The enemy is capitalism.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."- Goethe - 1749-1832

The word “politics” is for many like a red flag to a bull. What does the word “politics” mean to the average worker? It brings to his mind a picture of graft, bribery and corruption. To be sure, politics as conducted by the capitalist politicians is usually dirty and sordid. Politics seems to mean simply politicians trying to catch votes to elect them to some comfortable office, where they can comfortably forget all about those who voted them into power.  All this is based upon the realities of capitalist politics, which is always accompanied by rottenness, corruption, office-hunting and spoils. But it represents at the same time a fatal misconception of what political action really is. Reformists believe that they can gradually gain concessions by using the political machinery of the capitalist state to win ameliorations and palliatives to the countless social ills. Preaching such parliamentarian tactics causes them to make deals and compromises with the capitalist class. The reformist argument is designed to blind people to the realities of political power. They reject the class structure of society and class struggle, and some claim that class divisions are withering away. They say that the state is neutral, above classes; that there is no need to change it. They tell the workers that they should make capitalism work, that employers and workers should collaborate to this end. They say that legislation and regulation to manage capitalism is a step towards socialism; that socialism can be built piecemeal within capitalism; or even that the aim should now be a “mixed economy” with a welfare state and nothing more. These ideas confuse and disarm people.

The Socialist Party holds that the necessary step to the realisation of socialism is  that the means of production should be owned by no individual, but by the whole community, in order that the use of them may be free to all and the recognition of the maxim ‘from each according to ability, to each according to needs’. Reforms wouldn’t solve the problem, even if they could be achieved. So long as the capitalist system exists a very small minority will be making money out of the toil of others. All reforms of the present system simply trick workers into believing that they aren’t being plundered as much as they were before. To save the old system of exploitation the capitalists unite and chain the workers to the machines of industry and cry: “More production! More production!'’ In other words, the workers must do more work for less wages, so that their blood and sweat may be turned into profits.  The Socialist Party proposes to overthrow the capitalist system and its servile state and to establish in its place immediately industrial democracy and the cooperative commonwealth, to substitute for the government of men the administration of things. The Socialist Party understands that the capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution means the exploitation of the great majority by a small minority; that capitalism brings recurring threat of war and increasingly undermines democracy. Therefore the aim of the Socialist Party is the ending of capitalism and the building of a new socialist society. The features of the Socialist Party are distinctive and unique, not possessed by any other section of the labour movement, which makes it aimed towards clarity of ideas and help in the growth of socialist understanding. We envisage socialism as a society where material wealth will be in the hands of those who produce it, where the exploitation of man by man will be ended, where production will be used not for private profit, where a new relationship of fraternity will develop between peoples based on equality and independence, where individual men and women will find totally new possibilities to develop their capacities. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can be achieved in today’s world only by a socialist revolution. The Socialist Party recognises that we are engaged in the class war, and therefore cannot be neutral. We defend the working class, at home, and our fellow-workers, in whatever country, against capitalist attacks. 

Bothies not profits

The sustainability of Scotland's mountain bothies is being threatened by commercial groups, the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA), the organisation that maintains the network, formed in 1965 and looks after about 100 bothies.

Bothies are found throughout the Highlands, with most of them maintained by the MBA. They are free, but users are asked to follow a "bothy code". The code prohibits the use of the buildings by commercial groups. The charity said there were a "number of reasons" why commercial use of bothies - for example by guided tours or adventure holidays - could damage the interests of other bothy users. The MBA said it was happy with commercial groups using bothies as a lunch shelter or "in the event of a genuine emergency"

In a statement, the MBA said:

"There have been incidents when legitimate bothy users have been made to feel unwelcome, inconvenienced or even refused entry when commercial groups have been in residence. Our volunteers who maintain the bothies, not unreasonably, feel aggrieved to know that their hard work is contributing to the profits of a business that probably does not support our organisation in any way."

Most Single Representative American

Recently many mourned the passing of Muhammad Ali. With his incredible speed, footwork, and coordination Ali cut through his opponents like butter and won the world's heavyweight title. He defended it many times brilliantly and was, in the early days of his reign, the personification of the great American (hence capitalist) dream. One thing about dreams is eventually one has to awake from them. Ali got hooked up with the Black Muslims who leeched off of him and made him fight for at least six years past his best. After the "Thrilla in Manilla" against Joe Frazier in 1975, it would have been time to retire, however, he was good propaganda material for the emerging black capitalists and had about 100 people living off him.

At the end Ali was a pathetic shadow of what he had been; too many blows to the head had taken their toll. Near the end, he couldn't speak and his fortune was gone. Muhammad Ali was a man who lived first the dream and then the nightmare – in that sense perhaps he was the most single representative American in recent history. 

John Ayers.

Strategies That Have Failed

Every once in a while the Socialist Courier blog comes across an article or book that reflects much of the same thinking as the World Socialist Movement. We, of course, do expect some differences of interpretation and emphasis since we have all made our separate political journeys along different paths and acquired our own baggage on the way. Nevertheless, we should appreciate what views we share in common and acknowledge that our goal to create a post-capitalist world other also strive to achieve. The following is an extract from “Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods” by James Herod.

Social Democracy

We can’t destroy capitalism by running for office, by gaining control of the state apparatus through elections. It hasn’t been done and it won’t be done, even though numerous governments have been in socialist hands in Europe, sometimes for decades. It won’t be done because governments don’t have the last say, they don’t control society. Capitalists do. The government doesn’t control capitalists; capitalists control the government. Modern government (i.e., the nation-state system) is an invention of capitalists. It is their tool, and they know how to use it and keep it from being turned against them. Although building worker-controlled political parties, then using those parties to win elections and get control of governments, and then using those governments to establish socialism seemed like a plausible enough strategy when it was initiated in the mid-nineteenth century, it's way past time for us to recognize and admit that it simply hasn't worked. Capitalism goes rolling on no matter who controls the government.

Leninism

We can’t destroy capitalism by taking over the government in a so-called revolution (i.e., capturing the state apparatus by force of arms). Beginning with the Russian Revolution, this has been the most widely used strategy (by national liberation movements) during the past century in countries on the periphery of capitalism. Dozens of "revolutionary parties" have come to power all over the world, but nowhere have they succeeded in destroying capitalism. In all cases so far, they have simply gone on doing what capitalists always do: accumulate more capital. They inevitably become in spite of their intentions just another government in a system of nation-states, inextricably embedded in capitalism, with no possibility of escape. Generations of revolutionaries devoted their lives to this strategy. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time, and maybe it was. But now, after nearly a century of trials, it's painfully clear that the strategy has failed, and more and more revolutionaries are coming to this conclusion. The few remaining die-hard leninists, who are still struggling to build a vanguard party to seize state power, are definitely and thankfully a dying breed.

Guerrilla Warfare

We cannot destroy capitalism with guerrilla warfare. This strategy has been mostly deployed as part of national liberation movements in colonial countries in order to capture the governments there. It is a form of leninism. As noted above, leninism in general didn’t work. And now, guerrilla warfare as a particular tactic within leninism doesn’t work. Capitalists have learned how to defeat it. The strategy was based on the assumed unwillingness of the capitalists to murder the civilian population in order to kill the guerrillas too. Capitalists have shown no such reluctance. They are willing to murder on a massive scale, and uproot and displace whole populations, in order to defeat guerrilla movements. And they win. (The current wars in Colombia and Iraq will perhaps serve as the final test of this strategy.)

