What is Socialism?

The word socialism means many different things to many different people and it is used in many different contexts in the media. No wonder there is confusion. We are often asked what our platform is (establishment of a socialist society), are we Trotskyists (no), Leninists (no), and so on.

The interpretation of socialism runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous so it may be appropriate for us to investigate its meaning as far as we are concerned. Some see the Left Wing agenda as socialist, i.e. fighting for reforms such as raising the minimum wage, lower student fees, taxing the rich to pay for social programs etc. Obviously, the deduction from this is that there will always be student fees, minimum wages, and the rich. While we are happy to see the working class get any advantage in living conditions, we see that reforms will never bring us closer to a socialist society and reformers accept that capitalism is the only game in town.

To us, the Left Wing and the Right Wing are but two wings of the same bird – capitalism. In other words, both are part of the current destructive system. Some see unions and their activities – collective bargaining, work-to-rule campaigns, strikes, the struggle for better pay and conditions – as part of socialism.

While we agree that unions are a necessary institution for fighting against the worst excesses of capitalism and that they benefit the working class under capitalism, they do nothing to create a revolutionary activity, promote socialism, or any alternative to capitalism and, over time, they have been drawn closer and closer to accepting capitalism. In “Value, Price, and Profit, Marx wrote on unions: “They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it (i.e.capitalism) imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economic restructure of society. Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wages system!..Trades Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

 Unions, then, are not revolutionary, they react to capitalism’s actions, and they are specific to their members, favouring one group of workers over another group, such as their members over workers in other countries, rather than taking a world-view of the class struggle.

Some people and the media see socialism as the central planning of the economy by the state government. This would include the nationalization of some major industries on the premise that if it belongs to the state, it belongs to the people. This would also essentially describe what occurred in the former Soviet Union and what is happening today in so-called socialist countries like Cuba. China, as is obvious, has abandoned even this pretence of this particular brand of socialism and opened its doors to capital investment from abroad although the ‘communist party’ remains firmly in control of the country.

Nationalisation was used as a tool to keep the economy running smoothly with the necessary services to capital that the capitalists couldn’t do for themselves. Massive undertakings in roads, railways, health care, shipbuilding, steel production, coal mining, and other aspects of infrastructure were often too big an undertaking for the capitalist class in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was difficult to raise the capital involved for the project and the risks  were enormous. In effect, the state was minding the service until agglomerations of capital became big enough for privatization.

Since that time, most nationalized industries have been privatized or are under heavy pressure to do so. A nationalized industry is run like any other business – capital is advanced, raw materials and labour hired, and a commodity produced and sold at a profit, thanks to the theft of the surplus-value of the workers. Like private industry, the workers have no say whatsoever in the production process, do not own any of the commodities produced, and work at the pleasure of the owners, in this case the state. Workers must bargain collectively with state officials and often have to go on strike to preserve the gains that they have made previously. Throughout the twentieth century, beginning with the Russian Revolution of 1917, several countries declared themselves ‘socialist’ and were/are run by so-called communist parties.

 The parties of the World Socialist Movement, and many other analytical Marxists around the world, soon saw that these revolutions were simply bourgeois in nature, transferring power from the landed aristocracy to the new elite that functioned as a capitalist class. All revolutions were carried out by small groups snatching power, i.e. were undemocratic, and forced on the majority who did not understand socialism. Police forces, secret terror organisations, and the army were needed to maintain power for the minority. Their economies were set up like those in the capitalist countries but run by the officials of the state, the ‘communist’ parties.

Some politicians and political parties brand themselves or are branded by the media, as socialist. They are all simply vying with all other parties to run the capitalist system, to become its executive council. Some may genuinely want to improve conditions for the workers, but only in the context of the exploitive system that produces profits and enriches the minority from the unpaid labour of the workers. The New Democratic Party in Canada and the Labour Party in the UK, among many, started out with the idea of replacing capitalism with socialism. Both have dropped that idea, have concentrated on small palliative reforms, and rightly take their place among the pantheon of capitalist parties at election time.

Then there is the truly ridiculous. US president, Barack Obama is frequently described as a socialist by his opponents, particularly over his minuscule amendments to health care. He has never hinted, by word or deed, that he is anything of the sort. Newt Gingrich, positioned about as far away from socialism as you can get, was called a socialist by his opponent, Mitt Romney, for saying, “If we identify capitalism with rich guys looting companies, we are going to have a very hard time protecting it.” Gingrich had accused Romney of plundering floundering companies, tossing workers onto the street, and personally pocketing $250 million as head of a successful private equity firm. No further comment necessary!

So what is socialism?

