Although, as reported last month, the Pope has supposedly lost support for his stance on climate change, he is currently appearing to large cheering crowds in the US. Not all are happy, however. A University of Iowa professor, who should know better, criticised him by saying, "The church should be about making people holy, not about making the environment clean." Incredibly stupid. John Ayers.
The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Friday, October 09, 2015
U. N. Failing Goals
Talking of the UN, it appears to be failing in reaching many of its stated goals such as ending poverty – the Democratic Republic of Congo has GDP per capita of US$394 per year; End hunger – six million Syrian refugees are totally dependent on food aid; ensure healthy lives – the world's highest infant mortality rate is in Afghanistan with 117 deaths per 1,000 live births; full and decent employment for all – Bosnia and Herzegovina's youth employment rate is a staggering 62.8 per cent, the highest of any country at peace. The list goes on and on showing the incredible failure of the capitalist mode of production. John Ayers.
This is what socialism is
The Socialist Party struggles for the complete victory of
the social revolution of the working class. The advances of human society in
economy, science, technology and standards of civic life have already created
the material conditions necessary to set up a free society without classes,
exploitation and oppression, i.e. a world socialist community. Marxism is a
very coherent explanation of capitalist society. It is the indictment of a particular
section of society – the wage-workers– against the existing relations. It is an
analysis which contends to be the true explanation of society and there is no
reason to reject it, and the recent world developments only more emphatically
prove its legitimacy. Marxism proposes that economic relations determine
society’s political and cultural life. Everyone knows that it all comes down to
profits and labour productivity. At the back of their mind, everybody knows
what the state is good for, what the police and the army have been built for.
All know that there is an incessant conflict going on within society between
the employer and the employee; that any trace of freedom and humanity has come from
the power of worker and working-class organisations to prise gains from
business and their state. People naturally expect unions to be against
exploitation and discrimination, to stand for social welfare, and so on. Intellectuals
considers the Marxist label as boost to their credentials (deservedly or not)
and dress themselves up in the Marxist garb. Nationalists, and reformists and a
whole host of other tendencies had turned to Marxism. We need not a revision of
Marxism but the application of it to the contemporary world.
To this day, socialism, in the sense meant by Marxists, has
not been set up anywhere. Marx was the most important and profound critic of
the dehumanisation of humanity under capitalism. In capitalist society the
human being is slave to blind economic laws which determine his/her economic
fate, independently of his/her thinking, reasoning and judgement. Socialism
aims to return this identity to human beings. The slogan `from each according
to ability, to each according to need’ is entirely based on the recognition and
guaranteeing of the right of every person himself/herself to determine his/her
position in society. Socialism is a
society in which human beings gain control over their economic lives, are freed
from the chains of blind economic laws and themselves consciously define their economic
activity. The decision is with the person not with the market, or accumulation
or surplus value. This liberation of entire society from the blind economic
laws is the condition of emancipation of the individual and the restoration of
humanity and human specificity of every individual. The basis of socialism is
the human being – both collectively and as an individually. Socialism is the
movement to restore man’s conscious will, a movement for freeing human beings
from economic necessity and enslavement in pre-determined moulds. It is a
movement for abolishing classes and people’s classification. This is the
essential condition for the growth of the individual.
Technical innovation and improvement in product quality is
not an invention of capitalism. Human beings are always eager for knowledge and
improvement in production techniques and in the quality of their lives. In
capitalism it is the market that defines the needs and the level of demand for
the commodities which satisfy them. Capitals which produce these commodities
make profit. It is through these capitalist equations that scientists and
experts find and take up their researches and projects. It is here that the
proportion of society’s resources which should be set aside for scientific
research, the direction science and its practical application should take, the
areas which have priority are decided. In socialism, on the other hand, there
is no market, no competition and no individual interest. But people and their
scientific curiosity and drive for innovation and to improvement of the quality
of life are there. A socialist society is an open and informed society. In
socialism it will be a routine procedure to constantly inform people about the
needs and problems in the various areas of human life worldwide. Under
capitalism it is the market that informs capitals about the existence of demand
and the opportunity of making profit in the production of certain commodities.