Some wild-eyed romantic revolutionaries have thought to adopt the strategy for use in the core countries, with disastrous results. Capitalists have been delighted to have a new enemy - namely, "terrorists" and "anarchists"- now that "communists" are gone. But of course they will malign any opposition movement, so this is not the reason guerrilla warfare will not work here. It won’t work because it is part of leninism (seizing state power), and leninism didn’t work. It will not work because of the overwhelming firepower amassed by every advanced capitalist government. It will not work because it doesn’t contain within itself the seeds of the new civilization. I would think twice before joining the underground.

Syndicalism

We cannot destroy capitalism by seizing and occupying the factories and the farms, at least not in the way this has been tried so far. Nevertheless, of all the strategies that have failed, syndicalism (federations of peasant, worker, and soldier councils) is the only one that had a ghost of a chance, and the only one that even came close to creating a new world. It came close in the great Spanish Revolution in the 1930s. Unfortunately, that magnificent revolution was defeated. In fact, all syndicalist revolutions have failed so far.

I believe there are serious flaws inherent in the strategy itself. For one thing, the syndicalist strategy ignores households, as if households weren’t part of the means of production. Thus, it excludes millions of homemakers from active participation in the revolution. Homemakers can only serve in a supporting role. It also excludes old people, young people, sick people, prisoners, students, welfare recipients, and millions of unemployed workers. To think that a revolution can be made only by those people who hold jobs is the sheerest folly. Perhaps immediately after syndicalists seize the factories and make a revolution, this exclusion could be overcome by having everyone join a council at home or in school, but this is no help beforehand, during the revolution itself. The whole image is badly skewed.

Moreover, syndicalists have never specified clearly enough how all the various councils are going to function together to make decisions and set policy, defend themselves, and launch a new civilization. In the near revolution in Germany in 1918, the worker and soldier councils were for a few months the only organized power. They could have won. But they were confused about what to do. They couldn’t see how to get from their separate councils to the establishment of overall power and the defeat of capitalism.

In the massive general strike in Poland in 1980, factory, office, mining, and farm councils were set up all over the country. But these councils didn’t know how to coalesce into an alternative social arrangement capable of replacing the existing power structure. They even mistakenly refrained from attacking ruling-class power with the intent of destroying it. Instead, the councils merely wanted to coexist in some kind of uneasy dual structure (perhaps because they were afraid of a Soviet invasion; but a strategy that has not taken external armies into account is badly flawed).

Workplace associations would have to be permanent assemblies, with years of experience under their belts, before they could have a chance of success. They cannot be new forms suddenly thrown up in the depths of a crisis or the middle of a general strike, with a strong government still waiting in the wings, supported by its fully operational military forces. It is no wonder that syndicalist-style revolts have gone down to defeat.

Finally, syndicalists have not worked out the relations between the councils and the community at large, and to assume that workers in a factory have the final say over the allocation of those resources (or whether the factory should even exist) rather than the community at large, simply won’t do. Nor have syndicalists worked out intercommunity relations. Syndicalism, in short, is a half-baked strategy that has not been capable of destroying capitalism, although it has been headed in the right direction.

General Strikes

General strikes cannot destroy capitalism. There is an upper limit of about six weeks as to how long they can even last. Beyond that society starts to disintegrate. But since the general strikers have not even thought about reconstituting society through alternative social arrangements, let alone created them, they are compelled to go back to their jobs just to survive, to keep from starving. All a government has to do is wait them out, perhaps making a few concessions to placate the masses. This is what Charles de Gaulle did in France in 1968.

A general strike couldn't even last six weeks if it were really general - that is, if everyone stopped working. Under those conditions there would be no water, electricity, heat, or food. The garbage would pile up. We couldn't go anywhere because the gas stations would be closed. We couldn't get medical treatment. Thus we would only be hurting ourselves. And what could our objectives possibly be? By stopping work, we obviously wouldn't be aiming at occupying and seizing our workplaces. If that were our aim we would continue working, but kick the bosses out. So our main aim would have to be to topple a government and replace it with another. This might be a legitimate goal if we needed to get rid of a particularly oppressive regime, but as for getting rid of capitalism, it gets us nowhere.

Strikes

Strikes against a particular corporation cannot destroy capitalism. They are not even thought to do so. The purpose of strikes is to change the rate of exploitation in favor of workers. Strikes have only rarely been linked to demands for workers’ control (let alone the abolition of wage slavery); nor could capitalist property relations be overcome in a single corporation. The strike does not contain within itself any vision for reconstituting social relations across society, nor any plans to do so.

In recent years, strikes have even lost most of the effectiveness they once had for gaining short-term benefits for the working class. More often than not strikers are defeated: their union leaders sell them out; the owners bring in scabs, or simply fire everyone and hire a whole new crew; the owners move their plants elsewhere; and/or the government declares the strike illegal and calls out the state militia. Strike breaking is a flourishing industry on consultant row. Decades of antiunion propaganda by corporate-controlled media has destroyed a prolabor working-class culture, which in turn helps management break strikes. Nowadays, for strikers to get anywhere at all, entire communities have to be mobilized, with linkages to national campaigns. Even so, strikers are still aiming only at higher wages, health benefits, and the like; they are not anticapitalist. With rare exception, they are not even fighting for a shorter workweek.

I do not believe that this situation is temporary or can be reversed. So however important strikes are, or once were, in the unending fight over the extraction of wealth from the direct producers, they cannot destroy capitalism as a system.

Unions

Unions cannot destroy capitalism. Although unions were created by workers, mainly to help protect themselves from the ravages of wage slavery, they have long since lost any emancipatory potential. They were easily co-opted by the ruling class and used against workers as a disciplinary tool to prevent strikes, to prevent job actions, to drain power from the shop floor, to stabilize the workforce and reduce absenteeism, to pacify workers, to water down demands, and so forth. Almost from their beginnings in the middle of the nineteenth century (and with rare exception) unions have been "business unions," working in cahoots with capitalists to manage "labor relations." There is an inherent flaw in this strategy. It is based on constructing a bureaucratic institution outside the workplace instead of a free association of workers inside the workplace. In any case, the heyday of unions is long since past and any hope of bringing them back is delusive.

In recent years there has been a movement to rebuild unions, even in the United States, which is notoriously lacking in labor consciousness, and where union membership is down to 8 percent in nongovernment workplaces. In other countries, though, especially poor ones, there are some strong union movements, arising in response to the industries that have moved there or to the appearance of sweatshops. With rare exception, these unions are not anticapitalist. Naturally, it's important to fight for better working conditions, higher wages, shorter hours, and health benefits. Such struggles do often highlight the evils of the wage slave system as well as improve the lives of workers. Who could not be excited by the rapid emergence in the late 1990s of the student anti-sweatshop movement on college campuses across the country? But something more is needed if we want to get rid of capitalism. Even if current labor activists succeed and rebuild unions to what they once were, can we expect these newly refashioned unions to accomplish more than previous ones did, at the height of the unionization drives of a strong labor movement - a movement that was embedded in communist, socialist, and anarchist working-class cultures that have now been obliterated? Hardly.