To us, socialism means the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth, democratically managed in the interests of all mankind. That means the land, the resources, the factories, the transportation systems, would all be held in common and managed by democratically elected councils. It means everyone stands in the same relationship to production – no owners and non-owners, no employers and employed, no class system. Everyone would have access to decent shelter, food, education, health care and all other necessities of life. It would mean production for use, not profit, free access for everyone to the goods and services they need. All this would be accomplished with voluntary labour. Imagine, we could produce durable, quality goods with clean energy, practice real green initiatives and devise ways to clean up the environment, use scientists to further the progress of mankind instead of producing military hardware, and so on, because we, the people, would decide democratically what should be done. No more bosses, no more leaders telling us what needs to be done when we already know, no more media lies to obfuscate the truth.

Can it be done realistically?

Yes, because we, the workers, do everything now and don’t need anyone to tell us how to do it. It must be done only when the vast majority understands what socialism is and vote for it. Getting to that point will be the hardest thing yet achieved in human progress but we are convinced that if the truth is presented to the world, it will be accepted. A socialist system has never existed but it is obvious that it is the next step forward in human progress and is not only worth working for, it’s a necessity.

Capitalism

1. A class-based society

2. Minority private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution.

3. Production and distribution for profit.

4. Access to necessities of life by economic demand i.e. by your wallet.

5. Two classes – those who own the means of production but do not produce, and those who produce but do not own.

6. Employment – employers employ workers as they need them, workers sell their labour-power

7. Markets (buying and selling) for most goods and services, including labour

8.  Activities necessary to support the profit system, e.g. banking, insurance

9. Emphasis on competition

10. Leaders and followers

11. Mostly hierarchical organizations giving and taking orders

12. Periodic elections to choose professional politicians. Government over people.

13. Nation states, armed forces, wars

14. Education and health care for those who can pay

15. Crime (mostly property), a legal system to uphold private property rights

16. Environmental problems (pollution, global warming) caused by the manic drive for profit

Socialism

1. A society without classes

2. Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution

3. Production to meet human need

4. Free access for all, each determining their own needs

5. No classes – all people stand equal relation to the means of wealth production

6. Necessary work – all those fit enough volunteer their services as preferred and needed

7. No buying, selling, or exchange - only giving and taking.

8. Work for necessary and useful production

9. Emphasis on democratic co-operation

10. Participants meeting on an equal basis to make decisions

11. Mostly lateral organizations (co-operation between equals).

12. Elections as required to choose representatives or delegates. Administration of Things.

13. No nation states, no armed forces, no wars.

14. Education and health care for all, as needed.

15. No property crime, any residual crime (against the person) dealt with humanely.

16. Cleanest technology for production for use, not profit.

Scotland in statistics

Rodger Nisbet is executive chairman at Walter Scott Asset Management in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square earned £8.2m.

The top 2% of Scots have an average weekly income of £2,000.

The top earning 1% has been pulling away, at nearly four times the rate of growth of the next highest percentile. The share of total income taken by the top 1% of earners rose in Scotland from 6.3% in 1997 to 9.4% twelve years later. In turn, that second percentile has seen wage growth twice as fast as the third percentile.

Below the top earning 10%, Stirling University analysis shows there has been very little change in the share of income between 1997 and 2009.

Emancipation and freedom

Let us imagine something different. Let us imagine that our children have been born into a society where life is not organised around the need to produce goods for profit but where people co-operate freely, irrespective of sex or ethnicity, to produce the things they need in such a way that everyone contributes what she or he is able. In such a society children are given adequate opportunities to develop their skills and abilities, whatever these might be, without consideration of what is or is not 'natural' to their gender. Thus some who show an aptitude for, say, metalwork will be encouraged in this direction while others who shows an interest in the care of young children will have the opportunity to participate in that. Education is organised not on the basis of tests, competition and the acquisition of a narrow range of skills of use to the labour-market but rather as a continuing and life-long experience of giving and receiving skills and knowledge which enable people to pursue whatever kind of life they think most likely to result in their own happiness. Work in this kind of society - socialism - will not be wage-slavery. People will not have to sell their energies to the minority who own the means of production and distribution - the factories, offices, transport systems, shops, etc. - in return for a wage or salary. In socialism - a society based on common ownership - people will co-operate to produce those things which they need as a community- useful things, which will be freely available to all members of society. With the profit motive removed, men and women will be able to choose their work in accordance with their talents, skills, and preferences, contributing as much or as little as they feel able. The criterion for choosing one kind of activity rather than another will no longer be which one pays the most, has the best perks, the best prospects for promotion or the most job security. All these considerations will be obsolete in a money-free socialist world. Work will no longer be the activity we do to obtain the wage which enables us to survive.

The mere replacement of private ownership by state ownership is not socialism and cannot bring about emancipation. Socialism is a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.  Socialism will be a very different society from capitalism. Whereas in capitalism goods are produced for profit and sale on the market, which means that many people go without the things they need because they cannot afford to buy them, in socialism goods will be produced for people to use, without the need for buying and selling. And because there will be no buying and selling, there will be no need for money; instead, people will take freely what they need from the common store

Work will no longer be the exploitation that it is in capitalism where the majority of us - the working class - sell our labour-power to an employer, who owns the machines, factories, tools, land, etc., in return for a wage or salary. In socialism, because goods will no longer be produced solely for profit, there will no longer be the division of society into classes whose interests can never be reconciled. Work will take the form of co-operative effort, freely entered into by people who will be aware that ail of society is benefiting, and, as a result, they benefit.

