Monday, December 14, 2015

Black Snow, We Must Act Fast

Scientists have just become aware of a new aspect of global warming – nearly invisible particles of carbon resulting from incomplete combustion in diesel engines. Some particles are being swept by wind from industrial centers to the Arctic. This phenomenon, called black snow, reduces the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight. In fact, in one month this process, called albedo, dropped twenty per cent. A team of French government scientists reported that the arctic ice cap, that is thought to have lost an average of 12.9 billion tonnes of ice a year between 1992 and 2010 due to general warming, may be losing an extra 27 billion tonnes a year because of black snow causing the sea level to rise several centimeters . To put it bluntly, time is running out, and since socialism is the only real solution, we must act fast. John Ayers.

It's The Capitalist Way

In October, Ontarians lost a high stakes bidding war over auto-manufacturing jobs. Unifor, the auto workers' union, said that Ford will build a new type of engine in Mexico instead of Windsor. The project would have meant about 1,000 jobs. The minister for Economic Development and Employment, Brad Duguid, said, " Our government is committed to partnering with business in a fiscally responsible way, but we will not invest taxpayers' dollars in any partnership that does not provide a strong return for Ontarians". Governments at all levels have been stung hard and often by companies taking the money and running away in short order. It will be, as usual, the working class that loses out with fewer good jobs while the capitalist class can still invest their money in the company no matter where it operates. Many other countries are competing for work by offering huge incentives and low labour costs resulting in higher profits. It's the natural thing for capital to do. To beat it, drop capitalism. John Ayers.

Understanding the world we live in


It is an old analogy but still serves well to make the point. Society is suffering from the rotten, cancerous, fatal maladies of capitalism and that all the best schemes for bolstering the system are, at their best, palliatives that cannot cure. We either resign ourselves to the progressively worsening malaise of the capitalist system or under-go surgery to lop of the diseased parts of society in an operation known as social revolution to allow humanity a new lease on life.

Socialism must be self-managing. The producers must hold the real decision making power over what they produce. This power must be exercised in a completely democratic manner. Socialism must be created by the majority, by every worker. Socialism is not simply about more efficient economic planning, but about what type of planning, by whom and for whom. Where the chains of capitalism are forged, there they must be broken. Only thus can socialism be created. Socialism has a straightforward attitude to the existing state, which is a state of the exploiting class. It must not worshipped. There have been many thinkers who saw socialism as simply the extension of state power and state ownership. But not Marx and Engels. Proponents of State ‘socialism’ negate of the principle of self-emancipation and deny the very possibility that the workers can organise themselves. Advocates of nationalization looks to an agency outside and above them – the existing state – to solve their problems for them. Capitalism itself was compelled, in its own development, towards some form of ‘socialisation’ of production but workers remain, as they were before, the objects of exploitation.


A prerequisite for the conversion of today’s society to socialism must be the conquest of political power by the working class. In order to be able to fulfill this task, the working masses must be fully aware of their goal and become a class-organised mass.

 To destroy capitalism, we need to understand exactly what it is and what drives it. In order not to starve, the worker, who possesses or controls no means of production, must sell her or his labour power to the capitalist. (By the way, this predicament is not an accident, but has been engineered through systematic historical dispossession such as the Enclosures)

This labour power, which will be used to produce commodities for the capitalist, is itself sold as a commodity. The price (paid as wages) is not based on the value of the commodities that will be produced with it (it is completely unrelated to that, actually), but instead it’s roughly based on the cost of its own production: the worker’s subsistence, his or her food, shelter and other necessities.

During the work day, workers produce more value than the amount of wages they receive. Let’s say that during the first hour they manufacture cars or shirts or whatever that are equivalent to the value of their wages. That means for the rest of the day, 7 hours or more, they work for free, creating new value for the economy. This new value is not paid for. In other words, their labor power is being stolen. That’s exploitation, which is made possible by the wage system.

That new value, called surplus value, is privately appropriated by capitalists, who own, control, and manage the entire process of production and distribution for the whole society.

The capitalists’ ownership of the means of production—the raw materials, factory and machinery, which it obtained through previous cycles of exploitation or outright raw dispossession through war or other means—is used to justify depriving workers of any legal right to keep the product. So the capitalist takes everything that the worker produces. 

Surplus value isn’t simply a quantitative sum. It is a social process, a class relation. The entire society is set up to facilitate its extraction, and the entire system depends on it. Surplus value is the origin of all other forms of capital and of concentration of capital. The process benefits only capitalists, never workers. The workers receive barely enough to survive, and when it’s slightly more than that, it serves as a bribe to keep quiet. The amount of wages and of surplus value is constantly contested, determined by class struggle.