In the socialist system it is the citizens and their institutions that constantly
inform each other of the economic, social and human needs, as well as of the
scientific and technical advances of the different sectors. Given the present
technology, the organization of such information interchange and of everyone’s
constant access to it is feasible even right now. A socialist society will be a
society in which people enjoy a much higher level of scientific education than
today. Access to learning and participation in scientific activity is not a
privilege of a particular social group; it is everyone’s elementary right. Just
as once literacy was the privilege of a few but today is regarded as a basic
right. We see even today how, for instance, using computers and even their
relatively complex and specialized application, at least in the more advanced
countries, has become so generalized – though still a far cry from socialism’s
capability in promoting general scientific capacities and making the means for
scientific work accessible to all.
Capitalism has itself brought about striking technical
changes but in this society technology develops where it is profitable for
capital. Alongside the enormous progress in the development of armament technology
we see the advances in medicine and health care, education, housing,
agriculture thwarted by lack of investment. And the majority of the people of
the world is deprived of the results of this technological progress. Socialism
will certainly be different from capitalism, since the technical priorities of
a society based on improving people’s lives will be totally different from a
society driven by the profit motive.
Capitalism’s stereotyped picture of the human being and
human motivation cannot be a starting point for the organisation of socialism.
Capitalism builds on individual self- interest and competition. To make the
economy work, it bolsters these qualities in people and trains them in this
spirit. The basis of socialism, however, is man’s humanism and his social
nature. Scientific effort and the socialist ideal cannot be realised without
getting rid of the intellectual prejudices fostered by capitalism. Like any
other social system, socialism will reproduce the appropriate human being and it
is not difficult to imagine a society in which people’s motivation in their
economic and scientific activity is to contribute to the well-being of all, to
participate in a common effort to improve the lives of all.
The realisation of socialism is the result of class
struggle, and this struggle is capable of defeat so capitalist barbarism, on a
scale perhaps not yet experienced by our generation, can be the outcome. There
is now a need to express the socialist vision in more concrete terms and offer
more practical models of economic organisation in socialist society and
elaborate further. If you’d put this question to a Marxist at the beginning of
the century he or she would reply that it is not for us to devise blueprints
and utopias, that our task is to organise a revolution against the existing
system, that our goals are clear and the process of workers’ revolution itself
will provide the practical forms of their realisation. The rise of capitalism
itself was not on the basis of a clear positive model of the system. But what
has to be done is, firstly, to clarify the precise meaning of socialist aims,
and, secondly, to show the feasibility of their realisation. It must
demonstrate, for instance, that the abolition of capitalist ownership does not
mean introduction of state ownership, and explain how the organisation of
people’s collective control over means of production is practical. It must be emphasizes
that socialism is an economic system without money and wage labour, and then
shown how organizing production without labour power as a commodity is
feasible. What cannot be done is to prepare a detailed blueprint of production
and administration in a socialist society. The specific form of economy,
production and system of administration in a socialist society should be worked
out in the context of the historical process. Our job to show in what ways
socialist society differs from the existing one. For example, we show the
process of the withering away of the state following a workers’ revolution by
explaining the material basis of the state in class society and its superfluous
requirement as a political institution in a classless society, and not by
issuing a step-by-step pamphlet dismantling of state institutions and
departments.
We can always find people who shrug their shoulders at
socialism, at socialist organization and even at having lofty ideals. Deriding
socialism and workers has always been rewarded by the elite. Perhaps more intellectuals
and academics than ever before, in the media, universities and the various think-tank
institutions have turned it into ‘honourable’ profession. This is not our
concern. More important today is implanting Marxist ideas and actual involvement
in working-class mass movements. We emphasise the terms Marxist because for
many on the left protest simply means anti-capitalism and not proposing
socialism. Many times what is meant left activism is participation in reform
movements or democratization of this or that political regime, and so on. The
world is full of campaigns and protesters who carry out ‘alternative’ activity
only later to find it incorporated into the established tradition. The ruling
class are putting up its own economic, political and cultural ‘alternatives’ –
from nationalism to religion, neo-fascism and racism. The period we are
entering will not be lacking in working class protest movements and actions.