In capitalism because of the need for the ruling class to protect its own interests against the opposing interests of the workers, the majority have very little say in the decision-making process - in central government, at a local level, or at work. In socialism, however, each individual will be able to participate fully in the making of the decisions which affect their lives. Democracy in socialism will not be the sham that it is in capitalism but a meaningful process which recognises the worth of everyone and through which people will be able to contribute fully to society in accordance with their particular skills, knowledge or experience.

In capitalism the world is divided into nation-states, reflecting the territorial interests of the capitalist class. This is the cause of patriotism, nationalism, and futile wars in which the working class are sent to be killed themselves, or kill other workers in order to protect the interests of their masters. Socialism will be a world-wide system without arbitrary and divisive distinctions between one area of the world and another.

Socialism is a liberation project for human emancipation. This will not come about in an automatic or inevitable way. A political organisation whose object is socialism cannot permit sexism or racism within its membership on the grounds that nothing can be done now and that the problem will be resolved 'after the revolution'. For a political organisation to be credible, it must embody the attitudes, values, and practices that it seeks to institute in society at large. Socialists believe that all people, men and women, are equally worthy of respect - and the Socialist Party the following clause:

“.. as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.”

People need to want socialism

The abolition of capitalism will be followed by the establishment of a different social system. Socialism will be based on common ownership. While capitalism's wealth takes the form of commodities - things produced for sale and profit - socialism's wealth will be use values, things made solely to meet human needs. While capitalism is a society of class privilege, socialism will be one of the equal rights of free access. While capitalism is a coercive repressive society, socialism will be democratic, with full participation by its people. Just as capitalism promotes and aggravates conflict such as racism so will socialism be organised on the basis of human co-operation for the common benefit. Capitalism is an inefficient society. All sorts of things which ought to be done - like feeding hungry people, housing the homeless, or merely ensuring that old people do not die of cold in the winter - are not done because it is not “economically viable”. Capitalism wastes resources. Not just in building up armed forces and huge arsenals of weapons, whose only function is to destroy but also wastes the abilities of tens of millions of people who are in jobs which may be necessary in a society of commodity wealth but which are unproductive and socially useless - for example, jobs as sales-persons and bank workers. Socialists point to the absurdity of a world where computers and automation are commonplace and where we can send probes to Mars yet also allows tens of millions to die every year of starvation and untold millions from avoidable diseases. Resources under capitalism are actually used in such a way as to be detrimental to people - polluting the land, water and air.

Socialism will be a basically simple society for it will operate solely and completely on the basis of human needs. Everything which socialist society makes and does will be related to those needs and will, therefore, be to everyone's benefit. Socialism will be free of capitalism's profit motive, which causes the market to take precedence over human need. It will be a society in which people can behave just as humans would was it not for the restrictions and insecurities of capitalism. Human talents will be set free, to design and make the best that is possible, on the single incentive of satisfying human needs and so of benefiting the community. Socialism will mean the greatest flowering of imagination, creativeness and achievement in history. The nature of socialism will mean that climate change and natural disasters will be dealt with in the most urgent and efficient way. Socialism's production will harmonise with human interests because free of the chaos and restraints of commodity production for the market, the new society will be able to plan its work, what it makes and how it must be distributed to meet human needs.

Socialism will not happen, and cannot work unless the world's people want it. They must understand how and why it operates and must opt for it in that understanding. It cannot be imposed on society by a minority or by a group of political leaders. By the same token when a majority of people have established socialism no minority will be able to take it away from them. Having set up socialism the majority will not lose interest; they will continue to operate society on the same basis of informed democratic decisions. This is again something which has already been facilitated by capitalism, through the development of the internet and mobile phones which enable opinions to be assessed worldwide literally in hours. Decisions could be taken only when everyone is fully informed; socialism's democracy will entail the free availability of all information and knowledge. It will be a society vibrant with discussion and debate. From one generation to another the strengths of a society of communal ownership, free access, co-operation and harmony will be handed on. People will relate to each other as equals, as caring sisters and brothers. Co-operation will be the norm, an everyday, established reality and not an impossible dream.

This is all possible, virtually at once, if the working class were to recognise their own immense power to transform society. At present they deny themselves this power, effectively handing it over to the capitalist class by their support for capitalism and cruel delusions such as racism and nationalism. Socialism will be the end these to make it a world free of social conflict in which human beings live and work in unity without distinction of sex or race.

