Poverty in Scotland

140,000 children in Scotland are still growing up in poor families, warns a new Government commissioned report, The State of the National 2015 document. Relative child poverty before housing costs was 14 per cent in Scotland. Absolute child poverty before housing costs was 15 per cent. Material deprivation before housing costs was 13 per cent. 10.9 per cent of children in Scotland live in workless households.

Almost one in five employees are low paid.

There is still a very long way to go to eradicate child poverty in Scotland. In November 2014 the Institute for Fiscal Studies published projections for Scotland which suggested that the proportion of children in relative poverty would increase by seven per cent and the proportion of children in absolute poverty would increase by 20 per cent, between 2013–14 and 2020–21.

Shifting Sands

The Toronto Star October 25) brought attention to the fact that many of the world's beaches are disappearing owing to the need for sand for construction. Though the article focused primarily on Cape Verda, the problem is evident in Kenya, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Morocco. Demand for sand has never been greater. It is used in the production of computer chips and mobile phones and especially for cement making. The UN environment program (UNEP) estimates that global consumption of sand is at an average of 40 billion tons annually, three quarters used for concrete. A spokesperson said, " Sands are now being extracted at a rate far greater than renewal. This means that shorelines are being eroded exacerbating the problem already being caused by global warming. So, once again, capitalism creates a problem it cannot cure and there is zero chance that a world common sense solution can be applied. If there are profits to be made in construction, then damage to the world's coastlines can go to hell, which happens to be a good place for capitalism. John Ayers

Change the World

Commonly the word “socialism” is used as a political trick. The Labour Party is called “socialist”. Labour governments are no less capitalist than the Tories. It is suggested that countries such as in Scandinavia with large welfare programmes are socialist or that nationalised industries are socialist. This has nothing to do with the socialism dealt with here.

A socialist means a man or a woman who recognises the class war between the worker and the owning class as the inevitable historic outcome of the capitalist system and of the direct economic and social antagonisms which it has engendered and fostered. Those antagonisms can only be resolved by the complete control over all the great means of production, distribution, and exchange, by the whole people, thus abolishing the class State and the wages system, and constituting a co-operative commonwealth or a socialism. The preliminary changes which must bring about this social revolution are already being made, unconsciously, by the capitalists themselves, and is anxious to use political institutions and forms to educate the people and to prepare, as far as possible, peacefully for the social revolution which must result in national and worldwide socialism. Socialist change should be completely democratic in every respect. The logical outcome of the fight to extend democracy is to weaken and undermine the power now held and exercised the capitalist class and the winning of political power by the working class. Without such a revolutionary change in society socialism cannot be built. Without such a revolution every advance that has been made in living standards and democracy will be threatened again and again. It is in the best interests of the working people, of the vast majority of the nation, that this mass struggle for political power should be carried through by peaceful means, without violence or civil war. When a socialist majority in Parliament is won it will need the support of the mass movement outside Parliament to uphold the decisions it has taken in Parliament. Conversely, the Parliamentary decisions will give legal endorsement to popular aims and popular struggles. The strength of the mass movement will be felt in Parliament, and the strength of the socialist movement within Parliament will strengthen the movement outside. The one supports the other. In this way, by political action, Parliament can be made into the effective instrument of the people's will and replace capitalism by socialism.

The class struggle may well have reached a turning point. The working class is looking to regain its fighting strength after years of setbacks. There is the mood and the feeling of a radicalisation taking place. There is a growing debate going about how to make a revolution, about who is going to make the revolution and change the world. However, there are people who are reformists, who think of themselves as socialists—the classic reformists who think that we’re going to get socialism by an accumulation of reforms, of gradualism. They’re not revolutionary socialists even if they believe themselves anti-capitalist. The Socialist Party are revolutionaries talking about a Revolution.

The hope for all mankind depends upon the determination and courage of the working people; let us rise to our task. The future lies with socialism

Eraducation A Must

The daily effects of stress can cause people to do incomprehensible things. Jian Ghomeshi, the former host of the CBC Program, Q, was recently fired after allegations of sexual abuse of several women. Apparently, according to The Stratford Herald, he keeps a stuffed teddy bear to help him deal with anxiety, similar to his childhood bear. Again, it might help to deal with the effects but its cause must be eradicated. John Ayers

One Change Can Do It All

I walked into the food bank where my wife works. Among the leaflets and brochures there was, "Are you homeless, are you almost homeless?…call the Region of Peel outreach team…we can help with Ontario Works, health care, food, clothing, mental health and addiction support, advocacy for housing, emergency shelter, employment, and so on. One thing that came to mind was the amount of time and resources spent that would not be necessary in a socialist system. One change can do it all. John Ayers