Insurrections

Insurrections cannot destroy capitalism. I don’t even think the ruling class is frightened of them anymore. You can rampage through the streets all you want, burn down your neighborhoods, and loot all the local stores to your heart’s content. They know this will not go anywhere. They know that blind rage will burn itself out. When it’s all over, these insurrectionists will be showing up for work like always or standing again in the dole line. Nothing has changed. Nothing has been organized. No new associations have been created. What do capitalists care if they lose a whole city? They can afford it. All they have to do is cordon off the area of conflagration, wait for the fires to burn down, go in and arrest thousands of people at random, and then leave, letting the "rioters" cope with their ruined neighborhoods as best they can. Maybe we should think of something a little more damaging to capitalists than burning down our own neighborhoods.

Civil Disobedience

Acts of civil disobedience cannot destroy capitalism. They can sometimes make strong moral statements. But moral statements are pointless against immoral persons. They fall on deaf ears. Therefore, the act of deliberately breaking a law and getting arrested is of limited value in actually breaking the power of the rulers. Acts of civil disobedience can be used as weapons in the battle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people, I guess (assuming that ordinary people ever hear about them). But they are basically the actions of powerless persons. Powerless individuals must use whatever tactics they can, of course. But that is the point. Why remain powerless, when by adopting a different strategy (building strategic associations) we could become powerful, and not be reduced to impotent acts like civil disobedience against laws we had no say in making and that we regard as unjust?

Moreover, civil disobedience is a tactic used primarily by the more well-off and securely situated activists who can count on friends and family to raise bail, and who can be pretty sure of not getting a long prison term. This is not true for those strongly motivated religious persons who sometimes embrace long prison sentences as part of bearing witness to a higher morality. But you almost never see poor people or minorities deliberately getting themselves arrested because they know that once in prison, they are not likely to get out.

Civil disobedience has the additional disadvantage that the movement has to spend a lot of precious time and money getting people out of jail. Enough people get arrested anyway, against their will. We don't need the added burden having to struggle to free persons who voluntarily put themselves in the hands of our jailers.

Single-Issue Campaigns

We cannot destroy capitalism with single-issue campaigns, yet the great bulk of radicals’ energy is spent on these campaigns. There are dozens of them: campaigns to defend abortion rights, maintain rent control, halt whaling, prohibit toxic dumping, stop the war on drugs, stop police brutality, stop union busting, abolish the death penalty, stop the logging of redwoods, outlaw the baby seal kill, ban genetically modified foods, stop the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, stop global warming, and on and on. What we are doing is spending our lives trying to fix a system that generates evils faster than we can ever eradicate them.

Although some of these campaigns use direct action (e.g., spikes in the trees to stop the chain saws or Greenpeace boats in front of the whaling ships to block the harpoons), for the most part the campaigns are aimed at passing legislation in Congress to correct the problem. Unfortunately, reforms that are won in one decade, after endless agitation, can be easily wiped off the books the following decade, after the protesters have gone home or a new administration comes to power.

These struggles all have value and are needed. Could anyone think that the campaigns against global warming, to free Leonard Peltier, or to aid the East Timorese ought to be abandoned? Single-issue campaigns keep us aware of what's wrong and sometimes even win gains. But in and of themselves, they cannot destroy capitalism, and thus cannot really fix things. It is utopian to believe that we can reform capitalism. Most of these evils can only be eradicated for good if we destroy capitalism itself and create a new civilization. We cannot afford to aim for anything less. Our very survival is at stake. There is one single-issue campaign I can wholeheartedly endorse: the total and permanent eradication of capitalism.

Many millions of us, though, are rootless and quite alienated from a particular place or local community. We are part of the vast mass of atomized individuals brought into being by the market for commodified labor. Our political activities tend to reflect this. We tend to act as free-floating protesters. But we could start to change this. We could begin to root ourselves in our local communities. This will be more possible for some than for others, of course. There can be no hard-and-fast rule. Yet many of us could start establishing free associations at work, at home, and in the neighborhood. In this way, our fights to stop what we don't like through single-issue campaigns could be combined with what we do want. Plus, we would have a lot more power to stop what we don't like. Our single-issue campaigns might prove to be more successful.

What is missing is free association, free assemblies, on the local level. If we added these into the mix, we would start getting somewhere. We could attack the ruling class on all fronts. There are millions of us, plenty of us to do everything, but everything must include fights on the local level, especially at the three strategic sites mentioned earlier.

Demonstrations

We cannot destroy capitalism by staging demonstrations. This most popular of all radical strategies is also one of the most questionable. As a rule, demonstrations barely even embarrass capitalists, let alone frighten or damage them. Demonstrations are just a form of petition usually. They petition the ruling class regarding some grievance, essentially begging it to change its policies. They are not designed to take any power or wealth away from capitalists. Demonstrations only last a few hours or days and then, with rare exception, everything goes back to the way it was. If demonstrations do win an occasional concession, it is usually minor and short-lived. They do not build an alternative social world. Rather, they mostly just alert the ruling class that it needs to retool or invent new measures to counter an emerging source of opposition.

But even if demonstrations rise above the petition level, and become instead a way of presenting our demands and making our opposition known, we still have not acquired the power to see that our demands are met. Our opposition has no teeth. In order to give some bite to our protests we would have to reorganize ourselves, reorient ourselves, by rooting ourselves, assembling ourselves, on the local level. Then when we went off on demonstrations to protest ruling-class initiatives and projects there would be some strength behind the protests, rather than just shouted slogans, unfurled banners, hoisted placards, street scuffles, and clever puppets. We would be in a position to take action if our demands were not met. Then when we chanted, "Whose Streets? Our Streets!" our words might represent more than just a pipe dream.

Demonstrations are not even good propaganda tools because the ruling class, given its control of the media, can put any spin it wants to on the event, and this interpretation is invariably damaging to the opposition movement, assuming the event is even reported since the latest approach to these events is simply to ignore them. This is quite effective.

And what are the gains? An issue can sometimes be brought to the attention of the public, even if only a small minority of the public. Also, more people can be drawn into an opposition movement. For those participating, a demonstration can be an inspiring experience. (In many cases, though, this high is offset by a sense of dispiritedness on returning home.) Demonstrations can thus contribute to building an opposition movement. But are these small gains worth it? Large national demonstrations drain energy and resources away from local struggles. And even local demonstrations are costly, requiring time, energy, and money, which are always in short supply among radicals. Are demonstrations worth all the work and the expense they take to organize? No matter what, they remain just a form of protest. They show what we're against. By their very nature, demonstrations are of limited value for articulating what we are for. We are against the World Trade Organization, but what are we for?

Rather than taking to the streets and marching off all the time, protesting this or that (while the police take our pictures), we would be better off staying home and building up our workplace, neighborhood, and household associations until they are powerful enough to strike at the heart of capitalism. We cannot build a new social world in the streets.

New Social Movements

The so-called new social movements, based on gender, racial, sexual, or ethnic identities, cannot destroy capitalism. In general, they haven’t even tried. Except for a tiny fringe of radicals in each of them, they have been attempting to get into the system, not overthrow it. This is true for women, blacks, homosexuals, and ethnic (including "native") groups, as well as many other identities - old people, people with disabilities, mothers on welfare, and so forth. Nothing has derailed the anticapitalist struggle during the past quarter century so thoroughly as have these movements. Sometimes it seems that identity politics is all that remains of the left. Identity politics has simply swamped class politics.