This arrangement establishes the fundamental contradiction of capitalism as capital vs. labour, embodied in the conflict between the capitalist class and the working class. These two classes are antagonistic – the exploitation of one results in the accumulation of wealth for the other.

The surplus value is re-invested and becomes new capital. Surplus value is capital. If all capital accumulation ultimately depends on the extraction of surplus value, then the end of capitalism will require that this process be stopped.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

What She Didn't Say

In an article in the Toronto Star (October 18) titled, "What The World Did Wrong About Ebola: Everything", Joanne Liu, international president of Medicins Sans Frontiers, said, "The reality is, we failed as an international community." 
She didn't say that funding to the World Health Organization had been cut so badly that there were large gaps in the personnel necessary to conduct health business properly. With our technology, it should have been a relatively simple matter to control the initial outbreak and save thousands of lives. But doing it properly, costs money that must come from profits and here lies the major problem with the capitalist system – profits must trump anything else in the long run. 
John Ayers.

We need socialism


In a world of abundance, we suffer from misery. The burdens of capitalism is being dumped increasingly on the shoulders of the working class. Government after government are enacting legislation to make the working class pay for the crises within capitalism.

By socialism we understand the system of society where the production of all the means of social existence including all the necessaries and comforts of life is carried on by the organised community for its own use collectively and individually. Socialism does not mean state- ownership or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class and the government, as the agent of the possessing class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated. We seek the establishment of a political power — in place of the present class State — which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s industry, etc. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit. Humanity must choose between the continuation of the capitalist system which leads to destruction and the organization of labour founded on solidarity and reciprocity through the socialisation of the forces of production. Therefore socialism means the, complete supercession of the present capitalist system, of private ownership and control of land, machinery, and money. Socialism stands for the abolition of class robbery and the abolition of poverty. The battle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political battle. It cannot effect the passing of the means of production into the ownership of the community without acquiring political power. Socialism, is a struggle to place the management and control of industry directly in the workers through the overthrow of Capitalism and its governmental expression in the state. Socialism is not the conquest of the state by a political party: it is the conquest of society by the proletariat through industrial and political action. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the government of persons, but the administration of things.


The words socialist and communist are changing their meaning just as the word Christian did and ‘heretics’ were burned by the thousands for proclaiming love thy neighbor. To-day the word socialism has become a smoke-screen and transformed to make socialism mean a “first stage” in the development of communism, thus making it possible to put over policies in the name of “socialism” that would horrify Marx who placed at the very basis of his system the assertion that the proletariat, being the lowest class in society, could not emancipate itself without emancipating all mankind, and described socialism in consequence as “the society of the free and equal,” you see how deep is the degeneration of this term.  Socialism means a classless society, and a classless society means that a privileged minority are not in a position to enjoy the wealth that the majority produced. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. Socialism means that the means of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. For Marxists, the fundamental aim of socialism is the creation of a classless society.

We are Marxists

The Socialist Party is a Marxist party and as Marxists we understand that the interests of the capitalist class and the working class are opposed and cannot be reconciled; that capitalism can and must be ended and replaced; that the working class, must capture the state machine so to permit people to build a socialist society. Socialism demands that political power shall be in the hands of the working class. Reformism - the acceptance of the capitalist economy and state - inevitably leads to fiasco. We are against all theories which seek to argue that some sort of “reformed” or “people’s capitalism” can abolish the possibility of slumps, guarantee full employment and rising standards, and remove the drive to war. The time has come when big changes are necessary. The past century has shown more and more clearly capitalism’s inability to serve the needs of the people. Wars, poverty, malnutrition, slumps and mass unemployment have been the lot of the common people while the millionaire industrialists have made their fortunes out of the people’s labour. The capitalists have done exceptionally well; indeed, they have never been better off. Only by the establishment of socialism can people’s problems be finally solved and guaranteed a good life, lasting peace and steadily rising living standards. We, the working class, have learnt many lessons from history, now face a capitalist class which, while still strong and cunning, is caught up in contradictions such as the climate change crisis which it cannot solve.