Marx in Space

Asteroids have a high density of precious metals such as platinum or rare-earths, which are also needed in a number of key technologies. Entrepreneurs are speculating about the prospect of high returns on investments in obtaining resources beyond Earth for which shortages are soon to be expected and causing concern. It may eventually be possible to mine valuable minerals from asteroids cheaply enough for it to be worth bringing them back to Earth. Apart from the technological hurdles that is still to be overcome if commercial asteroid mining is to become practically possible and economically viable, another snag to resolve is a legal one. “The way a private company would enforce their right to mine is through a national court,” says space law expert Dr. Chris Newman of the University of Sunderland. “In making a ruling, that court would exercise sovereign rights, contravening the OST. We will only know how this would play out if it is tested in court.” Perhaps, the court in question may well turn out to be the Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals which are being incorporated into many global trade agreements.

Space mining can be described as similar to fishing in international waters. No one owns the fish until they are in your possession, and then you own the catch. The Outer Space Treaty (OST)  of 1967, prohibits nations from exercising territorial sovereignty over celestial bodies. No country can own the moon or any other part of space, no matter how many astronauts have placed flags there. The treaty’s Article 1 states:

 “The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind. Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.” (our emphasis)

But the treaty is being interpreted to as permitting asteroid mining but as is well-known legal opinion can differ widely.  The Moon Treaty of 1979 declares in Article 11, section 1, that the “The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind” and effectively bans private property by any organization or person unless that organisation is international and governmental. The Moon Treaty has an additional weakness -  the signatures of China, Japan, Russia, and the United States are notably absent.

The US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 decrees any materials American individuals or companies find on an asteroid or the moon is theirs to keep and do with as they please. It establishes the rights of investors to profit from their efforts under US law. Luxemburg has enacted a similar law to come into effect in 2017 intended to protect future outer space investments worth billions of dollars. Two US enterprises, Deep Space Industries (DSI) and Planetary Resources (PR), already have their European headquarters in Luxembourg, with Luxemburg, itself, becoming a shareholder in PR.

Commercial activity in space could easily cause international conflict as it does on Earth. There are precedents for working together such as the multi-state International Telecommunication Union which approves the orbits of satellites. The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the UN in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security, and development. These bodies could well be adapted for administrating space inside a socialist society

Socialism Not Bolshevism

The Socialist Party has always held the view that socialism can only be brought about by the democratic and class-conscious political action of the majority of the working class. It has consistently opposed Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and all their followers. Far from advancing and hastening the development of the socialist revolution they have greatly hindered this movement. Their contempt for the intellectual abilities of the working class led to the claim that the vanguard party should rule on their behalf, even against their will. The tragic consequences of adopting these ideas have proved the correctness of the Marxist principle of “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”. The core belief of all socialist theory and practice is socialism will only be brought about when a majority of women and men of the working class understand, desire and organise democratically for its achievement. Ours is a movement with a clean and honest record where dictatorship is concerned, a critical stance maintained over many decades has been shown to be right.  Never has the appeal for workers of the world to unite been more relevant or urgent. Together we can eliminate the waste of human capacities and material resources which exist under capitalism. Together we can achieve an abundance of the means of life to which everyone will enjoy free access. Together we can nullify the risk of another capitalist world war. Having seen world capitalism stagger on decade after decade, we could get the impression that it is so firmly entrenched that it will remain forever. In fact, confronted by a socialist majority, the lesson is that it will prove so fundamentally weak that its abolition will be a mere formality causing it to dissolve into history. The urgent task for workers everywhere is to unite in their own interests and establish world socialism.

Socialism does not exist in any part of the world, and nor has it existed in the past. Achieving a socialist society will be a complete social change - a revolution. For many people, the word 'revolution' conjures up the image of armed insurrection, as in the capitalist revolutions of the past. In these past revolutions, the minority rising capitalist class was overthrowing another minority, the feudal aristocracy, using peasants and workers as pawns. In Lenin's Russia and Mao's China, Marxist slogans were used. One result of this has been that many calling themselves socialists, have taken the capitalist revolutions in such countries as the model for what they see as a future socialist revolution. They plan to lead the working class in a violent uprising aimed at overthrowing the state by force. But socialists are emphatically opposed to all those who advocate violent minority uprisings. A regime which is set up by minority violence can only be maintained by violence or the threat of it. A socialist society can only be established by the clear will of the great majority. Wherever parliaments of one sort or another exist, delegates will be elected with a simple instruction: to abolish the minority ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution so that they no longer belong to a class but to the community as a whole. In the event of a minority trying to violently disrupt the plans of the majority, socialist society would have to defend itself. Socialists are not pacifists but simply do not advocate violence unless it is absolutely necessary to defend the democratic will of a socialist majority. We have adopted the old Chartist principle of “Peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary”. The socialist revolution will be the outcome of majority socialist understanding combined with democratic political action.