Human "nature" is socialist

We are living in a time when the comforts of life, and all the material wealth needed to bring happiness to every human being, can be produced in abundance. There is no need whatever for one human being to go hungry or homeless. Man’s inventive genius has developed the tools that abundance possible to all. But between that abundance and its enjoyment by all men, women and children an obstacle is interposed. That obstacle is the modern social system, capitalism, and its defenders and beneficiaries are the capitalist class. Working people, young and old, male and female, black and white, instead of fighting the capitalist, with wealth and freedom as the prize at stake, fall to fighting each other; and the stakes in that conflict are: death to the loser; poverty, misery and wage-slavery to the winner.

What socialism proposes is the good things of life for everybody. No more poverty anymore with its filth and sickness and vice. In order to enjoy abundance for all, we must do something. Socialism proposes something very definite to do which is this: Take to ourselves the vast new technology and use it for producing new wealth for all instead of producing profits for a few. The only reason we are not all well off now is that a few people own these great inventions and refuse access to them except when they can make a profit for themselves. If we collectively owned the factories and transport and mines and mills ourselves and all of us worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the troubles of poverty would disappear at once. The only thing that lies between us and a positive future is this private ownership of the means of producing wealth. Socialism proposes to do, in order to get wealth for all, is to take possession of the instruments of wealth production and run them for the use of all. With the emergence of the era of abundance we have the economic base for a true democracy of participation, in which men no longer need to feel themselves prisoners of social forces and decisions beyond their control or comprehension. In socialism economic planning is to be done on a local level and the workers are to control the means and mode of production. Workers would be more motivated as they are creating products, not to fulfill the demands of a capitalist market but the needs of the community.

"Human nature" (i.e., what humans do) does vary a lot depending on social and economic conditions. However, we should not forget that we are evolved creatures and so we are not a blank slate (as some suggest). Luckily, evolution has made us co-operative, egalitarian apes which makes socialism a possibility -- indeed, we have lived as sharing social animals for most of our history as a species (property and state are relatively recent developments.) We know not what the people will do when they control the means by which they make their living, but we believe they will use them in their own interest and with a reasonable degree of intelligence. If they do, they can accomplish these results:

They can make it so no one who wants to do productive labor can be deprived of the opportunity of doing it, at any time. They can make it possible to banish want from the face of the Earth. They can make it possible for every family to have a home and to be immune from the fear of want for themselves and their children. They can make it possible for every child to have a good education, to be able to see the world, and to make its way without the least danger of losing out economically. They can make it possible for every person to support a family in comfort and security. They can make it possible for every woman to be free economically, so that she may get along whether she married or single. These are part of the ideals that the socialist cherishes. They are not mere visions, but are things that may be wrought into concrete form, whenever men shall have free access to the means with which things are produced and distributed. They have been impossible of attainment in the past, only because the Earth and its fullness was held from the people by either political or industrial masters. In brief, socialism holds as its great ideal that freedom of action which shall make the making of a living a simple, easy thing, possible to all; and beyond this lies the greater hope of being able to live, to really live.

Depressing Statistics

Statistics Canada recently issued some interesting information on young people. Only one in five children in Canada who need mental health services ever receives professional help; about 3.2. million young people in Canada aged twelve to nineteen are at risk for developing depression; One in four will experience clinical depression by age eighteen; in Canada 75% of mental disorders develop by age 24, fifty per cent by age 14; suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people, after accident, accounting for almost a quarter of all deaths among 15-24 year olds. The pressures and insecurity of life under capitalism affect parents and children. Psychologists and other mental health workers do help patients to cope with the stress of life better but removing the cause would be preferable. Socialism offers security, stability and fulfillment. John Ayers.

Past, Present, and Future (1908)

Past, Present, and Future (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Andrew Carnegie! Pierpont Morgan! Names not without meaning to the man in the street, but, to the Socialist, symbolic of something of far deeper significance than their mention calls up in the mind of the uninitiated.

Designative of types of two distinct orders of capitalist dominators, representative of two definite eras of industrial history, they bear inconvertible witness to the truth of our scientific conclusion anent the evolutionary nature of capitalism. They are to be cherished as invaluable aids to the understanding of one of the most important lessons the workers have to learn; as raised letters to the blind, ocular demonstration to those who cannot hear.

As far as may ever be properly said  of human kind, the men they nominate are makers of a page of history incomparably more pregnant of consequences to the world than any which chronicles the activities of royal hero or military genius—ancient lights or modern. They mark an epoch.

Their story will bear repeating.