Socialism means an end to capitalist profit and exploitation, for it will deprive the capitalists of their ownership and control of the factories and workshops, mills and mines, banks and land, shipyards and transport, and ensure that production is organised for the use of the people and not for the profit of the tiny minority of capitalists. Socialism means peace and an end to the danger of wars, because under Socialism there are no longer capitalists who want to conquer new markets. Socialism means freedom for the people—freedom from poverty and insecurity, freedom for men, women and children to develop their capacities to the full, without fear or favour. It ends the gulf between poverty and plenty, and frees the creative energies of the people and the productive resources for gigantic strides in the economic, social and cultural advances on the basis of a planned socialist economy. Socialism means the abolition of capitalism.

Reformists do not want to abolish capitalism. Their so-called “socialism” is a screen behind which they justify their defence of 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 and low living standards for the many, and ever-recurring danger of recessions and armed conflicts. Socialism ends once and for all the robbery of the workers for the benefit of private owners and makes the whole product of industry the property of the whole people. Socialist production will thus make available for social use immense wealth that has hitherto gone to build up the capitalist profits and power of the rich property owners. The ownership and control by the people of all the productive and distributive resources will provide the means necessary for the reorganisation of society allow and the direct participation of the people in administering them. Socialists recognise the necessity of basic social change and the socialist reconstruction of society, and are prepared to play their part in the realisation of these aims— a free association and co-operative commonwealth. The potential power of the working class is overwhelming. The need is to develop the political understanding and socialist consciousness of the working people so that they use that power to put an end to capitalism.

The Socialist Party says that the working class can not only utilise Parliament in the class struggle but transform it to serve the needs of the workers instead of the capitalists.  Our advocacy of the use of Parliament and its transformation into an instrument of the will of the people does not mean that we have adopted the outlook of the reformists or mean the same thing as them when they talk of the “Parliamentary road”. We mean a mass revolutionary movement resulting in a parliamentary majority which takes decisive action to break the power of the capitalists and transfer power to the working class. Our views on the establishment of socialism differ from those of the reformists and so also do our views on the state. The whole state machine has been built up with the object of maintaining the capitalist system. For socialism to be on the order of the day, the majority of the working people must see the need not only to struggle against the individual employer but to change the state into an instrument of the will of the working class instead of the capitalist class. One of the key organs of the state is Parliament. Therefore our programme first and foremost proposes the transformation of Parliament into an instrument of the will of the working people. This transformation of Parliament would then facilitate the transformation of the other parts of the state machine. It is impossible to proceed to the building of socialism if the existing capitalist state machine is left intact and in the hands of the employing, owning class. Socialist democracy extends democracy for the working people. As Engels put it: “In England, where the industrial and agricultural working class forms the immense majority of the people, democracy means the dominion of the working class, neither more nor less.”

Friday, December 11, 2015

Growth Is The Central Value

We all know that continual growth is at the center of capitalist economics. It's nice when the mainstream press says it, too. In the Toronto Star, October 25, in an interview with a staffer, Yuval Noah Harari who wrote the book, " A Brief History of Humankind" said, " If you look at modern economic history, the most salient feature is the exponential growth of the economy. Growth has become the central value of the capitalist ideology. People today are obsessed with growth. Everybody wants their income to grow…The thing that frightens everyone is zero economic growth." John Ayers

We Can Build a Better World


The amount of pollution that individual people contribute through their day-to-day activities is relatively very small and practically irrelevant. The main perpetrator is the business interests which control the corporations which run the industries which produce almost all the pollution. Yet in the face of the activities of such companies it is an absurd suggestion to expect the governments to turn and bite the hands that feed them. There is a need to recognise the fact that the source of most pollution is business and to acknowledge that the corporations are not about to cut its profits for anybody. Business has not cut its profits to end disease or to avoid wars. There’s no reason to expect them to do such a thing in order to stop pollution. There are forces in today’s world which are anti-life — the ruling class, which is content to maintain its rule as the entire society rushes towards oblivion. Climate change is the direct result of the crazy, profit-motivated system we live in. And so long as that system is allowed to continue, environmental destruction will continue and increase. Today we must look ahead to the future where socialism, as a more advanced social system, will be built on the powerful productive capacities now thwarted by capitalism.

A system of exploitation, violence, racism and war stifles our lives. Capitalism thrives on the private ownership of society’s wealth and production – production involving the interconnected efforts of millions of working people. The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by dominating the economics, politics, and cultural life of the planet. The capitalist class will throw workers out into the streets to starve, promote violent racism, and build military arsenals that can destroy the world several times over – anything for profits! This is an irrational and unjust system. But life does not have to be this way. We can improve our lives and society, and we can eliminate exploitation and capitalist injustice, by overturning the capitalist system. We can replace capitalism with a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism is a social system where social wealth is genuinely controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits, becomes the chief concern; where the everyday working people become the rightful masters of society. If the working people, and not the owning and employing class, controlled the great resources of our society, we could improve all our lives.


