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.”

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.

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.

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.

Signed

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.

Putting Profits Before People

Audio file 

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

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. 

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. 

For a fair world

Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class. The capitalists are a powerful enemy and it will require protracted efforts to overthrow them. But there is a potentially much more powerful force opposing them: the vast majority of people, billions of people all over the world. We are many, they are few, as Shelley put it.

Capitalists live off the exploited labour of others. Marx pointed out that in the case of slavery the slaves were oppressed and exploited in order to produce use values for the slave-owners. This is distinct and different from the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class, whose goal, as Marx puts it, is “the production of surplus value as the absolute law.” Under socialism, although the value of products, based on socially necessary labour time, must be taken into account, still commodity production is made subordinate to the goal of producing use values for the working people, such as food, clothing, housing, health care, transportation. Exploitation under capitalism is achieved through the buying of labour power, based on the exclusion of the workers from the ownership of the means of production. Under socialism workers are not re-united with the means of production in the sense of individually owning them. Private ownership can be supplanted by state ownership without changing the basic social relationship.

The working class is the class that is most systematically and brutally exploited by capitalism, and is the most revolutionary class. The working class is composed of all wage earners – mental and manual, urban and rural – whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public, or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. Some workers may make more money than many others, but they are still members of the working class because they do not exploit the labour of others and must sell their labour-power to survive. The vast majority of people belong to the working class. The working class produces the wealth appropriated by the capitalists and its basic interest lies in the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. It will be the class of the socialist revolution. Through struggle and education, workers will realise that their interest lies in the overthrow of capitalist private property profit system and the establishment of common ownership. But such a revolution will require the solid unity of the workers of all nationalities. The working class is multinational, composed of workers of many different nations. Their common identity is that they are all exploited by the capitalist class.

Most people wonder what the future holds for them, their family and their friends. They want to know if it is possible to see a future free from the stresses and worries of today, free from the poverty for millions and the homelessness. People ask, must the rat-race continue? They want to know why a small number of rich people should cream off most of the benefits of modern technology while the rest of us spend our days in endless drudgery. We have been told such problems are the fault of “human nature” and “man’s in-born greed”, and the like? Socialists believe it is the way our society is ordered today and that there are already other forces growing that can change it for a better one, where life can be improved and made better for all. Our confidence comes also from the study of what life was like in the past, how it has changed and what made it change. It is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today. It is how society is organised, with a minority of people owning and controlling the wealth and the industry, excluding the vast majority of the people from any real say in the running of society. It is this system, which we call capitalism, which cannot guarantee security of employment, cannot provide the good things of life for all, cannot give a constantly improving standard of living for the millions and cannot guarantee peace in the world. It is this that must be changed. The working people who have produced all the wealth around us must come into common ownership and democratic control of what is their own by right, so that they can then build the society and produce the things they want. The vast majority of the people gain nothing from capitalism and would lose nothing with its passing.

Solving Problems

The socialist cause needs to be clearly articulated. People do not want the problems of capitalism but they still do not understand clearly what they want as an alternative. Capitalism is detestable – but isn’t socialism detestable also? Wasn’t socialism what they had in Russia which they rejected because it was even more unfair than capitalism? The Socialist Party argues that real socialism, is the only alternative to capitalism; and it is still worth fighting for.

 It is necessary, at various stages, to re-examine and analyse the principles, policies and tactics of the World Socialist Movement to consolidate and refresh the ideas. The movement of the working class does not proceed in a straight line. The working class does not come to revolutionary conclusions easily. There is the problem of tactics as tactics, and not as for-all-time strategies. The most vital need for all socialists is a proper sense of history and an appropriate sense of proportion - without these we are lost. Our current strength and resources are extremely small. That has always been our curse. Nevertheless we have not succumbed to the reformist pressure constantly upon us.

As socialists, we supported no capitalist party. Voting for the Conservatives or the Labour Party means supporting both parties’ attacks against the working class and especially the most vulnerable. Capitalism is a decadent system that offers no future for workers. We are ruled by a minority against the interests of the majority.