It is common knowledge that at the end of the last century Andrew carnegie was head of the largest steel rail factory in the world, an establishment with an output so vast that to state it is to court suspicion of extravagance.

Here the famous Scot had dominion over which his rule was complete; his word was law, his whim destiny, life and death his prerogative—as was shown when he had his workmen shot down by bargeloads of armed detectives.

Came Pierpont Morgan with new conception. Andrew's method of business was based on competition—the undercutting of rivals. The very essence of Morgan's system was the elimination of competition by amalgamating the powerful concerns of an industry, crushing the smaller, and then,—why then Competition had reached the end of the strife-strewn path that history had foreordained she should traverse, and is discovered taking her ease at least, sitting in peace "under her olive," suckling a sturdy son—Monopoly.

Andrew was asked to abdicate, and, like himself, refused. He would see Morgan hanged and Wall Street sink into the bowels of the earth before he would surrender his factory.

Did Andrew speak without due reflection? It would seem so, for, just as, when he declared the disgrace of dying rich, he underestimated the difficulty of becoming poor, hurling defiance at Wall Street, he depreciated the tremendous power opposed to him.

He quickly found that Morgan had control of the railways, and was therefore in a position of dominance; for without his consent not a rail could be freighted out of the vast Pittsburg steel works. He quickly found also that the new conception did not wait upon the pleasure of the master of Pittsburg; for if he would not submit to be bought out, then Wall Street would amalgamate the remnants of the industry against him and fight him out.

Here was a situation in which all Pinkerton's army could afford Andrew no assistance. Those who threatened him were no longer working men, the natural defence against whom was the levelled rifle. No weapon existed to batter the forces of the financial monarchs, so Carnegie was a beaten man. he retired from the contest—made way for the "Billion Dollar Trust."

Now great change came o'er the land. Pittsburg became a province in the empire of the Steel Trust; the seat of government was shifted to Wall Street; the sceptre had passed from the great ironmaster, acquainted with every corner of his factory, proficient in the technics of his art, supervisor of the operations of producing his commodities, into the hands of the great financier, who knew not what steel was. The position that Andrew had filled with majesty was now the place of a hireling - a mere foreman whose only princely semblance was his salary. Great powers of direction had been given to an employee, but control had passed for ever from the overseer of the productive forces, and had become vested in outsiders, whose utility or necessity the most subtle imagination fails to conceive.

Nor did the change end here. The strife of competition gave place to the peace of monopoly. In the field of steel production there was one master instead of many; in the field of steel distribution there was one seller instead of many. So peace reigned in the steel industry as it does at times in Russia under the soothing influence of the Czar's Cossacks.

All this marks an epoch in capitalism's evolution.

Not the first, be it understood, for the merchant prince was a ruler in his generation, even as the manufacturer has been in the days now slipping into history, and the financier is to be in the days which are to come.

Type of the dying past—Andrew Carnegie; type of the youthful present—Pierpont Morgan; where shall we seek a type of the yet unfulfilled future?

For it may not be doubted that the reign of this present capitalist dominator is transient, even as the others have been. That which has beginning must of necessity have end. Capitalism has not always existed, nor will. It has been revolutionary in its time, has risen against and dethroned its immediate predecessor—Feudalism: what os to dethrone it in its turn? Long since the manufacturer seized the baton of the merchant prince and pushed him from power, only to be himself thrown down in the fulness of time by the financial upstart—who is there left under the sin to unseat this last?

The prophetic finger of Science points to him who even now stands in revolutionary opposition to the regalism of the financial Molloch and his phase of capitalism. For scientific inquiry has furnished abundant evidence that through all history power has moved in the direction of economy, of adjustment to the needs of the social organism, of ultimate advantage to humanity. The manufacturer has played his useful part in production, as did the merchant prince before him in distribution, but what necessary place, in either production or distribution is filled by the financier? The final vestige of useful function has been relegated to an employee, who, however munificent his remuneration, remains a hireling.

Irony of fate—the only use the last of the capitalist rulers can have is to prepare the way for his successor. For long capitalism has been engaged in the lugubrious occupation of digging a grave: it has at length discovered that this grave is its own. For has not Pierpont Morgan himself announced that the function of his kind is to organise production in such form that it may be taken over by the community?

Capitalism is itself to be the educator of the revolution which is to shatter it to pieces. Its latest development, by separating entirely from the productive processes the owners and controllers of the means of production, is making very clear to the worker, what he could never believe before, that he alone is necessary to the creation of material wealth. Control of production, he begins to see, has passed to an order of men who can be removed without any industrial disturbance, and the growing knowledge of this fact pronounces the doom, not only of the phase of financial monarchy in capitalism, but of the capitalist system itself.