The aim of socialist industrial production is not profits but the prosperity of the people. The pollution of water, food and air is caused by the greed for profit. This could be abolished if the resources of the countries of the entire planet could be organised rationally to produce a healthy environment. It is not a technical problem as some imagine. It is a class and political problem. While capitalism remains, the resources produced by the labour of the workers will be squandered. All the resources for a world of abundance, without pollution, disease and squalor, exist at the present time in skill, technique and science. They are the same resources used to produce pollution and destruction. They cannot be used for constructive purposes till the capitalist system of profit-making is overthrown. Grim reality teaches that the alternative posed by Marx and Engels of socialism or barbarism has been transformed into a world socialism or extinction. Against this insane capitalist system the Socialist Party raises its voice in protest and condemnation. A social order must be organised. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. The socialist revolution has become a historical necessity and possibility. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win socialism.

Our Streets?

Northumberland Street in Edinburgh has been named Scotland's most expensive street, with an average house price of just over £1.3m.
Half of Scotland's 10 most expensive streets are in the capital, according to research by the Bank of Scotland. Edinburgh is home to 13 of the top 20 most expensive streets, with Aberdeen accounting for four and Glasgow two.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Class War

Wars—especially world wars—are not accidental. An accident can cause war if all the other conditions for war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental war”.  Socialists have always claimed that at the bottom of all war there is an economic cause. This claim is substantiated by a careful study of the causes and results of all the great wars.  It is notorious to all students of history that “spheres of influence” is only an elegant phrase that really mean exclusive possession of foreign markets and trade privilege. Economic causes are, of course, the root of wars. But today, with nationalistic it is easier than ever to obscure this fact. Nationalism is the cloak behind which the economic causes work. Nationalism always claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they would be laughed at with scorn. Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This may have been so in the past, but the progress of mankind is making it less so. Increased means of communication — the internet, satellite/cable TV, relative cheap mass travel and, of course, international trade have caused nations to exchange their products until today there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even language is tending to become universal with English becoming lingua franca for science and technology. More people understand each other today than ever before.  It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive. Nationalism is an unmitigated curse. It leads inevitably to chauvinism and to national aggression. It leads to a patriotism for the soil, for the particular bit of the earth’s surface on which a particular person has been born. It leads to narrowness and bigotry, to national jealousy and petty pride.

In all this the real roots of the war can be seen in the class system of society. The narrow interests of each “national” capitalist class conflict one with the other. My enemy is in my own country, and this enemy is the same for all the workers of the world. The enemy is capitalism, this enemy is the rapacious, corrupt class government. This enemy is the lack of rights suffered by the working class. Let us each go to war in our own country against our oppressors, let us cleanse our homelands from the real oppressors, let us cleanse our homelands from the real enemies of the people. Workers of all countries, unite! Rally round the red banner, not the Union Jack. All that is necessary is that each soldier at the front, each worker in the workshop, should realise: my enemy is not the one who, like myself in my own county, has no rights, who is oppressed by capital, whose life is a struggle for his daily bread. We are all the victims of deception.


Wednesday, December 09, 2015

How Capital Can Dominate

Google has actually come out and said that climate change facts are no longer in dispute and has cancelled its membership in The American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization founded in 1973 that  brings corporate and elected officials together to work on hundreds of model policies and bills that are meant for introduction in US state Legislatures. This is how capital can dominate an elected assembly for its agenda. Not surprisingly, it denies the science behind climate change. John Ayers.

Enough Is Plenty


The Socialist Party is organised to assist the working-class movement by a dissemination of its literature, to educate the working-class into a knowledge of socialist principles and to prepare them to co-operate with the workers of all other nationalities in the emancipation of labour. The Socialist Party affirms its belief that political and social freedom are not two separate and unrelated ideas, but are two sides of the one great principle, each being incomplete without the other. It seeks the democratic administration of all the means of production and distribution, all the instruments of labour, all social property in which all shall be co-owners, guaranteeing that right to life without which all other rights are but mockery. The Socialist Party is pitted against the whole profit-making system. It insists that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want, while the master class lives in luxury. We share the Industrial Workers of the World sentiment that "there can be no peace until the workers organize as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution, and abolish the wage-system."