“That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.” says our Declaration of Principles. No small groups of conspirators could bring about the changes we believe are necessary to change the world. This will take the power of the great majority of the people organised determined to introduce socialism. Of course there are some who believe that the people of our country are an unintelligent mass who can’t think for themselves, who will never move against the injustices that beset them daily, and that the fate of the people rests in the hands of a small number of the most intelligent or most courageous and active who will take action themselves without waiting for the “common herd”. According to such people it is inspired leaders who make history and not ordinary men and women. We, in the Socialist Party, oppose to such ideas. We recognise, of course, that some individuals have played a big part in making the history of the world, and there have been influential men and women in the socialist movement, but their ideas have only been effective when the people have been convinced that these ideas are correct, are beneficial for them. So all our efforts are directed towards getting the great majority of the people to right their own wrongs, to take action themselves in their own interests and we have confidence in the ability of the people to do this. We have always argued against those who have a contempt for the people and who take “short cuts” by acts of individual violence or terror which we know from bitter experience do not advance the peoples’ interests but hold them back.

The great majority are ruled by a small minority who, because they own and control the industries, mines, ships, banks, etc., also control the livelihood of the workers who work for them? This small minority is actually a dictatorship which decides, on the basis of whether it is profitable for them or not, whether a man or woman will work or not and how he or she will work. The worker has no say whatsoever in this vital matter.

The objective of the Socialist Party is a classless society where the people as a whole own the means of production (factories, mines, etc.) and where production is for people’s use, not for private profit. The principle of society is “from each according to ability, to each according to needs”. Production will be of such a high level that there are abundant commodities for every member of the community and each member helps oneself according to need.

No change at the top

The top echelons of Scottish society are dominated by an elite group of people who attended private schools and the best universities, according to a new study which warns that people from poorer backgrounds are being prevented from reaching the top of their chosen professions by a “class ceiling”. Many of the top professions in Scotland are dominated by privileged people in much the same way as the rest of the UK, busting the “myth” that the country is inherently fairer and does not have a problem with social mobility, the Elitist Scotland? report concludes.

“The lack of people from ordinary social backgrounds at the top of Scottish society indicates that a lot of talent is going to waste. Perhaps most importantly it is unfair that those with the talent from less advantaged backgrounds too often find a ‘class ceiling’ that prevents them from reaching the top of their chosen fields,” it adds.

Studying the backgrounds of almost 850 leaders in politics, business, the media and other areas of public life in Scotland, researchers at the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that 45 per cent of senior judges were privately educated compared to less than 6 per cent of the country’s overall population.

Socialism is Freedom

We know that most workers today do not consider themselves revolutionaries but isn’t it time to give a revolutionary party an opportunity to be heard? While today only a few workers are revolutionaries, over time through workers seeing their own power in action, more and more workers will see that we could run society ourselves and do away with capitalism. The socialist alternative that we advocate today will become more widespread. More and more workers will join to build a true party of the working class. But we freely confess that presently the weakest point of our organisation is the serious lack of roots in the working class movement.

Throughout the world workers are threatened by the capitalists. When workers protest against lousy pay and lousy working conditions, the bosses remind us that there are millions of workers without jobs who would gladly take our positions. Workers are pitted against each other for a shrinking number of jobs. Only the bosses can benefit from that. By uniting against its real enemy, the ruling class, we can fight against the growing racism and anti-immigrant agenda which is dividing workers in today’s capitalist society. Gradual transition to socialism, to gradually implement socialism through parliamentary reforms are doomed to fail. Socialists offer a critique of the limited nature and palliative character of reforms