Wherefore the prophetic finger aforesaid, which must be pointing somewhere, could indicate none other than the worker as the successor of the modern capitalist. The needs of the social organism demand his rise to power, for it is impossible for that organism to continue to flourish while the vast bulk of its component cells are ill-nourished and stinted. Logic also demands that the worker become paramount, for it is the very antithesis of logic to produce goods for profit instead of for use, to have the producers hungry and unemployed because they have produced too much and glutted the market. Finally, history demands the supremacy of the worker; for why else has it provided this last of the long concatenation of changes which, starting by depriving him of the means of life as necessary condition of their perfection to such as would afford him fuller subsistence and higher existence, end by offering him once again those means of life—radiant with their added wonders of fertility, and large with the promise of still greater wonders yet to be added unto them—if he will only stretch out his hand and take them?

The transition is so easy—merely the substitution of the old property condition for that which so long has played the usurper. Private property in the means of life must go. It has dug its own grave, it remains but for the workers to push it in and cover it up decently.

Then, with common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth the sound, sure and kindly basis of all human affairs let come what will.

A. E. Jacomb

We need a system change

The red flag for fraternity and freedom.

Socialists primarily concern themselves with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the collective ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Socialism is the common ownership by all the people of the land, the factories, the transport, and all other means of production and distribution. Socialism means production to satisfy human needs, not as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Many people think that socialism means government ownership but socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy but rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. Socialists criticise capitalism, arguing that it derives wealth from a system of labour exploitation and then concentrates wealth and power within a small segment of society that controls the means of production. As a result, society is stratified, split into classes according to who owns the means of production and who is forced to sell their labour; as a result, individuals do not all have the same opportunity to maximise their potential. A capitalist society does not utilise available technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public. Instead, it focuses on satisfying market-induced wants as opposed to human needs. Socialism means genuine social equality, on a world scale. Socialism means the extension of democracy to all of society, including the economic process.

The overthrow of capitalism—that is a DEMAND—it is THE demand of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our party is the only party that points out that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. The fundamental issue of our campaign is socialism versus capitalism. The working class must be taught that the problems confronting them cannot be solved except through the end of the capitalist system, trying to reform the capitalism system is like struggling to cure the symptoms and not the disease. Votes obtained by a campaign conducted on the case for socialism mean that those persons who voted can be counted on as supporting socialism. Votes obtained by offering all kinds of reform promises, if ‘socialists’ are elected, are votes of those who will vote Socialist Party today and shift to some other party with a more appetising menu of reforms the next election. They would turn their backs to us and vote for the more “practical” parties.

Reformism regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, and actually repudiates the socialist revolution. Reformism advocates not class struggle, but class collaboration. It develops out of faith in the fair mindedness of the ruling class. In the struggle against the system of capitalism, there can be no unity with any section of the capitalists which will only lead to class collaboration and will prolong the existing system of wage slavery and intensify exploitation.

Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and their democratic organisation and management by all the people in a society free of classes, class divisions and class rule. Socialism is the democratic organization of production for use, of production for abundance, of plenty for all, without the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the 'union of the whole world into a worldwide federation of free and equal peoples, disposing in common of the natural resources and wealth. Production is carried on in a planned and democratic way, not on the basis of whether or not the private capitalist can make a profit on the market. 

Socialism means abundance for all. Where there is abundance for all, the nightmare of insecurity vanishes. There are jobs for all, and they are no longer dependent on whether or not the employer can make a fat profit in a fat market. There is not only a high standard of living, but every industrial advance is followed by a rising standard of living and a declining working-day. Where there is abundance for all, and where no one has the economic power to exploit and oppress others, the basis of classes, class division and class conflict vanishes. The basis of a rilling state, of a government of violence and repression, with its prisons and police and army, also disappears. Police and thieves, prisons and violence are inevitable where there is economic inequality, or abundance for the few and scarcity for the many. They disappear when there is plenty for all, therefore economic equality, therefore social equality. Where there is abundance for all, and where all have equal access to the fruits of the soil and the wealth of industry, the mad conflicts and wars between nations and peoples vanish. With them vanishes the irrepressible urge that exists under capitalism for one nation to subject others, to rob it of its rights, to exploit and oppress it, to provoke and maintain the hideous national and racial antagonisms that cling to capitalism like an ineradicable bloodstain. Abundance for all means freedom. Where man is free of economic exploitation, of economic inequality, of economic insecurity, he is free for the first time to develop as a human being among his fellow human beings, free to contribute to the unfolding of a new culture.

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.

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.”

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