The mainstream versions of these movements (the ones fighting to get into the system rather than overthrow it) have given capitalists a chance to do a little fine-tuning by eliminating tensions here and there, and by including token representatives of the excluded groups. Many of the demands of these movements can be easily accommodated. Capitalists can live with boards of directors exhibiting ethnic, gender, and racial diversity as long as all the board members are procapitalist. Capitalists can easily accept a rainbow cabinet as long as the cabinet is pushing the corporate agenda. So mainstream identity politics has not threatened capitalism at all.

The radical wings of the new social movements, however, are rather more subversive. These militants realized that it was necessary to attack the whole social order in order to uproot racism and sexism - problems that could not be overcome under capitalism since they are an integral part of it. There is no denying the evils of racism, sexism, and nationalism, which are major structural supports to ruling-class control. These militants have done whatever they could to highlight, analyze, and ameliorate these evils. Unfortunately, for the most part, their voices have been lost in all the clamor for admittance to the system by the majorities in their own movements.

There have been gains, of course. The women's movement has forever changed the world's consciousness about gender. Unpaid housework has been recognized as a key ingredient in the wage slave system. Reproduction as well as production has been included in our analysis of the system. Identity politics in general has underscored just how many people are excluded while also exposing gaps in previous revolutionary strategies. Moreover, the demand for real racial and gender equality is itself inherently revolutionary in that it cannot be met by capitalists, given that racial and gender discrimination are two of the key structural mechanisms for keeping wages low and thus making profits possible.

Boycotts

Boycotts cannot destroy capitalism. They have always been an extremely ineffective way to attack the system, and are almost impossible to organize. They almost invariably fail in their objectives. In the rare cases where they have succeeded, the gains are minor. A corporation is forced to amend its labor policies here and there, drop a product, or divest somewhere. That’s about it.

In recent years, boycotting has become a way of life for thousands in the environmental movement. They publish thick books on which products are okay to buy and which must be boycotted, covering literally everything from toilet paper to deodorant, food to toys. All these activists have succeeded in doing is to create a whole new capitalist industry of politically correct products. They have bought into the myth that the "economy" will give us anything we want if we just demand it, and that it is our demands that have been wrong rather than the system itself.

It’s true that it is better to eat food that hasn’t been polluted with insecticides, to wear clothes not made with child labor, or to use makeup not tested on rabbits. But capitalism cannot be destroyed by making such choices. If we are going to boycott something, we might try boycotting wage slavery.

Dropping Out

We cannot destroy capitalism by dropping out, either as an individual, a small group, or a community. It’s been tried over and over, and it fails every time. There is no escaping capitalism; there is nowhere left to go. The only escape from capitalism is to destroy it. Then we could be free (if we try). In fact, capitalists love it when we drop out. They don’t need us. They have plenty of suckers already. What do they care if we live under bridges, beg for meals, and die young? I haven’t seen the ruling class rushing to help the homeless.

Even more illusory than the idea that an individual can drop out is the notion that a whole community can withdraw from the system and build its own little new world somewhere else. This was tried repeatedly by utopian communities throughout the nineteenth century. The strategy was revived in the 1960s as thousands of new left radicals retired to remote rural communes to groove on togetherness (and dope). The strategy is once again surfacing in the new age movement as dozens of communities are being established all over the country. These movements all suffer from the mistaken idea that they don’t have to attack capitalism and destroy it but can simply withdraw from it, to live their own lives separately and independently. It is a vast illusion. Capitalists rule the world. Until they are defeated, there will be no freedom for anyone.

Luddism

As wonderful as luddism was, as one of the fiercest attacks ever made against capitalism, wrecking machinery cannot in and of itself destroy capitalism, and for the same reason that insurrections and strikes cannot: the action is not designed to replace capitalism with new decision-making arrangements. It does not even strike at the heart of capitalism -wage slavery - but only at the physical plant, the material means of production. Although large-scale sabotage, if it were part of a movement to destroy capitalism and replace it with something else, could weaken the corporate world and put a strain on the accumulation of capital, it is far better to get ourselves in a position where we can seize the machinery rather than smash it. (Not that we even want much of the existing machinery; it will have to be redesigned. But seizing it is a way of getting control over the means of production.)

Moreover, luddites were already enslaved to capitalists in their cottage industries before they struck. They were angry because new machinery was eliminating their customary job (which was an old way of making a living, relatively speaking, and thus had some strong traditions attached to it). In current terms, it would be like linotype operators destroying computers because their jobs were being eliminated by the new equipment. Destroying the new machinery misses the point. It is not the machinery that is the problem but the wage slave system itself. If it weren’t for wage slavery we could welcome labor-saving devices, provided they weren’t destructive in other ways, for freeing us from unnecessary toil.

We can draw inspiration from luddism, as a fine example of workers aggressively resisting the further degradation of their lives, but we should not imitate it, at least not as a general strategy.

Publishing

We cannot destroy capitalism by publishing, although I doubt if anyone believes that we can. I mention it here only because publishing constitutes for so many of us our practice.This is what we are doing. We justify this by saying that radical books, magazines, and newspapers are weapons in the fight against bourgeois cultural hegemony - which is true. But we are permitted to publish only because the ruling class isn’t worried one jot by our "underground press." Their weapons - television, radio, movies, and schools - are infinitely more powerful. It’s conceivable that capitalism could be destroyed without any publishing at all. The strategy of reassembling ourselves into workplace, neighborhood, and household associations could catch on and spread by word of mouth from community to community. Destroying capitalism is more a matter of rearranging ourselves socially (reconstituting our social relations) than of propagating a particular set of ideas. So instead of starting our own zines, why don't we call a meeting with co-workers or neighbors to form an association?

Education

We cannot destroy capitalism through education. Not many radicals recommend this strategy anymore, although you still hear it occasionally. New left radicals established free schools and even a free university or two, and there was a fairly strong and long lasting modern school movement among anarchists. But these are long gone. The notion, however, that education is the path to change and the way out of the mess we're in is quite common in the culture at large. This is like the tail waging the dog. We don't even control the schools or what is taught there. Schools and education are artifacts, and minor ones at that, of the ruling class, and are a reflection of its power over society. It is that power that must be broken. This cannot be done through schools. Even the very notion of education as an activity separated from life needs to be overcome. Learning among free peoples will be strikingly different. When we have achieved our autonomy, by directly engaging and defeating our oppressors, that will be the time to worry about how to conduct our learning.

None Of This Affects The Wealthy

 As we are all aware over the last 30 years the governments of the major industrialized countries have, little by little, taken away many of the gains in rights and benefits workers fought for years to achieve. Typical examples are Thatcher's assaults on the unions and watering down of medicare in the U.K. The Harris government in Ontario bringing back the 60 hour work week which an employer can force someone to work. The Bush government's blatant introduction of laws to violate the average citizens' privacy.

Nor is it governments alone stealing workers rights. Many companies have shipped their manufacturing plants to third world countries where people will work for less and are more quiescent. Besides creating unemployment at home it dilutes the power of the unions and reduces the percentage of workers belonging to unions. More companies employ temps who work for less with no job security or benefits, some employ "interns" who they don't even pay.