The class war for socialism is a fight between a slave world and a free world. Poverty is not inevitable but it is inevitable so long as capitalism exists, so long as the profit-economy reigns. An improvement of the world standard of living is possible, but not on the basis of capitalism. The elimination of race and sex discrimination is possible but not in a class society where the reality of the social order increases discrimination and antagonism as the means of keeping the ruling class in power. Genuine freedom of speech, assembly and organisation are possible, but only in a free society. Social change can be meaningful only on the basis of a fundamental alteration of the economic system, by the transformation of society into socialism, by the abolition of a private property in the means of production – the profit system – and the establishment of genuine economic, political and social equality. In other words, the workers in their collectivity must own and operate all the essential industrial institutions and secure to each laborer the full value of his or her produce. Isn’t it right that the creators of wealth should own what they create? When shall we learn that we are related one to the other, that we are members of one body, that injury to one is injury to all? Until solidarity for our fellow-workers, regardless of race, colour, creed or sex, fills the world, until the great mass of the people shall be filled with a sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice cannot be attained, and there can never be lasting peace upon earth. The mighty movement of which we are a part is discernible all over the world albeit in small numbers. Workers are still far from being in possession of themselves or their labour. They do not own and control the tools and materials which they must use in order to live, nor do they receive anything like the full value of what they produce. Working people everywhere are nevertheless becoming more aware that they are being exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless they own themselves and are in democratic control of their labour.

By their friends you will know them

Former Chancellor and ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown is appointed to an advisory panel of the global investment firm Pimco which administers about $1.47 trillion of assets for its clients. 


Former Chancellor Alistair Darling will join the board of directors of the global bank Morgan Stanley.

Tips on TTIP

 A petition to Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Europe and External Affairs, signed by thousands of concerned Scottish citizens on the 38 Degrees website will be handed in to Holyrood.
The petition calls on the SNP Government to oppose the controversial EU-USA mega trade deal TTIP. This comes after a Europe-wide petition against TTIP attracted 3.2 million signatures, including 500,000 signatures from the UK, in just one year. Six Scottish councils, four in the last month alone, have passed motions opposing TTIP, as did Scottish Labour at its autumn conference.
The Scotland Against TTIP coalition, which represents tens of thousands of citizens across Scotland, is adding its voice to those calling on the SNP and the Scottish Government to oppose TTIP and other similar deals, such as the Canada-EU agreement CETA, in their entirety.
These are not trade deals in the sense that most people would recognise. Both are part of a new wave of deals set to hand power to multinational corporations on a scale not seen before. Corporations will be able to sue governments if they make public policy decisions, such as banning fracking, which business could argue would harm profits. And while these deals threaten to lower standards which currently protect people, public services and the environment, there is little evidence that they will bring the promised benefits of growth and jobs.
The strength of public opinion against TTIP and CETA grows daily. It’s vital that the SNP listen to this and oppose these toxic trade deals outright.
Scotland Against TTIP coalition: 38 Degrees; Friends of the Earth Scotland; Global Justice Glasgow; Global Justice Now; Hope Not Hate Glasgow; Nourish Scotland; PCS; Radical Independence Campaign; RMT; St Andrews TTIP Action group; Stop TTIP Aberdeen; Stop TTIP Dundee; Stop TTIP Edinburgh; STUC; The People’s Assembly; UCU; UNISON; Unite the Union; USI; War on Want; Women for Independence
For the Socialist Party view
 Both the  TTIP and TPP agreements are deemed to be important to kick starting new trade rounds, but also re-arranging the political architecture of the world to match the increasingly concentrated capital holdings that are bursting out of national boundaries.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Karl’s Quotes

Usury and interest have enabled capitalism to become stronger. Marx writes, " What distinguishes interest-bearing capital in so far as it forms an essential element of the capitalist mode of production, from usurers' capital is in no way the nature or character of the capital itself. It is simply the changed conditions under which it functions, and hence also the totally transformed figure of the borrower who confronts the money- lender. Even where a man without means obtains credit as an industrialist or merchant, it is given in the expectation that he will function as a capitalist, will use the capital borrowed to appropriate unpaid labour. He is given credit as a potential capitalist. And this very fact so very much admired by the economic apologists, that a man without wealth but with energy, determination, ability and business acumen can transform himself into a capitalist this way – just as the commercial value of each person is always assessed more or less correctly in the capitalist mode of production – much as it constantly drives an unwelcome series of new soldiers of fortune onto the field alongside and against the various individual capitalists already present, actually reinforces the rule of capital itself, widens its basis and enable it to recruit ever new forces from the lower strata of society. The way that the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages built its hierarchy out of the best brains of the nation, without regard to status, birth or wealth, was likewise a major means of reinforcing the rule of the priests and suppressing the laity. The more a dominant class is able to absorb the best people from the dominated classes, the more solid and dangerous is its rule. " (Capital, Volume III, pages 735/736, Penguin Classics edition). And how the capitalists have recruited the best brains from the working class using its strength, capital.