But the outcome of these struggles and specifically their impact on the general
conditions of workers in society, their power and dignity, is another question.
It requires an active socialist movement in society and a revolutionary
presence within the workers’ movement.
Money free, wage free, market free
It is at the point of production exploitation takes place.
Robert Tressell's ‘Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ piece on waged slavery is
still applicable today.
Poverty is both actual and relative.
Capitalism is global and will continue to exploit locally
and globally to extract surplus value from the workers it employs on a waged
rationed access basis. It must 'exploit or die' its watchword, Accumulate!
Accumulate!
"…capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every
pore, with blood and dirt". (Marx)
We need to have a dialogue with fellow workers worldwide,
and make our common cause about abolishing waged slavery and establishing a
post-capitalist commonly owned world of free access for all, in re callable
delegated democratic conditions of social equality.
Capitalism cannot be reformed and must be replaced, by a post-capitalist society, a commonly-owned, production-for-use, not a for-sale society.
Which has free access to the common produce.
Which is a money free, wage free, market free society.
Which has delegated democracy over the control of resources.
Not representative democracy over people.
"The emancipation of the working classes must be
conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate
with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate
themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and
petty bourgeois.’ (1879 Marx and Engels)
The Socialist Party of Great Britain speakers, who had a
platform in Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow on most Saturday afternoons
espoused the unequivocal case for socialism. They were and still are, the only
political party who don't want to be leaders or 'guvnors', insisting, 'don't
vote for us if you don't understand', that the task of bringing in socialism is
the task of the working class themselves and pointed to self-education allied
with political action as the means of self-liberation.
Edinburgh Branch
Thursday, October 08, 2015
Job Worries
Almost 70 per cent of workers say the quality of their job
is getting worse, according to a Scottish Parliament survey. Most had been in
their job for more than five years and 68 per cent of this group said work was
getting worse. Key factors include low pay, poor management and insecure
employment.
More than 60 per cent said their mental or physical health
had been impacted by their job, with almost 90 per cent of that group
mentioning stress, anxiety or depression.
Dumfries and Galloway Council said: “On the whole jobs have
become worse since 2008.
“Though there is an ever-increasing awareness of what a good
job involves and requires (the importance of aspects such as fairness, equality
and work life balance are greater understood and emphasised), there are fewer
full-time jobs, there are fewer well-paid jobs and there is less job security.”
NHS Health Scotland said risks to workers’ health was the
highest in elementary jobs, sales and customer service, process, plant and
machine operative and caring and leisure positions. According to the most
recent Annual Population Survey, these occupations account for around one third
of the labour force.
The Unite union said tensions in the labour market had
created a problem with “presenteeism”, where staff ignore health troubles and
continue working for fear that taking sick leave could cost them their
livelihood. The union said: “Around one third of sick people are going in to
work with stress due to workload and a further 13 per cent with fear of being
made redundant. When they do attend work they are unfortunately subjected to
extreme stress levels leading some workers to suffer bouts of mental ill
health.
Citizens Advice Scotland told the enquiry the number of
work-related cases it was handling had gone up 12 per cent from around 45,100
in 2011-12 to more than 50,600 in 2014-15. During that time, it experienced
“particularly sharp increases” in matters of pay and entitlements, dispute
resolution and self-employment.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress said: “Feedback from
trade union workplace representatives across the economy strongly suggests that
the quality and security of employment has deteriorated since the recession
started in early 2008.
“Adverse trends which were apparent prior to 2008 – eg
underemployment, zero hours contracts – have become more deeply embedded over
the past seven years with the rising prevalence of insecure work a particular
concern. Although concerns around insecurity tend to focus on zero
hours contracts, it is important to note other insecure forms of work are also
increasingly common.”