Critiques of capitalism on the Left have increasingly tended in recent times to be piecemeal, and specifically related to immediate ‘problems’, shortcomings and failings over a multitude of issues. In other words, criticism on the Left tends to be directed at one aspect or another of the workings of a social order dominated by capitalism, without this criticism being related to the nature of the system as a whole. A socialist critique, on the other hand, is distinguished by the connections which it always seeks to make between specific ills and the nature of capitalism, as a system wholly geared to the pursuit of profit, whose dynamic and ethos suffuse the whole social order, and which necessarily relegates all considerations other than the maximization of profit to a subsidiary place, at best, in the scheme of things. There are many people on the Left who accept all this, and more, but who go on to argue that the failures, shortcomings and derelictions of capitalism require by way of remedy greater state intervention, regulation, direction and prohibition, rather than common ownership, which is declared to be irrelevant. It is an attractive argument, since it appears to dispose so easily of all the great complications and problems which are certain to attend the implementation of common ownership and the argument is all the more attractive since it has been possible to achieve a good deal of regulation of capitalist enterprise. The trouble, however, is that this intervention has not normally impaired very materially the power of capitalists to make decisions of major local, regional, national and international importance without much or any reference to anybody. A more radical measure of interventionism is possible in crisis circumstances, but is difficult to maintain effectively, at least in capitalist-democratic conditions, against the opposition, ill-will, circumvention and sabotage which it is bound to encounter on the part of business. Nor obviously does interventionism change the essential character and dynamic of capitalism. In short, intervention and regulation, are no substitute for democratic common ownership, if the purpose is the radical transformation of the capitalist system.

Socialists share the understanding that all social institutions and historical processes are in the last analysis determined and structured by social relationships which in turn are determined by the relations of production which are dominant in the society. Thus all social institutions and historical processes must be ultimately explained by their contribution to the mode of production or, to contradictions in the mode of production, or among different modes of productions. Also agreed by socialists is that since the decline of primitive communism and until the overthrow of the last class society the historical process and social institutions are permeated with the struggle between different classes (as defined by their relation to the means of production). Classes are the primary historical and institutional actors and thus an analysis of all major social struggles and processes must be a class analysis of which class is acting on what other classes. The labour Theory of Value/The Theory of Surplus Value developed by Marx explains that virtually all wealth in a class society is produced by the productive class which does not own the means of production, but which must produce for the owning class as a condition for its eating. The owning class always requires that the producing class produce more than is returned to it as the condition of its labor. Thus the wealth owned by the owning class is a result of the exploitation of the surplus value from the producing class. The state in all class societies tends to be a dictatorship of the owning class and operates in the interest of the owning class against the interests of the producing class.

It is necessary to patiently educate our fellow workers as to the necessity of taking power into their own hands. The revolutionary transformation of society need not be bloody violent revolution and to maintain this is both historically faulty and dangerous – since it might provoke adventurism, scare workers away and needlessly call down repression. If more workers are to be won to the cause of socialism it is clear that we must greatly advance in our ability to explain the advantages of a socialist world and how we can achieve it. Today, with the economy still suffering from the protracted slowdown, rising unemployment as well as an obvious crisis of ideological and social values, working people are increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo. However, this discontent does not necessarily translate into support for the revolutionary socialist option. While there are many reasons for this, one of the most important is that at the present time the socialist alternative does not appear so attractive to many. First of all, the word “socialism” was in the popular consciousness closely associated with the USSR and Eastern Europe. While these regimes are not socialist we still never stop hearing that these countries typify what socialism means. Not only did the old Soviet Union and its satellites repeat this endlessly to cover up the fierce exploitation of workers in their societies, but the Western media also take up the same refrain, point their fingers at Russian despotism and saying, “Look, that is socialism.”

It is clear we must improve our explanation of socialism. We must repudiate the stereotypes and distortions of what socialism is and show working people the very real achievements of our class. We must make a start because the study, debate and discussion of these issues are essential if the socialist movement is to win more workers. Working people remain open to socialism and are looking for change. But they remain to be convinced that socialism can provide them with a better life – greater democracy and improved material well-being. To respond to their hesitations and answer their objections socialists must debate the definition of the type of society we would like to see established. We must be sure to stress that the blueprint of this new society does not exist in some text, nor can they be mechanically imposed from above. It will be forged by the working people as we advance in our struggle.