One Who Cannot Err.

According to Papal doctrine, popes are infallible. The New York Times writes (November 2), "On paper, that doctrine seems to grant extraordinary power to the pope – since he cannot err, the first Vatican Council declared in 1870, when he 'defines doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church." John XXIII said, " I am only infallible if I speak infallibly, but I shall never do that." And I thought we were all sinners! John Ayers

'Enough is Enough'

People have had their bellyful of capitalism. We all know what we’re against, more or less, on the other hand, we aren’t too clear about what we’re for. A major question for socialists is how to challenge and overthrow the capitalist state to build a just society. Signposts to that society would be invaluable. There is throughout the world a widespread popular perception that socialism is a coercive system, and the experiences of ‘communist’ parties in power have justified that impression. Generally speaking, while the world's peoples hate capitalism, they fear socialism. These issues are at the heart of socialism's crisis, and only as socialists develop a movement and a vision which are at once revolutionary and democratic will they turn the corner of that crisis. The Socialist Party rejects any notion of class dictatorship that implies a despotic form of government, that identifies the dictatorship of the proletariat with an ever-expanding state apparatus or that infers a dictatorship of any ruling party over the people as a whole.

Ownership divides society into two distinct classes. One is the class of employers, and the other is the class of wage-workers. The employers are the capitalist class; and the wage-workers are the working class. While the working class, by their labour, produce to-day — as in the past — all the wealth that sustains society, they, nevertheless, lack economic and industrial security, suffer from overwork, enforced idleness, and their attendant miseries, all of which are due to the present capitalist form of society. The capitalist class, through the ownership of most of the land and the tools of production — which are necessary for the production of food, clothing, shelter and fuel — hold the workers in complete economic and industrial subjection, and thus live on the labour of the working class. Working people, in order to secure food, clothing, shelter and fuel, must sell their labour-power to the owning capitalists — that is to say, they must work for the capitalist class. The working class do all the useful work of society, they are the producers of all the wealth of the world, while the capitalist class are the exploiters who live on the wealth produced by the working class. As the capitalists live off the product of the workers, the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists. The capitalist class — owning as they do, most of the land and the tools of production — employ the working class, buy their labour-power, and return to them in the form of wages, only part of the wealth they have produced. The rest of the wealth produced by the workers the capitalists keep; it constitutes their profit — i.e., rent, interest, and dividends. Thus the working class produce their own wages as well as the profits of the capitalists. In other words, the working class work a part only of each day to produce their wages, and the rest of the day to produce surplus (profits) for the owning class. The interest of the employing class is to get all the surplus (profits) possible out of the labour of the employees. The interest of the worker is to get the full product of their labour.

Hence there is a struggle between these two classes - the “class war” It is a struggle between the owning capitalist class — which must continue to exploit the working class in order to live — and the non-owning working class, who, in order to live must work for the owners of the land and the tools of production. To win economicfFreedom the non-owning Working Class must force this struggle into the political field and use their political power (the ballot) to abolish capitalist class ownership, and thus revolutionise in the interests of the working class the entire structure of society. The capitalist class, who own most of the land and the tools of production, own the government and govern the working people, not for the well-being of the people but for the well-being and profit of the ruling class.

It is only by using their political power that the Capitalist Class make their exploitation of the Working Class legal and the oppression of their system constitutional. And it is only by using their political power that the Working Class can make their own exploitation illegal and their own oppression unconstitutional. It is only by the use of their political power that the Working Class can abolish Capitalist Class rule and privilege, and establish a planned form of Society based on the Collective Ownership of all the land and the tools of production, in which equal industrial right shall be the share of all. We, members of the working class, organised in the Socialist Party declare that to the workers belong the future. We, the workers of the world can, through the ballot box and the power of the vote, abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class rule and oppression, and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the common property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. We ask other members of the working class to organise with us to end the domination of private ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of unplanned production — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of technology and civilisation.

The Socialist Party holds aloft its ideas. It is above all compromise, a party of truth. We alone cannot now transform society. What we can do is help transform the people who will remake society. Our task as socialists is to make more socialists. There are differences among those who consider themselves to be socialists the world over, not only on principles, but on action as well. We have to make our choice. But we should not try to talk away differences that will continue to exist. For years to come the Socialist Party’s  primary work must be the making of socialists, and, isolated as we are, to some extent we must carry on that work in our own way. We will organise because we are face to face with conditions that require united action of our class at the ballot box which requires a political education acquired only by careful reading and close investigation where we, the working class, can learn the cause of our industrial and economic enslavement and how to free ourselves.