A Disgrace To Mankind
As we watch the refugee crisis in Europe unfold, we tend to forget the plight of others around the world. The Toronto Star, September 19 reminds us that Dadaab in Northern Kenya near Somalia's border, is the world's oldest and largest refugee camp, "More city than camp, more prison then city." The UN says there are 350,000 people living there but the count is likely closer to 500,000. The camp started twenty-four years ago as a temporary shelter and there are over 6,000 grandchildren of the original inhabitants. That such a place can exist in the twenty-first century is a disgrace to mankind. Time to stand up and be counted! John Ayers.
Tawdry Values
A recent TV program on the American Civil War mentioned the fact that two days after the Confederate victory at Bull Run, a bunch of real estate sharks bought the land and turned it into a museum of the battle to, obviously, cash in on the public interest. So much for capitalism's tawdry set of values. John Ayers.
This topsy-turvy world
The capitalist world is a world that is upside down. The
motivating aim of economic activity is not satisfaction of people's needs, but
profitability of capital. Scientific and technological progress, which are the
key to human welfare and well-being, translate in this system into even more
unemployment and impoverishment for hundreds of millions of workers. In a world
that has been built through cooperation and collective action, it is
competition that reigns. To put the world right side up is the aim of the
Socialist Party.
The socialist revolution is the abolition of private
ownership of the means of production and their conversion into common ownership
of the whole society. Communist revolution puts an end to the class division of
society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, the market, exchange of
commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by
production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for
all. Work, which in capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an
involuntary, mechanical and strenuous activity to earn a living, gives way to
voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by
virtue of being a human being and being born into human society will be equally
entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From
everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need — this
is a basic principle of socialism.
Not only class divisions but also the division of people
according to occupation will disappear. All fields of creative activity will be
opened up to all. The development of each person will be the condition of
development of the society. The socialist society is a global society. National
boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human
identity. Socialist society is a society free of religion, superstitious
beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free
thought. The disappearance of classes and class antagonisms makes the state
superfluous. In socialism the state withers away. The socialist system is a
society without a state. The administrative affairs of the society will be
managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of
its members. Thus it is in a socialist society that the ideals of human freedom
and equality are truly realised for the first time. Freedom not only from
political oppression but from economic compulsion and subjugation and
intellectual enslavement. Freedom to enjoy and experience life in its diverse
dimensions. Equality not only before the law but in the enjoyment of society's
material and intellectual wealth. Equality in worth and dignity for everyone in
society.
Socialism is not a dream. All the conditions for the
formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world
itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have
already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being
of all is perfectly feasible. The spectacular advances in communication and
information technology during the last few decades have meant that the organisation
of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and
execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before. A
large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even
deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs.
But for all the immensity of society's material resources, the backbone of
communist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women
beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation
and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realisation of
communist society.
Socialism is not a utopia. It is the goal and result of the
struggle of an immense social class against capitalism; a living, real and
ongoing struggle that is as old as bourgeois society itself. Capitalism itself
has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating
prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of
the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the
history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without
freeing the whole of humanity. A socialist society is the product of workers'
revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution
which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.
The wage-labour system, that is the daily compulsion of the
great majority of people to sell their physical and intellectual abilities to
others in order to make a living, is the source and essence of the violence
which is inherent of this system. This naked violence has many direct victims:
Women, workers, children, the aged, people of the poorer regions of the world,
anyone who asks for their rights and stands up to any oppression, and anyone
who has been branded as belonging to this or that 'minority'. In this system,
thanks essentially to the rivalry of capitals and economic blocs, war and
genocide have assumed staggering proportions. The technology of war and mass
destruction is far more advanced than the technology used in production of
goods. The global arsenal can annihilate the world several times
over. This is the system that has actually used horrendous nuclear and chemical
weapons against people. Capitalist society can also take pride in its
remarkable advances in turning crime, murder, abuse and rape into a routine
fact of life in this system.