Socialism means the whole community owns the factories, the transport, the farms in common and because we own in common all the produce of each other's labours, we are all entitles to take freely from the fruits of all that collective cooperation. Socialism does not need barter, money or any other kind of exchange. All will be the common heritage of all and each can enjoy free access to the common store of all that can be produced. Humanity will relate to one another not as economic categories but as social equals. They will pool their resources and talents to provide the best possible goods and services for all. The framework of a world community will allow cultural diversity to be maintained. All this is possible, and much more besides. It is there for the taking. It will be the start of a new era of conscious control and free creation whose results we can hardly imagine. It depends on the political organisation of a majority of workers determined to establish a socialist society and not to waste their time trying to modify and reform present-day capitalist society. What will happen is up to the people to decide. Tomorrow's history will result from what we think and do today. So long as human beings are characterised by the ability to plan their actions and think with reason, there is no inevitability that capitalism stays. For socialists, the only answer to the threat of social and environmental destruction is social innovation. And that means a completely new way of organising society based not on the dictatorship of an owning class but on the common ownership of the earth's resources.

Call A Spade A Spade

Some people in Toronto go to air-conditioned malls to escape hot weather. 

One said,''I can afford to buy an air conditioner, but not the electricity to run it.''

 Poverty affects people in many ways, so why not get rid of what causes it.

The Toronto Transit Commission are giving subway musicians a boost by providing bold black backdrops for their performances. This is to help focus attention on them, in other words so subway users can give then more money. 

To call a spade a spade, buskers are beggars who provide entertainment. It may be all very well to help a beggar, but wouldn't it be better to have a world where no one has to beg?

John Ayers.

The Joy of Work

The greatest problem awaiting solution in the world to-day is the existence in every country of extreme poverty side by side with extreme wealth. How is it that the men and women who till the land, who toil the mines, who operate the machines, who construct the factories and build the homes, or, in other words, those who create the world’s wealth, receive only sufficient to maintain themselves and keep their families on the border line of bare necessity, while those who do not produce --the employing class--obtain more than is enough to supply their every comfort, and luxury? The prospect before the workers of all the world is that they will continue to suffer hardships of the capitalist system until they actively interest themselves in understanding socialist principles and assisting in socialist re-organisation. Capitalist production rests upon keeping those who produce in subservience and economic exploitation. Work under capitalism means selling labour power in a labour market which is alien to their interests as individuals and alien to their interests as a class. Under capitalism work and the division of labour in the cause of profit turn people into the appendages of machines and slaves to the assembly-line that is physically and mentally destructive and which proves to be a life time of personal frustration. Workers sacrifice their individuality and lead double lives, only becoming their true selves in their home-life and during their leisure hours. Work is not an end in itself but a distasteful and repugnant means to a pecuniary end. Capitalism makes impossible what William Morris called "The expression of man's joy through his labour"

 Socialism will it will be a society free of classes in which the exploitation and oppression of man by man will have been abolished. All human beings will be social equals, freely able to co-operate in running social affairs where the means of life will be owned in common by the entire community. At one time socialism was known also as 'social democracy', a phrase which expresses that decision-making would extend to all aspects of public life, including production where  'government over people' gives way 'to the administration of things'; meaning that state power of government coercion will have no place in socialism. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is in fact an instrument of class oppression. In socialism there will be no classes and no built-in class conflicts: everybody will have the same basic social interest. There will be genuine social harmony and community of interest. In these circumstances there is no need for any coercive machine to govern or rule over people.  Those who wrongly assume that government and administration are one and the same will have some difficulty in imagining a society without government. A society without administration would indeed be impossible since 'society' implies that human beings organise themselves to provide for their needs. But a society without government is both possible and desirable. Socialism will in fact mean the extension of democratic administration to all aspects of social life on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. There will be administrative general assemblies for settling social affairs by majority decision. Democratic organisation will involve delegation of functions to groups and individuals. Such people will be charged by the community with organising specific necessary functions. They will be chosen by the community and will be answerable to it. Those who perform the administrative functions in Socialism would be in no position to dominate. They will not be regarded as superior persons, as tends to be the case today, but as social equals doing an essential job. Nor will they have at their command any force to impose their will. There will be no opportunity for bribery and corruption since everybody, including those in administrative jobs, will have free access to the stock of wealth set aside for individual consumption. The material conditions for the rise of a new ruling class would not exist. The purpose of socialist production will be simply and solely to satisfy human needs. Under present arrangements production is for the market with a view to profit. This will be replaced by production solely and directly for use. The production and distribution of sufficient wealth to meet the needs of the socialist community as individuals and as a community will be an administrative and organisational problem. It will be no small problem but the tools for solving it have already been created by capitalism.

Capitalism has developed technology and social productivity to the point where plenty for all can be produced. A society of abundance has long been technically possible and it is this that is the material basis for socialism. Capitalism, because it is a class society with production geared to profit-making rather than meeting human needs, cannot make full use of the world-wide productive system it has built up over the past two hundred or so years. Socialism, making full use of the developed methods of production, will alter the purpose of production. Men and women will be producing wealth solely to meet their needs, and not for the profit of a privileged few. Using techniques for predicting social wants (at present pressed into the service of capital), a socialist society can work out how much and what sort of products and services will be needed over a given period. Men and women will be free to discuss what they would like to be produced. So with research and discussion an estimate of what is needed can be made. The next problem is to arrange for these amounts to be produced. Capitalism, with its computer power and input-output analysis, has developed the scientific techniques which a socialist society can use.