A world fit for live in

All rulers in this barbaric capitalist world are prepared to see people die if it is necessary to achieve their goals of accumulating wealth. They’ll happily blast apart cities and contently preside over a system that sees hundreds of thousands die each day from poverty. 

For many months now, debates have been going on within a number the left-wing upon how to win over workers to ‘socialism’. Various organisations have been born such as TUSC and Left Unity and in Scotland RISE. Now, many are returning to the Labour Party fold since the election of Jeremy Corbyn. Despite the economic crisis and the devastating effects on workers it has been mostly the right-wing and the nationalist forces are on the rise. The Left has failed to provide a channel for discontent to express itself through; still less has it sought to mobilise discontent to resist the government. As yet the “socialist” alternative remains very much a fringe phenomenon within the workers. But the discontent is there and it is growing. The debate is about the road the working people must follow to free themselves of capitalist slavery and promote the liberation of other peoples in the rest of the world. That is why we are getting involved in this battle of ideas and risk the allegations of sectarianism, dogmatism and purism. We have always been critical, and rightly critical, of self-proclaimed ‘leaders’, of chest-beating ‘revolutionary’ rhetoric. We are not, and will not be in the immediate future be an effective alternative to the Labour Party and the reformers. We speak of the socialist alternative in propaganda terms only. We must always maintain a sober and realistic appreciation of our true strength and weaknesses. But it is even more important to understand the need for initiatives in appropriate circumstances. Without exaggerating our own strength and influence, we have to understand this and act accordingly. Our question to fellow workers is “What is the next step?”

An early socialist slogan was ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise’. It is also a valid slogan for today and beyond. How capitalism works today strengthens the case for socialism. We need a different form of society, one in which working people get together to decide collectively and democratically how the world’s resources should best be used. Productive resources shouldn’t be controlled by cliques of overpaid CEOs and their political cronies, but by the people who actually do the work of producing the goods and services on which we all depend. Rather than an economic system that relies on capitalists betting on which way the market will go, we need one based on democratic planning whose aim is to match resources to the real needs of ordinary people. The case for socialism is even stronger today than it was in the past. This conception of socialism has to be reflected in how we organise, a party based on the idea of a socialism which workers make for themselves. 

Socialist Standard No. 1336 December 2015

• Editorial: Neither God nor State
• The False Promise That is Jeremy Corbyn
• Pathfinders: Digging Optimism
• Too Little Too Late
• Halo Halo! Seasonal Goodwill, Dodgy Deals and Unreliable Witnesses
• Cooking the Books: You Can’t Buck the Market But You Can Abolish It
• Material World: Burma - More Rounds To Go
• Greasy Pole: Liz and Her Life and Loves
• What is the 'Islamic State'?
• From Political Economy to Vulgar Economics
• Lee Harvey Oswald, ‘Hunter of Fascists’?
• Paul Mason Waits For Godot
• Cooking the Books: Yes, We Have No Economic Policy
• Mixed Media: Mary Barnes
• Book Reviews: 'The Next Revolution', 'The Killing Fields of Inequality', & 'Humanity at the Crossroads - A Political and Humanist Dialogue'
• Proper Gander: Cheapness At a Price
• 50 Years Ago: Christianity or Socialism
• Action Replay: Sadness in the Beautiful Game
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

The power of the people is stronger than the people in power

THE SOCIALIST PARTY, THE GENUINE REAL THING

Reformism is a proven failure. Reformism by its nature means class collaboration. At the dawn of the 20th century, social democracy re-modelled itself within the workers’ movement and began preaching the utopian lie that capitalism could be reformed and made humane through concessions and compromises with the ruling class. It cannot be denied that reformists derailed workers’ struggles. Reformism is not a moderate or gradual form of socialism, but its foe. Socialists never support candidates of capitalist parties because there is nothing more dangerous for the workers than endorsing a class enemy. We want the working class to become conscious of itself and its power in society. Genuine revolutionaries understand that all political consciousness begins with recognition of the fundamental class division: the working class versus the ruling capitalist class. Success in the class struggle demands working-class independence from all capitalist parties and platforms. Some political activists promote reformists leaders today and think they will outsmart them tomorrow by recruiting their supporters. This will supposedly help the socialist and working-class struggle. But all they are doing is giving a radical cover to capitalist reformism and diverting activists from the necessary tasks. For any organization claiming to be socialist to endorse reformism is a shameful betrayal of the principles they allegedly stand for. The Socialist Party uses electoral campaigns to advance socialist consciousness among workers. The only real solution for the working class is the socialist revolution and the overthrow of the capitalist state.