What cuts look like - The Forth Road Bridge Closure

THE CRACKS IN CAPITALISM
This is a classic example of what happens as budgets fall:

February 2009: It is recognised that work on the truss is needed, but this is (correctly) deferred until the main cable dehumidification is complete:
The assessment work has now been completed and an independent check is being commissioned. Strengthening work on the truss has also been put back until there is confirmation on the outcome of the de-humidification scheme. However, work on the truss end links is scheduled to start in 2010/11 following completion of the independent check

May 2010: A tender for work on the truss end links is cancelled.

October 2012: Audit Scotland say of Forth Road Bridge funding from the SNP Government: “The budget for capital expenditure was cut significantly and a report highlighting the impact on the Capital Plan was noted by Board Members.”

August 2013: Work on the truss is planned on the truss ends:
As reported in June 2013, the Chief Engineer and Bridgemaster will bring three projects to tender during 2013/14. The projects that have been selected on the basis of criticality and affordability are; Main Cable Acoustic Monitoring, Truss End Linkages and Suspended Span Gantry Improvements. It is currently estimated that these three projects will cost £2.270m based on the current Capital Plan. This will represent the majority of the funds available for non-committed schemes and therefore it is recommended that a full risk assessment of all projects on site is carried out before the tenders are approved.

February 2014: Planned work “deferred” due to Scottish Government budget cuts: During this second round of deferrals, the four projects detailed below were identified as having the highest estimated cost.  Therefore, these projects had to be considered in part or full for deferral in order to produce a significant reduction in the predicted deficit...There is always a residual risk when maintenance works are deferred and it was noted that deferral of part or all of these projects does increase the risk to the long term structural integrity of the bridge and is likely to increase the actual cost of the works when they are eventually carried out. 

May 2015: Work is further delayed: The intention of the Authority was to carry out a trial repair on one tower leg and if successful, this repair would be carried out on the other three tower legs. However, due to issues with the quality of the existing tower steelwork; the difficulties of access and the existence of red lead paint, coupled with the loss of key management staff, the focus changed during the year to completing the trial on one tower leg before the end of May 2015.  If the trial is successful, a recommendation would be made to Transport Scotland that this work be continued post abolition of the Authority. If the repair trial is unsuccessful then full replacement will have to be considered by Transport Scotland.

Maintenance and repair are often the first budgets to go, quick savings with little immediate adverse impact, and, with any luck, the person who authorises the cuts will have moved on before they start to bite.  Hence why roads get pitted with potholes, and hospitals get paint peeling from the walls.  There's always a higher priority budget, and yet, maintenance is actually the most important budget, because, when things break, often the costs of repair or replacement are astronomical.

This illustrates a problem for public finances: governments borrow to build, and often repay over 60 years, which is longer than the lifespans of the buildings, so alongside the costs of paying for the building in the first place, they have to pay for it a second time in maintenance.


 https://drscottthinks.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/forth-road-bridge-truss-end-links-was-work-planned-cancelled-and-deferred/

YMS

Monday, December 07, 2015

The future is ours if we want it

The situation facing workers is as grave as at any time in human history. Globally, the situation is dire. The world faces a catastrophic climate change crisis with potentially disastrous consequences for us all. Capitalism is responsible for taking the planet and its peoples towards the edge of the abyss. The whole history and experience of capitalism demonstrates that it is a system of crises and contradictions.

There is a mounting urgency to lift people out of hunger, poverty and disease. Our planet’s eco-system must be rescued before it deteriorates beyond the point of no return. Even under wasteful and destructive capitalism, the productive forces exist that could, if planned and utilised to meet human need instead of maximising capitalist profit, ensure sufficient food, nutrition, health care and education for all. Indeed, never before in history have the rapid advances in science and technology provided such opportunities for the all-round development of every human being. For as long as capitalist ownership of the economy exists, whether or not the so-called ‘free market’ dominates or the State monopolises, its operations will produce crisis, destruction, inequality and waste on an enormous scale. Capitalism’s drive to maximise profit leads it to turn every area of human need – food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, sex, leisure – into a market for the production and sale of commodities for profit. However, when sufficient profit cannot be realised, even the products and services to meet society’s most vital needs will not be produced.

