is invested in. Even most of those who realise that nevertheless think that each company wins its profits on its own, and thus by choosing companies which act "responsibly" one can invest in a politically progressive manner.

But an individual company's profit is not simply the result of sales, of that specific company's revenues exceeding costs. Even such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo came to realise this around 200 years ago. Every seller is also a buyer of something. So if all sellers were to sell at 10% above cost, what they gain as sellers they would lose as buyers, leaving them where they started. At best, sales can (and do) explain the redistribution of money from some enterprises to others, but cannot explain economic growth at the level of society as a whole. Both Smith and Ricardo, who deemed capitalism to be simply human nature, sensed profit had something to do with human labour, but admitted they could not figure out exactly how. It fell to latter critics of political economy, especially Karl Marx, to discover that the explanation lay in the fact that, on a world-wide basis, human beings working in the production of goods and services spend more time working during a given time period than it takes society to produce what they need to survive for that period. This surplus work-time, embodied in money form, is the source of a general global profit pool. Individual enterprises "drink" out of this pool at a level based upon their market competitiveness, by selling their product. This favours the huge companies, which keep their unit costs down via vertical/horizontal integration, the use of more machinery and technology versus direct human labor, and market domination by sheer size. Also in force is the nature of the functioning of capitalist competition, which tends to distribute surplus to larger units.

The surplus is thus largely produced by small labour-intensive sweatshops, but largely appropriated by corporate giants. In fact, a lot of it is appropriated by banks and other financial institutions, which play absolutely no role in producing wealth, but suck up ever larger portions of it via interest payments. And a growing number of workers are engaged not in producing wealth, but in circulating it (for example, sales, advertising, information processing) and in maintaining the structure (such as state workers), likewise fed from the surplus pool. These workers are wage labourers, whose work, even though unproductive of surplus, is necessary for the system's functioning, and whose conditions and social disempowerment are just as bad as those of production workers.

This understanding was incorporated by the 19th Century movement for a new post-capitalist society, by both its "communist" and "anarchist" components (most anarchists accepted Marx's analysis of capital, though they generally rejected his political prescriptions). Not surprisingly, it was greeted by the powers-that-be with sheer horror. One result was the complete abandonment of the understandings reached by Smith and Ricardo in favor of a new "science" called economics, which not only treated capitalism as ordained by nature, but deemed that only market interactions between individuals needed to be studied to fully understand the workings of the system. Class relations were deemed irrelevant. Thanks to domination by the capital-owning class of all social institutions, including the media and education, the basic underlying view implied by economics has become accepted by the vast majority of the population, even by many who consider themselves on the political left. The system now appears as natural as the weather. Few people even know of the previous understandings. And thus, each company is seen as if it alone is ultimately responsible for its profit performance.

In fact, capitalism is not at all natural, or even the result of a basic evolutionary process inherent in human social development. It is a social system that was born not via evolution in Europe's trade centers, but via imposition upon the post-feudal English countryside starting in the late Middle Ages, a process referred to as the Enclosures, which was not completed until the 19th Century. Formerly un-owned land (the commons) and small estates were expropriated by large landowners. Most of the peasants living there were expelled, and those remaining turned into wage workers. The new large estates became competing enterprises whose aim was wealth accumulation, the first truly capitalist entities. The expelled peasants, no longer able to produce their survival needs, flocked to urban centers, where they were to become the workforce of the industrial age, likewise in the form of wage labour working for capital.

This process expanded out of England to encompass the whole world. It is still proceeding quite openly in places such as Latin America, Africa and South Asia, and in more subtle ways even in the advanced industrial world. This is why every day there are more people willing to sell their labour power for a wage; they have to in order to survive. The profitability of every single enterprise thus depends upon the continued operation of the global process of capital accumulation, a process which inherently requires the vast exploitation of human labour and the continued conversion of the natural world and all human needs into saleable commodities. Such a system cannot fail to be destructive to the human community and the planet's eco-system, regardless of all the good intentions (however sincere) espoused by managers of investment funds and companies.