So it should not be surprising that the powers that be should begin to reduce workers electoral rights. An article in June's Socialist Standard, the journal of our companion party in the U.K., focused on such actions in the U.S.

According to author ALJO, it applies to "those without I.D.s, those convicted of crimes, those that need to work, those that can't afford childcare, those that can't travel, and often this disenfranchisement is deliberate" -- no kidding! Also, "the American Civil Liberties Union noted new restrictions on voting will affect up to 80 million . . ."

In some states, it costs $25 bucks to get I.D. Imagine an unemployed guy, whose wife works for a pittance at Walmart, paying $25 to vote if the kids are starving – fat chance. Some states say a birth certificate will be O.K., but not everyone has them and again one has to buy them. There are other restrictions, and the curious are advised to ALJO's article, but one fact is crystal clear, none of this affects the wealthy.

Nowhere at any time has the vote been handed to the working class on a plate. In the states it was a bribe offered by the emerging capitalist class if the fledgling working class (mostly farmers) would fight for them, in their attempts, to drive out the British. From the start of the Chartist Movement in the U.K. in the 1830s, until women got the vote on equal terms with men in 1928, there was a near century of partial victories, each grudgingly given.

There is no reason to think this is as far as it will go. If the capitalist class succeed in the U.S. others will follow suit. Our critics on the left will sneer and say, "see we told you socialism could not be established through the franchise. If the capitalist class thinks it necessary they will suspend the ballot." They might, but if they do, the working class can organize their own ballot and present it to the capitalists as "fait accompli."

One thing's for sure, when enough people become socialists, nothing the capitalists can do will avail them. 

John Ayers.

Marxist-Humanism

All of today’s world crises makes it clear that the capitalism cannot bring peace, economic security, or social justice to the vast majority of people. Rather, fellow-workers face continued poverty, exploitation, degradation, disease and war. Past “revolutions” may have changed forms of property and political rule, but they failed to uproot capital, abolish wage-labour and or establish a truly new society. The Socialist Party makes no pretense of being a political party trying to lead the people to transform society whose emancipation must be their own act. The Socialist Party opposes capitalism regardless of its particular property form and regardless of whether the economy is a “free market” or “state-capitalist” planned one. We find moral calls for prosperity and peace to be utopian, for capital’s drive toward accumulation concentration and centralisation, expressed through inter-capitalist competition, inexorably leads to impoverishment and conflict. It falls incumbent upon the Socialist Party to prove that a liberatory alternative to capitalism is possible by showing that socialism can be realised. We have seen challenges to the capitalist class and recognise these as opportunities for ourselves to encourage fellow-workers to go further than merely protest for reforms. But it is not an easy task since the vision of socialism has been eclipsed by the false identification of socialism with government-ownership and/or the welfare state.

We don’t think that a new society can be created within the existing old one. The creation of a new society requires much more than democratic decision-making. If the economic laws of capitalism remain in control of our lives, we can choose to eliminate unemployment, produce for need instead of for profit, and so on, but we won’t be able to successfully implement what we decide. So democracy is the means to achieve certain goals. But we need a clear understanding of the goals and what exactly must be changed in order to achieve them. The social and economic problems we face cannot be overcome in a lasting way within capitalism. We’ll need to establish a free communal society that’s not governed by the economic laws that govern capitalism. For instance, to succeed with capitalism, producers are forced to maximise production and minimize costs, and this is the main cause of inequality, poverty, unemployment, alienated labour, etc. Efforts to create new social relationships without challenging the system’s process––either by ignoring it or trying to do things differently within the “nooks and crannies” of the system such as by co-operatives ––can only go so far and But we can’t all do so. We delude ourselves if we think that we can live as if we were free without actually being free. Freedom is not a state of mind; it is the condition in which people are not forced to work and live in a way that exploits humans and destroys nature.

 Right now, and as long as the capitalist system exists, we all have to live within it. Capitalist relations affect and dominate every aspect of life. The world-wide social order of production for profit can’t be changed by opting out of it. We cannot escape the system. For example, if you form a cooperative to manufacture shoes, you still have to buy the materials and sell the shoes in an international market. Buyers want the shoes as cheaply as possible. How can you compete successfully against companies that produce similar shoes using exploited labour without driving down the cost of your shoes by exploiting yourself? There cannot be socialism in one country, much less in a single cooperative or network of cooperatives. Even if the members of a cooperative or network of cooperatives are nominally their own bosses, it follows from the continued existence of the capitalist relations that “the process of production has mastery over [human beings], instead of the opposite…” as Marx pointed out, Thus as long as “…The co-operative factories run by workers themselves [exist within capitalism]…they naturally reproduce in all cases, in their present organization, all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist, i.e., they use the means of production to valorize their own labour.”  What was crucial to Marx wasn’t which human beings were nominally in control, but whether the process of production had mastery over human beings, or the opposite. We cannot endorse a system of worker-run cooperatives where “the workers in association are their own capitalist.” That is, in order to compete effectively, they pay themselves the minimum and extract from themselves the maximum output. Even within capitalist-owned firms, the cooperative labour process is a harbinger of socialism. And capitalism’s creation of a socialized labour force is the creation of a new social power that can bring it down. But as long as capitalism exists, cooperative labour is neither self-directed activity nor the partial emergence of the new society within the old one. Labour can become freely associated only by breaking with the enslaving laws of capitalist production. There is no in-between. The system must be uprooted and replaced with a wholly different way of working, not just distributing. And we need a system in which it’s possible to produce for human needs, not for the sake of accumulating more capital.

The driving force of capitalism is to make a profit - the maximum expansion of abstract wealth (i.e., maximum accumulation of capital). This is achieved by forcing people to work for a living and extracting the maximum possible labour from workers while paying them the minimum possible. That’s exploitation; and because the goal is to expand abstract wealth without limit, it’s capitalist exploitation. It’s true that some people get rich off the backs of others as a result, but that’s not what drives the system; capitalist companies are forced to operate in this way in order to be competitive. So a focus on greedy capitalists loses sight of the underlying problem, the drive to expand abstract wealth without limit. We have to overcome this drive­­––and the economic laws that force capitalists to operate in this way––in order to have a society in which we produce directly to satisfy human needs.

The Socialist Party strives for a movement that’s big and broad enough to fundamentally change society. All movements involve individuals who bring to them different ideas and their own baggage of what is happening and what to do about it. If different theories and perspectives are brought into contact, in open and fair debate, differences can be clarified and theoretical questions can be resolved. But if the different theories and perspectives just lie side-by-side, without being brought into contact, clarification and theoretical development are impeded. A movement that has a coherent and worked-out explanation of what has gone wrong, and what can be done about it, might attract many more people than a movement that obtains a premature and superficial “unity” by means of vague formulations that lack substance and explanatory power. We need ideas and practices that can give us confidence of the alternatives that actually aren’t, or that wouldn’t work, etc. Working all this out is the only way we can be confident that a viable emancipatory alternative to capitalism is possible. This can’t be done simply. It requires things like the formation of study groups and discussions to explore the causes of our social problems. If we don’t know the causes, we can’t solve them. And it’s important to distinguish between causes and effects. For instance, we think that the power of corporations and income inequality are effects of the capitalist system, not root causes of our problems. Obviously, many people do not yet share this view, so a full and free discussion of causes and effects is needed. To identify what exactly must be changed, and all of what must be changed, in order to actually transcend capitalism. We can’t just decide what we would like the new society to look like, implement our decisions, and assume that things will work out as we expect. Actions have unintended consequences. To avoid making decisions that will have disastrous consequences, a lot of thoughtful engagement and exchanges are needed.