When the wealth has been produced, apart from that needed to renew and expand the means of production, all will freely take what they feel they need to live and enjoy life. This is what we mean by 'free access'. There will be no buying and selling, and hence no need for money. What communities and individuals want does not vary greatly except over long periods, and it will be a simple administrative task to see that the stores are well-stocked with what people need. If any shortages develop they will not last long. Planned reserves will be held as a safeguard against unforeseen natural disasters.

'From each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is a long-standing socialist principle. It means what it says: that men and women will freely take part in social production to the best of their abilities, and freely take from the fruits of their common labour whatever they need.

Confronted for the first time with such proposal for free distribution and unrationed consumption, many people are sceptical. What about the lazy? Or the greedy? Who will do the dirty work? What will be the incentive to work? These are understandable objections to those who have never thought about such a startling proposition. Work is a social must for human beings. The point at issue is how work should be organized and for what purpose. In capitalism work is reduced to a monotonous drudgery for most people, instead of allowing it to provide the pleasure it could, and would in a socialist society. Working for an employer is always degrading, often boring and unpleasant and sometimes unhealthy and dangerous. But we should not continue with misleading association of work with employment.  There is no reason at all why the work of producing useful things cannot be as enjoyable as pastimes and hobbies are. The conditions under which work is done can be vastly improved. The  relationships between people at work will change for the better. Free and equal, members of a socialist community will no longer have to sell their mental and physical power to an employer for a wage. The degrading wages system will be abolished so that there will be no such thing as employment. Instead work will be done by free men and women co-operating and controlling their conditions of work, getting enjoyment from creating things and doing socially useful tasks. In a socialist society there will be no social stigma attaching to any kind of work. Nor will there be pressures, as exist at present (because they are cheap and therefore profitable to the capitalists) to continue industrial processes which are harmful or dangerous to those engaged in them. There will be no need for anybody to be tied to the same job continuously. People will have rotating careers. The opportunities for men and women to develop and exercise their talents and to enjoy doing so will be immense.

Socialism must be world-wide because the productive system which capitalism has built up and which a socialist society will take over is already international. There will be no frontiers and people will be free to travel over the whole earth. Socialism will mean an end to all national oppression - and, indeed, in its current political sense to all 'nations' — and to discriminations on the grounds of race and sex. All the people of the world, wherever they live, whatever their skin colour, whatever language they speak, really will be members of one vast human family. Socialism will at last have the age-old dream of the Equality, fraternity and liberty.

Production for needs

A socialist society requires that production as a whole should meet the needs of people and be sustainable for the rest of nature.  In other words, what humans take from nature and dispose of them after use, should all be done so as to leave nature to go on supplying and reabsorbing those materials after use. In the long run this implies stable consumption and production levels. Production would be simply to meet current needs and to replacing and repairing the stock of means of production. The only rationale for accumulating means of production would be to be in a position to satisfy all reasonable consumption needs, not as at present to manufacture ‘wants’ for marketing and profits.  Once achieved then further expansion of the stock of means of production, could stop and production levels be stabilised. The proportion of people’s time devoted to ‘production’ would be correspondingly reduced and stabilised, leaving them free to indulge in whatever pursuits they fancied. So if human society is to be able to organise its production and other activities in an ecologically acceptable way then it must abolish the capitalist social, economic and political system of profit accumulation and replace it with a system which gears production to the direct satisfaction of needs.

To produce the things that people need in an acceptable and ecologically benign manner presupposes that society as a whole must be in a position to control production and direct its purposes.  This cannot be done in a society where the means of production are owned and controlled by the privileged few and governed by the blind economic laws which impose their own priorities.  Production for needs, therefore, demands an end both to capitalist control and the market. Production for needs requires that direction over the means of production (nature, materials, and machinery) should be available to all.  Everyone must stand equally with all others in relation to the means of production.  Also, production for needs demands the end of buying and selling; the end of the market. It means that goods are produced, and services made available, simply for their use-value, that is, capacity to satisfy human need. Production for the market is an expression of the fact that the means of production and therefore the products are owned not by all the members of a society in common but by individuals or groups such as corporations. Exchange would completely disappear in a society where there were no property rights over the means of production.

Democracy and common ownership

Production for needs can take place only on the basis of common ownership.  With common ownership, what is produced is no longer the property of some individual or group, which has to be purchased before it can be used or kept, but becomes directly available for people to take in accordance with their reasonable needs. We say that it is common ownership which provides the framework for the development of a balanced relationship between human society and the rest of nature.  We are talking about the common ownership of all the Earth’s natural and manufactured resources by the whole of humanity.  We are talking about a world socialist society which would recreate, on a world scale and on the basis of today’s technological and other knowledge, the communistic social relations of freedom, equality and community which many humans have aspired to since the coming of property society.