Capitalism is a world system, the working class is a world
class, workers' conflict with the employers is a daily struggle on a global
scale, and socialism is an alternative that the working class presents to the
whole of humanity. The socialist movement must also be organised on a global
scale. The aim of the World Socialist Movement is to organise the social
revolution of the working class. A revolution that overthrows the entire exploitative
capitalist relations and puts an end to all exploitations and hardships. Our immediate
programme is for establishment of a socialist society; a society without
classes, without private ownership of the means of production, without wage
labour and without a state; a free human society in which all share in the
social wealth and collectively decide the society's direction and future. Socialism
is possible this very day. The socialist revolution that must bring about this
free society does not happen just upon the will of a political party. This is a
vast social and class movement that has to be organised in different aspects
and forms. All kinds of barriers must be swept out of its way.
The socialist revolution is not a revolution out of
desperation or poverty. It is a revolution relying on the political consciousness
readiness of the working class. The wider the extent of political freedoms,
economic security and social dignity of the working class and people in general
and the more progressive the political, welfare and civil standards, the more
prepared will be the conditions for workers' revolution, and the more decisive
and sweeping the victory of this revolution. The revolutionary struggle to
build a new world is inseparable from the daily effort to improve the living
conditions of the working humanity in this same world. But the Socialist Party stress
the fact that complete freedom and equality cannot be achieved through reforms.
Even the most profound economic and political reforms, by definition, leave the
foundations of the existing system, namely private property, class divisions
and the wage-labour system, untouched. Besides, as the whole history of
capitalism and actual show reforms which are won are always temporary,
vulnerable and capable of being rolled back. The Socialist Party insists on the
necessity of social revolution as the only really viable and liberating
working-class alternative.
Scotland's Wealthiest Families
Report from Oxfam Scotland finds wealth off the top four
dwarfs the poorest one million people in the country. The four richest families
in Scotland are worth £1 billion more than the poorest 20 per cent of the
country’s population, according to new research.
The combined wealth of the Grant-Gordon whisky family,
Highland Spring water owner Mahdi al-Tajir, oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood and former
Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed dwarfs that of the one million people who make up
Scotland’s poorest 20 per cent, according to Oxfam Scotland.
The four families – all of whom are either based in Scotland
or have substantial business interests there – are worth an estimated £6.1bn,
according to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List. Scottish Government
figures show the combined wealth of the poorest 20 per cent of Scots stands at
around £5.1bn. Researchers at the charity also calculated that Scotland’s 14
wealthiest families are better off than the most deprived 30 per cent of the
population.
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
You Can Get Rid Of Poverty
Statistics recently released by the Associated press inform us that on any given night, 153,000 homeless people are on the streets in the US. There are 120 homeless people per 10,000 residents in the District of Columbia that includes the nation's capital. Thirty-four per cent of cities ban camping in public. According to The National Law Centre on homeless and poverty, fifty-three per cent of cities ban sitting or lying down in certain public places. To think, all this is in the world's number 1 industrial power. You cannot get rid of poverty by sweeping it under the carpet but you can with a change from capitalism to socialism. John Ayers.
A Socialist Tenet
On a recent TV Ontario program about the spice trade, mention was made of the suicide of 200 pepper farmers in India. A disease that destroyed the pepper trees gave them the choice – starvation or suicide. Free access to all, a socialist tenet, would solve any such problem. John Ayers.
Capital Disgrace
Children living in poverty in Edinburgh are marked out for
stigma even before they get to school, and may never lose that scar, accordingto a report to the city’s education, children and families committee yesterday.
15,000 children in the capital are officially designated as
living in poverty, with every ward affected. The number is expected to rise to
19,000 within the next five years, while “in work” poverty – in which one
person in a household is working but their income is below poverty level – was
also expected to grow significantly.
John Heywood, the council’s lead officer on tackling child
poverty, said: “The gap with more affluent peers is pronounced well before
children in poverty start school and continues to widen as they move up through
the school system. There is a hardening of attitudes towards people living in
poverty, and that includes children, and people are increasingly willing to
blame some sort of individual failing rather than structural issues. There is
therefore a strong stigma associated with poverty.”