The creation of socialism requires not only the destruction of the capitalist class but the creation of totally new social relations. We won’t automatically become free by getting the “rich parasites,” or their State off our backs. We need to overcome the economic laws of capitalism and run economic and social life according to wholly different principles. Some on the Left mislead and misdirect discontent by focusing on the distribution of income rather than on the inherent drive that impels the system to act in its own interests, nevertheless, the whole world seems to be challenging existing economic, political, and social relations. Millions of people are demanding better explanations and more radical solutions than merely tinkering with what exists.

The Socialist Party rejects the notion that working people are “backward” and therefore need to be led by an “intellectual” vanguard. Our organisation judges everything in light of this vision of humanity’s possible future. At the present moment, no one can answer with confidence that socialism is likely. But we do not despair. We are happy to see protests against major characteristics of our society such as inequality and social injustice, but we are concerned by what appears to be a presupposition that the problems of this society can be solved by changing the political process so as to enable the 99% to make the decisions about re-distributing the wealth. Apart from the obvious problem that the 99% don’t agree on what should be done or how to do (some advocating tax reform or “new” forms of banking) contrary to the prevalent view on the Left that poverty conditions arise from unfair distribution of wealth, Marx showed, distribution follows from the mode of production, not vice versa. Redistribution of income, even were it possible to accomplish without bringing capitalist production to a standstill, would not result in plenty for everyone—there is simply not enough wealth for all the necessary stuff. Nor does the redistributionist view address how to uproot the exploitation that is inherent in capitalist production. In fact, exploitation is the source of inequality, not the result. The point is for the Socialist Party is to urge people to see for themselves that the failure of capitalism and bare for all to see that the capitalist system has proved itself incapable of bringing a decent standard of living to the world’s population to expose those on the Left that capitalism can be successfully and sustainably reformed by new regulations or new leaders in power. If we fail to explain the falsity of the idea that society’s problems can be solved by redistributing the alleged “plenty,” we are not helping the opposition to capitalism to grow, but on the contrary, we are contributing to their failure and demise. As Marx said in 1850, "Our task is that of ruthless criticism, and much more against ostensible friends than against open enemies; and in maintaining this our position we gladly forego cheap democratic popularity."

Excerpted and Adapted from Marxist-Humanist Initiative website

Under Constant Attack

An article in the Canadian Jewish News of June 23rd mentioned the plight of the Yazidis, an ethnic group whose existence most people aren't aware of. 750 years ago there were 23 million Yazidis. Now there are 2 million, half of whom are living in the middle east, mostly Iraq. Their religion does not allow them to kill anyone unless that person is on their doorstep, by which time it's too late. This certainly explains why, in the volatile middle east, their ranks have grown thinner.

According to a reporter, Michael Diamond, the Yazidis are ". . . . under constant attack. Their men are being killed off, their boys kidnapped and forced into becoming Jihadists, their women, and girls, raped and enslaved, by ISIS and other radical(?) Islamists who regard them as the worst from of infidels."

Diamond shows clearly the governments of the world are doing next to squat to help them. The Canadian government is the best of a bad bunch by allowing entry into Canada of a grand total of nine – nine! When did the capitalist class and its political stooges give a damn about human suffering?

One's mind recoils in horror at such atrocities and asks, when will it all end? The answer will not be found within the present day society whose very nature pits man against man. Only when the world's working class realize they have no enemy, including the capitalist class, but do have an enemy in the capitalist system and work for its abolition, will such atrocities stop 

John Ayers.

To-day Capitalism, To-morrow Socialism

Capitalism is class rule. The economic foundation of class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production and distribution. The social structure, or garb, of class rule is the political state that functions for the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political state, and its substitution with industrial democracy, under which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people. Goals determine methods and methods must fit the goal. The Socialist Party is engaged in a struggle to overthrow capitalism and end the exploitation of man forever, creating a class-free world, where people live from birth to death never having to suffer under the chains of wage-slavery.

While the capitalists are recovering from their Great Recession of 2007, socialists are wondering how far fellow-workers have risen from the rock bottom of their despondency and despair. A sense of hopelessness prevails everywhere. Practically every union is rapidly losing its membership. Few have shown any fighting spirit. Many have been heavily defeated. The union leaders have made no attempt to stem the tide of retreat. Retreat, Retreat, always retreat. The employers have got them on the run. This state of affairs is appalling. The situation is indeed serious. The immediate situation demands resistance. The promises of the Labour Party are nothing more than vote catching affairs. Labour politicians flatters the workers’ ignorance and prejudice to keep them ignorant. The working class can either consciously and fearlessly fight for power or see its organisations disintegrate and its life crushed to ever lower standards.

The reason that many on the Left hate the ballot box is because they know they are the minority and have not the patience to await the test of discussion and time. They don’t want the counting of noses, because they know the count will go against them, and because voting requires deliberation. They don’t want deliberation, they want excitement and hysteria and hope to carry their case on a wave of blind emotion. At the back of all this there always crops out the elitist vanguardist contempt of majority rule. The Left believe that the majority of people are fools who have to be led by an “enlightened minority.” They believe themselves to be the enlightened minority. They would lead us into “mass” actions, street protests and riots that play right into the capitalists’ hands.

The class now in power cannot rule honestly. They must rule corruptly. They are in the minority. They have not the votes of their own to put them in power, but they have the money with which to indoctrinate the electorate through ownership of the mass media. They have the money with which to buy the law-makers and to debauch all our institutions. They have the power to do this because they have the money, and they have the money because they own the means of production and distribution. The great mass of the people have no means of making themselves heard.

The Socialist Party participate in electoral activity to take advantage of the interest aroused among the workers during election times for revolutionary agitation and organisation of the workers; to point out that the Socialist Party does not seek seats in order to use the parliament for reforms but to use it as a forum where capitalism is exposed and the illusions of the workers in it are shattered; and to explain that reforms cannot improve their wretched lot which is produced by the system as a whole. The Socialist Partyhas made itself unpopular because it has the honesty to tell the workers that they are ignorant and that they will remain where they are so long as they are ignorant, indifferent, and unorganised. It tells them about the class struggle, not because it is in favour of classes, quite the contrary, because it is opposed to classes and wants to put an end to the class struggle. It is impossible to compromise a principle, and the Socialist Party is committed to a certain principle. To compromise principle is to invite failure. It is better to be true to a principle and to stand alone far better to be in a minority than to be in a majority of the unthinking.

It is a fortunate fact that the workers everywhere are beginning to open their eyes at last, beginning to understand that they have brains as well as brawn, and that they can think as well as work, that they are fit for something better than wage-slavery. They are beginning realise that what is done for them must be done by themselves. They are beginning to realise their interests, their power, their duty, their responsibility as a class now. And so they are gradually developing their solidarity. This is a movement that is making progress.