Humanity is now in a position, and has been for some time, to supply, in a sustainable way the needs of the population.  The means of production and the knowledge at its disposal are more than sufficient to enable this to be done. The problem is capitalism.  Common ownership on a world scale means that there will be no property or territorial rights over any part of the planet or over any of the technology.  The Earth and its resources will not belong to anyone.  They would simply be there to be used in accordance with democratically-decided rules and procedures. We can imagine the local community being the basic unit of such arrangements.  People could elect a local council to co-ordinate and administer local affairs.  Delegates could be sent to regional councils to decide matters concerning a wider area, and so on.  Possibly a world council would be the best way to deal with matters on a world scale (for instance, the supply of scarce minerals, the protection of the biosphere, the use of the oceans, and space research). On the basis of common ownership and democratic control, the world-wide network of productive and administrative units can be geared to meeting human needs.  This need not involve the organisation of a bureaucratic world planning authority.  Instead we could set up production and distribution mechanisms at different levels to respond flexibly to demands communicated to them.

Free access

Gearing production to meeting needs means making arrangements for individuals and groups to have free access to what they need.  Socialism not being a society in which goods and services are produced for sale, people would not have to buy what they needed.  They would be able to decide for themselves in a socially responsible way what their needs were and then take from the stock of products set aside for individual or group consumption.  In the case of services, advance booking, priority according to need, or ‘first come, first served’ arrangements could apply. Information to the network of productive units as to what to produce would thus come from what people actually chose to take or order from distribution stores under conditions of free access.  This would essentially be a system of stock control in the first instance at local community level.  Needs would be communicated to the productive network as demands for given amounts and types of specified products, materials and services.  This information would then be communicated throughout the system, where necessary to other regions or to the world level.

Goods and services would be produced and distributed as useful items intended to satisfy some human need.  Because they were no longer being produced and offered for sale on the market, they would not have a price.  Instead, estimates of what updated information suggested was likely to be needed over a given period would be expressed as quantities of specified products, materials and human time, not money. There would be no need for any universal unit of account to measure need, supply or demand.  Other more important factors than cost could be taken into account in making choices about which materials and productive methods to use or what services to supply. Instead of minimising the cost of production being the only criterion, other factors such as the health, comfort and enjoyment of those doing the work, the protection of the environment and a sustainable ecological system could be given the prominent place they deserve.

Protecting the environment

In a society oriented to meeting needs the concept of profits would be meaningless, while the imperative to ‘growth’ would disappear.  Instead, after an initial period of increase in useful production to provide the whole world’s population with basic amenities, production can be expected to reach a level sufficient to provide for people’s current needs and the future viability of their society.  A sustainable relationship with the rest of nature could be achieved. Needs on a world scale could be in balance with the capacity of the biosphere to renew itself after supplying them. As the only life-form that can act in a way conscious of the wider impact it can have on other species and on the planet as a whole, humans have the potential to act as planet’s ‘brain’, consciously regulating its function in the interest of present and future generations.  But before we can hope to play this role we must first integrate our own activities into a sustainable natural cycle on a planetary scale.  This we can do only within the framework of a world socialist society in which the Earth and all its natural and material resources have become the common heritage of all humanity.

We humans are part of nature, not external to it.  We are one with nature; we must nurture it if it is to sustain us. Socialists work for a revolution in society from world capitalism to world socialism.  The revolution we want is a social revolution that will change the basis of society from the present monopoly of productive resources by rich individuals, corporations and states into one where the Earth and its resources belong to none but will have become the common heritage of all humanity. This revolution can only be carried out democratically by the majority class in society, those forced to work for a wage or a salary in order to get a living, with a view to freeing themselves from exploitation for profit and from the restrictions and problems that the capitalist profit system imposes on them.  At the same time socialists understand that such a revolution has also to achieve a sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature. Together we can be architects of the future rather than victims of the present.

Only socialism can end capitalism

The Socialist Party lays down a thoroughly democratic procedure for the conduct of its affairs. Control of policy is in the hands of the members; there are no leaders and never have been. Democratic procedure has been maintained throughout the Party's existence and is a practical refutation of those who argue that all organisations must degenerate into any bureaucratic rule. In fact, a democratic structure without leaders is the necessary form of any real socialist party. Everyone who applies for membership of the Socialist Party is asked to show that they understand and agree with what we are aiming for and how we expect to reach our goal. All sorts of false ideas still exist about how to bring about the change to a socialist form of society. The Socialist Party has worked consistently to make socialist principles known and to expose the many erroneous and dangerous theories that have attracted support among the working class - foremost among them being the notion that capitalism can be reformed to run in the interests of the workers. There is no magic formula that can by-pass the process of building a democratic world-wide socialist movement. The process is slow because workers still have faith in capitalism and trust in a political party’s reforms to improve it when it fails them. The Socialist Party presents an analysis so that our fellow-workers can begin to think differently. We seek a change in their attitude to take place.  It all hinges upon the readiness of the working class for the change that is to take place. If the great majority do not have a clear idea of what needs to be done and a firm resolve to do it, then it does not matter what methods are used--they will fail.