But the notion that good investment decisions can lead to a better world is wrong not only as a long-term strategy, but even as a short-term tactic. For every dollar invested with a "socially responsible" intent, there is a pool of a billion dollars seeking the maximum return no matter what. Control of the vast majority of the world's capital is concentrated in the hands of a tiny portion of the population made up of billionaires and multi-millionaires. And companies receiving their investments are the ones that will thrive and out-compete rivals by being able to buy new technology, extend control of both markets and supplies, obtain government assistance (military interventions, trade pacts), and a host of other advantages.

The very idea that the market (and money) is freedom, and participation in it, whether as a consumer or as an investor, is like political democracy, is skillful propaganda. The main effect of the notion of "socially responsible" investment is that of supporting this propaganda, much as participation in the two-party electoral charade legitimates the claim of the political system to be a "democracy". Some people lament that “Oh well, capitalism is here and nothing more we can do about it. Most people (even socially aware ones) accept it, might as well make use of it. They may have learned a lot about the symptoms of the current system, but little of its underlying operating principles. This shows a major problem of the workers’ movement, its general eschewing of hard analysis in favour of "practical action" based upon gut reactions to perceived injustices. Many on the Left have yet to grasp any notion of change beyond some rules (e.g. environmental and labour legislation) which will make the process more "fair" and less harmful to the world's working people and environment. They have not been able to visualise any social arrangement that goes beyond the current one, i.e. capitalism.

Accumulation is capital's very reason for being. Otherwise it wouldn't be capital, a sum of money whose aim is to expand itself into a larger sum. And this accumulation has only one source: the time that working people all over the world spend working beyond that which is necessary to produce our needs, surplus time. As capital develops, it relies more and more on machines, due to a process which favors enterprises that produce more cheaply per unit. Thus, even as there is more and more capital demanding to be invested for a profit, there are proportionally fewer and fewer people to produce the surplus to create that profit. Capital thus finds itself under pressure to cut costs ever more, especially wages, and eliminate regulations which keep it from going where it wants to go, doing what it wants to do, and getting around obstacles. This has been its way since its birth. And the current state is the culmination of its drive to conquer the world, to turn every activity, every facet of living, into a commodity ruled by the rules of capitalist production.

Notions that the current system can be changed to one which safeguards (and even restores) the environment, and which lifts the living standards of all of the world's people, while still sustaining profitable production, are at best naive and illusory. At worst, they are deceptions, meant to channel people away from a direct challenge of the status-quo and towards some sort of a managed situation. They will rely less upon open repression (while of course not doing away with that option) and more upon cultivating an image of people who really care, who are willing to compromise, provided the opposition is likewise willing to compromise, to drop any notion of radical social change, and settle for a seat at the table, even if it's a seat at the end of the table, whose rewards are everyone else's scraps. This only shows the workers’ movement desperately need to do some reflection, to understand what they are up against and where they want to go, if they are not to become mere cogs in a campaign to spruce up the present system.

Socialist Standard No. 1335 November 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Auld Reekie Loses its Charm

The formal recognition of Edinburgh as one of the world’s most beautiful cities is under threat amid a battle for the soul of its most historic quarter. The city was inscribed as a Unesco world heritage site in 1995 for the beauty of its medieval old town and 18th-century new town but, following complaints from the public and architectural experts over a number of new buildings, inspectors from Icomos, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises Unesco, have toured several of the most contentious sites.

David Black, a conservationist and architectural critic, detects a sinister hand in the planned developments and others that have occurred with seemingly indecent haste around Edinburgh. 
“The cataclysmic event as far as I was concerned was the wrecking of St Andrew Square last year and two wonderful, B-listed buildings within it, to build a TK Maxx and offices for Standard Life, all of which was dusted under the carpet,” he said. “Edinburgh is in crisis financially as a result of the tram catastrophe and the losses arising from a property repairs scandal. They’re trying to deal with this with a number of panic measures, like extending parking controls to late night and through Sundays to raise more revenue and doing all sorts of events deals in public spaces like Princes Street, St Andrew Square, and the Meadows. They’re also pimping the city to global investors like TIAA-CREF of North Carolina.” He went on to say, “If you are an international developer there has never been a better time to open up in Edinburgh and to get past planning protections for its built heritage.”