Who is it that votes the capitalist parties into power? It is the working class. The capitalist doesn’t vote for a socialist party, but the working class do vote for the capitalists, and that is why the capitalists are in power and the workers in servitude. Were it not for the working class the whole social fabric would collapse in an instant. It is they who do the useful work. It is they who produce the wealth. It is they conserve civilisation. They have but to realize this to awaken to  put the workers in power.  

Principles First, Methods Afterwards.

During elections the capitalist class put up ventriloquist dummies who carry out its orders and engage in sham battles with supposedly rival capitalist parties. No politician is capable of stemming the tide of misery and suffering of millions of workers whose standards are being brutally lowered. The truth is that the capitalist politicians represent the system which produces the unemployment, exploitation, wars and misery, and are cynically unconcerned about the sufferings of the workers except insofar as it gives them arguments against those in office and for those who want to get their greedy snouts into the trough. Pro-capitalist politicians’ chief aim is to attract votes with quack reforms and not to advance the class interests of the workers. At the ballot box the employer counts only as one vote against his workers; so if workers properly used theirs, it would ensure the triumph of labour as certainly as on the industrial action field the power of the master’s wallet will nearly always win. When will the workers learn that the political power they could wield as an organised body is the greatest weapon in their hands, that the field of politics is the only field upon which the workers can win emancipation from the domination of capital? When will the workers copy their employers who, not content with their tremendous economic power, unceasingly still strive to secure every bit of political power in order to entrench and strengthen their class in its position of supremacy. Let the workers organise to capture political power. Let the workers direct their energies toward the only object worth striving for- to wrest the ownership and control of the mean of production from the hands of a robber class to prepare the way for socialism.

The real strength lies with the working class, not in the conferences and resolutions of the misleaders of the trade union movement. There is no lesser evil; it is time for a new start. The only solution for the working class, the only way they can attain all their political and economic objectives is by the revolutionary overthrow of the ruling class. The Socialist Party conception of the use of force is one where we neither exalt it into a principle nor repudiate it as something not to be thought of. Our position towards it is that the use or non-use of force for the realisation of the ideas of progress always has been and always will be determined by the attitude of the capitalist class opposed to the popular movement. If the time should arrive when the Socialist Party finds its way to freedom barred by the stubbornness of a possessing class entrenched behind the barriers of law and order and if the Socialist Party has convinced the people at large of the need for new of society and is therefore representative of the will of a majority, if it has exhausted all the peaceful means at its disposal for the purpose of demonstrating to the people and their enemies that the new revolutionary ideas do possess the will and support of the majority; then, but not till then, the Socialist is justified in taking steps to assume the powers of government, and in using the weapons of force to dislodge the usurping class or government in possession, and treating its members and supporters as usurpers and rebels against the constituted authorities always have been created. In other words, socialists believe that the question of force is of very minor importance; the really important question is of the principles upon which is based the movement that may or may not need the use of force to realise its object. Here, then, is the difference between the Socialist Party and those advocating insurrectionary minority action. The latter, stifle all discussions of principles to gain the following of an unthinking multitude while the Socialist Party insist upon a thorough understanding of its basic principles. It is the difference between a riotous mob in revolt and class-conscious workers organising under the banner of the Socialist Party, strong in their knowledge of economic truth and firmly grounded in their revolutionary principles, resolute and undivided, set towards their only hope of emancipation – the complete control by the working-class democracy of all the powers of state. Let us learn from history. If the advocacy of physical force failed to achieve success when the majority were unenfranchised and the secret ballot unknown, how can it be expected to succeed now that the majority are in possession of voting power and the secret ballot safeguards the voter? The ballot-box may have been given us by our masters for their own motives but let us use it for our purpose. Let us demonstrate at that ballot-box the strength and intelligence of the revolutionary idea; let us make the election hustings the platform from where we advocate our principles; let us capture political power in the interest of the disinherited and the dispossessed class; let us inspire the world-wide revolt of the workers and prepare for the coming of the day when the working-class, through its elected delegates, present its demand for freedom from the yoke of a ruling master class.

The Socialist Party exists not to reform the system. It is here to overthrow it. And that is the only possibility left to save our planet. If we fail, we are doomed.

Socialism Now or Apocalypse Now?

In a social revolution it is really essential that we are building for something and towards something. It is mistake that a lot of people make to think that what is needed is leaders for this movement. The movement is us. This movement needs people from all walks of life to be able to stand up and speak the truth. We have been wage slaves for so long that we have forgotten the knowledge that we are slaves and that there is any other way to live. We have forgotten that once we had land and tools and could live independently, providing for ourselves, our families and our neighbours in cooperative communities, without being forced to sell our labour power for wages. We should not be living as slaves but as free people. If we could denounce and deny the wage slave relationship we could destroy capitalism and free ourselves to create a new social world. Most of the suffering in the world now is directly attributable to the capitalist system. If it were not for capitalists, most of what troubles and ails the world could be cured. The hunger, homelessness, environmental degradation, urban slums and ghettoes, warfare, crime, insecurity, waste, boredom, loneliness, and so forth could be remedied. Even much of the suffering caused by natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes can be laid at the feet of capitalists because capitalism either causes them or  prevent us from preparing for and responding to these disasters as a community, in an intelligent way.

The actual task of socialists is to transform existing structures (buildings and factories) and social relations (property and work) into the ones we desire. We can convert what already exists into something more useful for democratic, cooperative living. As society progresses we begin to tear down and rebuild what is around us in a way that expresses the needs of the people.

If we truly are a social democracy where everyone’s voice matters. Revolution is not a like a “revolutionary” new detergent. It’s something that people have given their lives for. It’s not something granted by a politician from on high after putting sufficient number of X’s on ballot papers. A real revolution is required. In the past some countries came to be called “communist” but were just capitalist states doing what capitalists always do: enslave and exploit their populations. There arose a Leftist politics that aped that One-Party command economy but now that the Soviet Union is gone, more and more people are realising that those “communist” countries were just capitalism in a different form and had little to do with the struggle against capitalism.

To-day it is impossible to defeat the ruling class by force of arms and insurrection. The level of firepower currently possessed by all major governments and most minor ones is simply overwhelming and has been recognized as so since the pronouncement of Engels in the 19^th C. that the days of the barricades was over. For any socialist movement to think that it can acquire, maintain, and deploy a vast armoury of sophisticated weapons is ludicrous. We cannot fight capitalists on their own terms. Non-violence is a key strategy against of a violent ruling class. It means that we have to learn how to depose them without picking up a rifle and firing a single shot. It means that we have to look to other tactics and invent other weapons for a class war. We should, however, not think non-violence is pacifism. Seen in this light, capitalism does not seem so invincible but actually rather vulnerable.

If we walk around our towns and cities, we see houses and factories, shops and malls, offices and schools, theatres and cinemas, restaurants and nightclubs, hospitals and nursing homes, hotels, and whatever. What we seldom come across are actual meeting halls. For sure we see council buildings but they are not where we, the people, can get together to take decisions and administer our own lives. So how can it be said that we live in a democracy, if we don’t even assemble or have any facilities for doing so? Not only is it a slave society but undemocratic society. Rather, we should live in a real democracy, where we can run our own communities. The basic social unit for decision-making will be the neighbourhood assembly. For many purposes, however, these neighborhood assemblies will want to cooperate with other neighbourhood assemblies. They will come together to accomplish certain objectives. In other words, they will sometimes coalesce into larger associations. Similarly, work-places will mirror this re-organisation into interlinked networks. Such changes cannot possibly come over-night even if the process begins before the triumph of the working class and the capitalist class is expropriated and capitalism is destroyed. In order to avoid total chaos and disintegration, most people must go on working at the jobs they have and know. So let us be quite clear, a new socialist society requires to be built on the foundations of the old capitalist system. It will take time to restructure the means of production and distribution into something more fitting for a free people. We have no doubt that workers councils will be able to eventually adapt what exists and create better forms of self-management than the presently existing corporate-controlled ones.