Socialism V Capitalism
The Socialist Party is pledged to abolish the capitalist
system, class-rule and wage-slavery—a party which does not compromise. A
socialist economy must be an economy without wages. It is simply a question of
capitalism or socialism, of despotism or democracy, and they who are not wholly
with us are wholly against us. No sane person can be satisfied with the present
system. When you are born you have a right to live like everybody else and
socialism assumes that you have the common sense to get up and contribute
something to society according to your creative ability. To change the world
and to create a better one has always been the aspiration of people throughout
human history. It is true that some portray the present plight of humanity as
somehow given and inevitable. Nevertheless the actual lives and actions of
people themselves reveal a deep-seated belief in the possibility and even the
certainty of a better future. The hope that tomorrow's world can be free of
today's inequalities, hardships and deprivations, the belief that people can,
individually and collectively, influence the shape of the world to come, is a
deep-rooted and powerful outlook in society that guides the lives and actions
of vast masses of people. The Socialist Party shares this belief of countless
people and successive generations that building a better world and a better
future by their own hands is both necessary and possible.
The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden
humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, discrimination, inequality, political
repression, ignorance, bigotry, cultural backwardness, unemployment,
homelessness, economic and political insecurity, corruption and crime are all
inevitable products of this system. No doubt bourgeois apologists would rush to
tell us that these have not been invented by capitalism, but have all existed
before capitalism, that exploitation, repression, discrimination, women's
oppression, ignorance and prejudice, religion and prostitution are more or less
as old as human society itself. We answer:
Firstly, all these problems have found a new meaning in this
society, corresponding to the needs of capitalism. These are being constantly
reproduced as integral parts of the modern capitalist system. The source of
poverty, starvation, unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity at the
end of the 20th century is the economic system in place at the end of the 20th
century. The brutal dictatorships, wars, genocides and repressions that define
the life of hundreds of millions of people today draw their rationale from the
needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in
this world.
Secondly, it is the capitalist system itself that
continually and relentlessly resists people's effort to eradicate and overcome
these ills. The obstacle to workers' struggle to improve living conditions and
civil rights is none other than the bourgeoisie and its governments, parties
and apologists. Wherever people rise in the poorer regions to take charge of
their lives, the first barrier they face is the armed force of the local ruler.
It is the capitalist's state, its enormous media and propaganda machinery,
institution of religion, traditions, moralities and educational system which
shape the backward and prejudiced mentalities among successive generations.
There is no doubt that it is capitalism who stand in the way of the attempt by
millions of people to change the system. The capitalist system and the primacy
of profit have exposed the environment to serious dangers and irreparable
damages. This is the reality of capitalism today, boding a horrifying future
for the entire people of the world. For sure, present society is no doubt
complex and sophisticated. Billions of people are in continuous interaction in
elaborate arrays of economic, social and political relations. Technology and
production have acquired gigantic dimensions. Humanity's intellectual and
cultural life, just as its problems and difficulties, are broad and diverse.
But these complexities only keep out of sight simple and comprehendible
realities that make up the economic and social fabric of the capitalist world.
Like any other class system, capitalism is based on the
exploitation of producers — the appropriation of a part of the product of their
labour by the ruling classes. Under slavery not only the slave's product but he
himself belonged to the slave- owner. He worked for the slave-owner, and in
return was kept alive by him. In the feudal system the peasants either handed
over part of their produce to the feudal lord, or performed certain hours of
forced and unpaid labour. Under capitalism, however, exploitation has quite
different bases. Here the main producers, i.e. the workers, are free; they
don't belong to anyone, are not appendages of any estate, they are in bondage
of any lord. They own and control their own body and labour power. But workers
are also 'free' in yet another sense: they are `free` from the ownership
of means of production, and so in order to live, they have to sell their labour
power for a certain length of time, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist
class — i.e. a small minority that own and monopolise the means of production.
The workers have to then buy their means of subsistence — the goods they themselves
have produced — in the market from the capitalists. The essence of capitalism
and the basis of exploitation in this system is the fact that, on the one hand
labour power is a commodity, and, on the other hand the means of production are
the private property of the capitalist class.