Only common ownership can put an end to pointless and wasteful competition and duplication. The development and deployment of society’s productive forces would be planned in order to meet people’s real needs and aspirations. Jobs, houses and vital or useful goods and services would be created as the primary purpose of planning and production, not as the incidental consequence of maximising profits for shareholders. In particular, common ownership is the only viable basis on which energy can be planned and developed in an integrated way, to combat global warming and climate change while ensuring renewable power supplies. The only sure protection against climate change is the replacement of a society based on accumulation for profit with one based on production for need. But that will not come about if we wait for it.

A socialist society run in the interests of the vast masses of humanity, and not a tiny elite class of profiteers, is the only alternative. It is not pie-in-the-sky dreaming or just a “smarter” way of running things; it is the logical conclusion of capitalism’s development. Capitalism has itself laid the basis for transcending the misery to which it condemns humanity. It long ago built up the economic productive forces—industry, technology and a globalized economy—to the point where the potential exists to produce an abundance of all need resources. But that potential remains trapped by capitalism’s pursuit of profit. To redirect society’s productive forces toward producing in the interests of the majority, control of the State and the economy will have to be captured from the capitalists. This cannot be achieved in one country—it will take revolutions across the world.


By planning economic production in the interests of the masses of humanity, workers would do so much more than just improve their immediate living conditions. Class society first arose in history as a result of a scarcity of necessary goods. The struggle to control small surpluses of food, for example, saw society divide into a tiny elite who enjoyed the profits of rule over an exploited majority. Scarcity continues to underpin capitalist class society, driving nationalism and racism as the way capitalist forces rally support in a fight of all against all for dwindling resources. By producing an abundance of necessary goods for all, workers would undermine the very basis for the existence of classes. Necessary work would be divided equally among all. And the introduction of labour-saving technology, instead of creating unemployment as it does under capitalism, would be used to shorten the work-week and free peoples’ lives for greater leisure. In such ways the basis would be laid to the development of a society free of all forms of exploitation and oppression. Capitalism has created the class with the potential to overthrow it: the working class. With no way to survive without working for and being exploited by the capitalists, the working class has no fundamental interest in maintaining the system. Drawn from across the world and forced into cooperation and labor in their jobs, the working class can turn this organization against the capitalists in collective struggle. Through the experience of such class struggles, more and more workers can come to revolutionary socialist conclusions and consciousness. 

Sunday, December 06, 2015

Industrial Democracy

Socialism can be defined as a system in which production is geared toward human need and not for the private profit for the few, where everybody can have a say in what is produced, how it is produced and how it is distributed. Decisions will be made in the workplaces and communities as a whole, developing the capacities of all. Social ownership of the means of production does not mean the state owns all enterprises and directs social life. There is no class or other form of elite that stands above society making the decisions. We are talking about a different world than the one we live in now. A blueprint for such a future is not possible; a better world will be created in its making. But we can indicate the direction society will take with a compass. Tangible examples and concrete ideas are necessary if the vast majority of humanity are to break free from their acceptance of capitalism as “common sense” or the “only alternative.” Capitalism’s staying power rests on the widely held belief that there is no other option to it.

People’s need to sell their labor power — that is, their need to obtain employment in order to survive — and the creation of perpetual unemployment creates a dependency on capital that has continued for so long that the capitalist mode of production comes to be seen as “self-evident natural laws.” Struggles are therefore contained within the confines of capitalism. Bargaining over wages and working conditions can become contentious, but this is never more than bargaining over the terms of exploitation; the relations within this system are never touched. We are told we are incapable of making decisions and thus unable to develop ourselves. We are also kept divided along gender, racial, religious and national lines and fighting among ourselves, helping keep capitalists in power. Who is this working class? It everybody who has no choice but to “sell their labour power” — those who cannot survive other than by hiring themselves to a capitalist. Those who have a job, those out of work and those who survive in the informal sector.

Thus an alternative common sense must be constructed that can only be built from the bottom up. The Communist Manifesto said:
“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority”
And also in the Manifesto they explain “The first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”
Marx and Engels later made clear that “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves”

They never taught that nationalisation signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. All the great Marxists defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state. Capitalism, under any kind of government—whether bourgeois democracy or fascism or a military police state—under any kind of government, is still capitalism and a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slave-owners of ancient times. 
The Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” NB: “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” 
In the old days, many socialists used to give a shorthand definition of socialism as “industrial democracy”: the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated. That socialist demand for real democracy was taken for granted an the time when the socialist movement was still young and uncorrupted.