Adapted and abridged from here

Gun Viiolence And Poverty

Ottawa is investing an extra $606,000 to create more summer jobs in Toronto neighbourhoods plagued by a recent spike in gun violence. The money, they think, will create 105 jobs for youth between the ages of 15 and 20 in the city's troubled northeast area. In 2013 there were 22 gun deaths for the entire year. There were 27 each in 2011, 2014, and last year. This year there were 10 in January alone, and so far have been 22. The thinking is, "Poverty creates crime, so if we can find them jobs there will be less crime." Once again the political upholders of capitalism squirm to get out of a mess caused by the very effects of an economic system so dear to their hearts. The most they can achieve is to slightly reduce poverty and crime. What about an economic system where neither exist. John Ayers.

Educate that you may be free

The attitude of the Socialist Party is clear and definite. It claims that the wealth of society is created by the workers. It claims that the workers must own and control all the processes of wealth production. The capitalist class well understands the importance of the ballot box. The Socialist Party says that capitalism is the root cause of the social problems facing the working class. We propose the abolition of the system through the ballot box. We carry this struggle on to the political field in order to challenge the power which the present ruling class wields through its domination of the State which it wins at the ballot box. By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the capitalists are able to enslave working people by creating state ministries which control industrial and social conditions. These state departments are in the hands of bureaucrats who are recruited and promoted. Having been appointed by the master class, who control the state, the government officials can only maintain their jobs by serving those who control them. The destruction of this bureaucracy can only be accomplished by defeating the employing class at the ballot box.

The political state is not and cannot be a true democracy. The Socialist Party is convinced that the present political state, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. It is not elected according to the needs of the community but rather it is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the media, by using its money to trump up false election issues. Voters are not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the press, representing capital, puts before the workers.

The Socialist Party contends that the social ills of society will never be cured until organised workers, band themselves together as a class. Some socialists promote the idea of worker and neighbourhood councils as the social structures to organise and administer society on behalf of everyone in the community. But we cannot build up these committees and leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. Throughout history, we have witnessed what power the possession of the state gives to the capitalist class in its struggle with labour. It is through its political strength that the capitalists deprive us of civil liberties which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution impossible. We have seen how the employing class will resort to coercion to suppress resistance.  The ability to use force flows directly from the ruling class control of the state which it secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful revolution, we must capture the powers of the state at the ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from deploying the police and military forces against the workers’ movement. The political issue confronting the working class is the preservation of civil liberties and the destruction of the political state. The Socialist Party urges fellow-workers to use their votes to capture political power—not to play at politicians or pose as statesmen, but to use their votes to dismantle the state machine so as to permit workers the freedom to engage in the constructive task of creating socialism. To believe that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of working people, by passing a series of reforms, is to believe in parliamentarianism. The Socialist Party, despite the allegations of the barricadists and insurrectionists or the syndicalist proponents of general strikes, is not a parliamentarian party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of doing away with all the institutions which stand in the way of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. Let us study economic conditions that we may understand them and agree on a common end, which can be none other than to take over the means of production and distribution and operate them for use instead of profit.

The Inglorious 12th

Wildlife groups are urging the Scottish parliament to stop estate managers killing birds of prey to protect the grouse. A broad coalition of wildlife groups has launched a petition in the Scottish parliament urging the Holyrood government to act against landowners and their estate managers who have been killing eagles, red kites and hen harriers. The Scottish Raptor Study Group, comprising 300 experts who monitor birds of prey, lodged the petition. It wants “urgent action to introduce a state regulated system of licensing of game bird hunting”.

Bill Oddie, the celebrated bird-watcher and naturalist said, “At a time when wildlife is being abused all over the world, killing for fun is surely sacrilege.” 

An e-petition, backed by a powerful lobby of conservationists, animal welfare groups and television naturalists, was launched asking the UK government to ban driven grouse shooting. Thus far it has gained almost 75,000 signatures. It followed the news that the National Trust had banned shooting on landed property it owned in Derbyshire. This was in response to claims that illegal shooting of hen harriers was taking place there. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, a debate in parliament must ensue.

 The organisers of the e-petition are clear about what they stand for. “Grouse shooting for ‘sport’ depends on intensive habitat management which increases flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions, relies on killing foxes, stoats, mountain hares, etc in large numbers and often leads to the deliberate illegal killing of protected birds of prey, including hen harriers.”

The hen harrier is one of the most persecuted birds of prey in the UK. It is the subject of intense monitoring by various conservation bodies. As it feeds on grouse, it has been a target of gamekeepers seeking to protect numbers on shooting estates which specialise in driven grouse shooting.

The Scottish Raptor Study Group believes in Scotland the golden eagle is scarcest in areas where field sports are most prevalent.

Following a high court ruling, for the first time ever in the UK buzzards can be shot under licence to protect young pheasants, a move that will benefit game shooting. The case was brought by a gamekeeper who claimed his livelihood was being damaged by buzzard attacks. The RSPB condemned the ruling. Its conservation director, Martin Harper, said: “It sets a worrying precedent. What will be next? Red kites, peregrines, hen harriers?”

Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland, said: “The UK and Isle of Man population of hen harriers declined by 20% between 2004 and 2010, evidenced by national survey data, with a breeding population around one third of what it should be. It is wrong to speculate on the results of the current national hen harrier survey undertaken in 2016 as the results are only now being collated. There is a significant and increasing body of scientific evidence, including government-commissioned research, data from satellite tagged birds and documented incidents of wildlife crime, to show that the relentless illegal killing of hen harriers on land managed for driven grouse shooting is the main factor limiting the species’ population. To suggest otherwise is misleading.”

Which Chaotic World Do You Think You Prefer?

 On June 20th the United Nations Refugee Agency released their annual global trends report which contained the startling news that 65.3 million people have been forcibly removed from their homes. This is an all time high record and it means one in every 113 people is a refugee. The causes are due to on-going persecution, human rights violations and war. In 2015 more than 1 million reached Europe, fleeing conflict and persecution in Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

If this 65.3 million were a nation it would be the 21st largest in the world. It doesn't take a genius to figure that it is difficult, to say the least, for the governments who accept them to find them jobs and homes. Though this is bad news, don't be glum chum 'cos the good news outweighs it. For years people have been telling me that if a socialist society were established it would soon degenerate into chaos. So let's be of good cheer and be glad we live under dear old capitalism, with all is minor faults like the above war, global warming, destruction of the environment – meaning land, sea, air, and rivers – unemployment, genocide, poverty, famine, epidemics, breakdown of the family life, high suicide rate, etc. Etc.

 Just think of it – if we lived in a socialist world, we would really have problems – life might be chaotic! 

John Ayers.