Under capitalism labour power and means of production are
shut off from each other by the wall of private property; they are commodities
and their owners must meet in a market. On the face of it, the owners of these
commodities enter into a free and equal transaction: the worker sells his/her
labour power for certain periods, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist,
i.e. the owner of the means of production; the capitalist employs this labour
power, uses it up and makes new products. These commodities are then sold in
the market and the revenue begins the production cycle anew, as capital. However,
behind the apparently equal exchange between labour and capital lies a
fundamental inequality; an inequality which defines the lot of humanity today
and without whose elimination society will never be free. With wages, workers
only get back what they have sold, i.e. the ability to work and to show up in
the market once again. By its daily work the working class only ensures its continued
existence as worker, its survival as the daily seller of labour power. But
capital in this process grows and accumulates. Labour power is a creative
power; it generates new values for its buyer. The value of the commodities and
services produced by the worker at any cycle of the production process is
greater than the worker's total share and that portion of the products which
goes into restoring the used up materials and wear and tear. This surplus
value, taking the form of an immense stock of commodities, belongs
automatically to the capitalist class, and increases the mass of its capital,
by virtue of the capitalist class's ownership of the means of production.
Labour power in its exchange with capital only reproduces itself, while capital
in its exchange with labour power grows. The creative capacity of labour power
and the working class's productive activity reflects itself as the birth of new
capital for the capitalist class. The more and the better the working class
works, the more power capital acquires. The gigantic power of capital in the
world today and its ever-expanding domination of the economic, political and
intellectual life of the billions of inhabitants of the earth is nothing but
the inverted image of the creative power of work and of working humanity.
Thus, exploitation in capitalist society takes place without
yokes and shackles on the shoulders and feet of the producers - through the
medium of the market and free and equal exchange of commodities. This is the
fundamental feature of capitalism which distinguishes it in essence from all
earlier systems. The surplus value obtained from the exploitation of the
working class is divided out among the various sections of the capitalist class
essentially through the market mechanism and also through state fiscal and
monetary policies. Profit, interest and rent are the major forms in which the
different capitals share in the fruits of this class exploitation. The
competition of capitals in the market determines the share of each capitalist branch,
unit and enterprise. But this is not all. This surplus pays whole cost of the
bourgeoisie's state machinery, army and administration, of its ideological and
cultural institutions, and the upkeep of all those who, through these
institutions, uphold the power of the bourgeoisie. By its work, the working
class pays the cost of the ruling class, the ever-increasing accumulation of
capital and the bourgeoisie's political, cultural and intellectual domination
over the working class and the entire society.
Technological progress and rise in labour productivity mean
that living human labour power is increasingly replaced by machines and
automatic systems. In a free and human society this should mean more free time
and leisure for all. But in capitalist society, where labour power and means of
production are merely so many commodities which capital employs to make
profits, the substitution of humans by machines manifests itself as a permanent
unemployment of a section of the working class which is now denied the
possibility of making a living. The appearance of a reserve army of workers who
do not even have the possibility of selling their labour power is an inevitable
result of the process of accumulation of capital, and at the same time a
condition of capitalist production. The existence of this reserve army of
unemployed, supported essentially by the employed section of the working class
itself, heightens the competition in the ranks of the working class and keeps
wages at their lowest socially possible level. This reserve army also allows
capital to more easily modify the size of its employed work force in proportion
to the needs of the market. Massive unemployment is not a side-effect of the
market, or a result of the bad policies of some government. It is an inherent
part of the workings of capitalism and the process of accumulation of capital.
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Muzzling Scientists!
An Environment Canada scientist has been placed on leave because his election contribution was to compose a song and sing it on You-Tube re the Prime Minister. Among other things, the lyrics of the song accuse the PM of muzzling scientists. He has been placed on suspension with pay. Having an opinion that differs with the establishment appears to be a dangerous thing. Exactly what would be his chances for promotion or even holding on to his job in the next round of scientific cuts? John Ayers.
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.
Monday, October 05, 2015
Saving Civilisation
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.
Sunday, October 04, 2015
Teaching Socialism
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| (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.
Saturday, October 03, 2015
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”.
Friday, October 02, 2015
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.
Thursday, October 01, 2015
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.
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