The present capitalist system is based on a central contradiction. On the one hand it depends on networks that merge the labour of most of the world’s seven billion people into what is in effect a global system of cooperation. Just look at the clothes you wear. They are made from materials from one part of the world, carried by ships made from steel from somewhere else, woven in a third place, stitched in a fourth, transported using oil from a fifth, and so on. A thousand individual acts of labour are combined in even the simplest item. On the other hand, the organisation of these networks is not based on cooperation, but on ruthless competition between rival highly privileged minorities who monopolise the means that are necessary for production – the tools, the machines, the oil fields, the modern communications systems and the land.

What motivates the capitalists is not the satisfaction of human need. It is the pressure to compete and keep ahead of other capitalists. The key to keeping ahead in competition is making profit and then using the profit to invest in new means of keeping ahead. Sometimes these investments do indeed produce things of use to the mass of people. But they are just as likely to be directed towards building a new supermarket next door to an existing one owned by a rival, spending money on rebranding old drugs rather than researching new ones, establishing a monopoly of cumbersome software to keep out better rival systems, invading countries to seize control of their oil or hoarding food that is short supply to force its price up. Such a system necessarily leads to repeated crises, since the drive for profit leads rival capitalists to rush to pour money into any venture that seems profitable, even though the result of them all doing so is to force up prices of raw materials and to produce goods that the world’s workers cannot afford to buy because their wages have been held down to boost profits.

The socialist alternative to such a state of affairs is simple. It is to replace decision making on the basis of competition between rival groups of capitalists by a genuine democracy where people democratically decide what the economic priorities should be and work together to plan how to achieve these. It is said that such planning cannot work because modern productive systems are too complex. Yet every major capitalist enterprise undertakes planning to fulfil its objectives.

Tesco does not rely on the local street market to restock its shelves. It plans months, even years in advance to guarantee the supplies of the thousands of products available in every big store. In the same way Nissan try to plan in detail the production of the thousands of components that go into any one of their car models – even if the planning involves imposing their demands on smaller firms that supply them. Those who do the planning, it should be added, are very rarely the owners of the giant corporations – rather they employ technical staff to do the job for them. In the same way it is employees, not owners or directors, who carry out scientific research, develop new production techniques and make all of the advances to which the capitalist system then lays claim. If planning and innovation are possible under the present system, they are just as possible under a system based upon meeting human need through democratic decision making, rather than competing in order to make profits to direct towards further competition. Indeed, under such a system, planning would be easier. The planning that takes place in any capitalist corporation at the moment is always distorted by the impact of the planning taking place in rival corporations. Nissan can spend billions on a new car only to find the market is already flooded with products from Volkswagen or Toyota. Tesco can lay out grandiose plans for the next half dozen years only to find that the crisis caused by blind competition in financial markets is cutting people’s ability to buy what it has to sell.

To reshape society it is necessary to take control of those planning decisions, subordinating them to the fulfillment of democratically decided priorities. A socialist society would involve the mass of people in democratic debate to plan production to meet human need. What stands in the way of such an approach is not its lack of viability but the vested interests who own and control the production of wealth today that will do anything in their power to keep things that way. The capitalist class will try to cling on to their own economic power to the end.

The international character of the capitalist process means that the only way to make a final escape from its grip is by developing struggles that spread from country to country. Only then can the new democratically controlled productive networks have at their disposal all the resources needed to provide a better life for the bulk of humanity.