Many have sympathy with the socialist idea of a world of common ownership and free access to replace the present system of buying and selling but say that such a transformation is such a long way off that in the meantime we must still aim for improvements within the framework of the existing system. They point to the changes that have taken place in people’s lives since the nineteenth century and that children no longer run around without shoes on their feet, no-one starves, medical facilities are available to all, everybody receives an education, and many people own things previously undreamed of - a car, a house, and a host of gadgets. It is worth trying to get more of these improvements, they say, and the best way to do it is to press governments for reforms. It may also seem that public agitation for reforms does a lot to help, as when abortion and homosexuality were legalised after many years of campaigning. While at other times very large reform movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the massive turn-out to oppose the Iraq invasion produces no alteration in government policy at all.

What distinguishes the Socialist Party from those who also want a class-free, state-free, wage-free, money-free society of common ownership and democratic control is our view that parliament can, and should, be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society. There is a strong sense of disenchantment with the world as it is which exists through the failure of the system to solve the many social problems. But still, the mistaken idea that the nature of the present system can be changed by reformism of one kind or another, or by state control continues to prevail. Governments have been formed with the intention of changing the nature of capitalism, so as to bring about a society which could work in the interest of the whole community. Far from being able to control capitalism, all governments have found themselves dancing to the tune played by economic forces. No government has succeeded in controlling the economy or the market system for the benefit of the whole community. To those who might think that political action could be better directed at “improving” capitalism, we say that those who took the same view in years past contributed by default to the present status of society. A sane society cannot be postponed without accepting the consequences of postponement.

The necessary means of achieving socialism are determined by the nature of socialism itself. A society organised as a result of conscious democratic control can only be established by conscious democratic means. The ends and means are inseparable. The only power which can change capitalist society is the democratic power of a majority of socialists acting in world co-operation.

Cosmic Humanity

The Socialist Party rejects the idea that any one group should own or control the means of production. It seeks a class-free community where there will no longer be the need for the state, since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society. Socialism will be able to make full use of the contribution of everyone in society while developing and introducing scientific methods to expand output. As new technology such as computerized automation can replace workers, workers will not be thrown into the streets, but transferred to other jobs – according to an overall plan – and the work-day for all workers will be reduced. The nature of work itself will change completely because workers will no longer be toiling to enrich the capitalists to further enslave the working class but to improve life and providing for the future. Workers will have more commitment and pride in their work because they are working for themselves and neighbours. Workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine, as they are under capitalism but instead machines will become tools in the hands of the workers to improve society. The collective stored-up knowledge of the workers will be unleashed to inspire workers to make new breakthroughs.

Capitalism creates conflict. The main conflict is between the capitalists and the workers. Their class interests are irreconcilably antagonistic. There is also one within classes. Not only is there a battle between classes, however. It makes workers compete against one another. And it is not only workers who are often disunited and weakened as a class. Capitalists are divided too – competing corporations, rival nation states, and economic blocs. And their competition over markets, raw materials, and strategic positions often breaks out into open war. These wars are not fought over pious ideals like justice, nationhood, democracy or religion. They are fought over power and control related to the need of capitalists for markets, sources of raw materials, investment outlets, trade routes and the strategic positions to defend all these.

The capitalist system, however, has been responsible for building up technology to the point where we now have a potential abundance of wealth. Compared with previous ages, advances in agriculture, science, and technology have made it quite possible to produce an abundance for every man, woman and child on the planet. Yet, scarcity still exists. The world's population lives in varying degrees of poverty. Millions are starving while harvests are stockpiled or destroyed with some farmers paid to stop producing. For the working class, in the present age of potential plenty, rationing by the money system, denies many of us access to the necessities of life, much less its luxuries. In an age when we could produce for use without anyone going short, producing for sale and profit is an obstacle to the real satisfaction of human needs and desires. Socialism is the free association of the world's people, a global community which can make arrange to use the world's resources for the benefit of all. This will mean selling one's ability to work in order to gain some access to wealth, an end to separate nation-states and an end to all forms of exchange and therefore the requirement for money. Instead, people will have free access to all available goods and services according to their own self-defined needs. Socialism will come as a welcome relief.

Humanity will not be miraculously transformed into angels and saints, full of "goodness" or "kindness" or "gentleness"; but the pressures which now stops them being all of these things will disappear– shortage of money, fear of unemployment, fear of crime, fear of strangers fear of war and fear of the boss. All of these neurotic responses and frustrations arise directly out of the capitalist organisation of society. When we end capitalism, we shall have removed these influences upon the thoughts and actions of every member of the working class. Socialism does not require us all to suddenly become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact, socialism doesn’t require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” our personal style in clothes and other things of personal use and to feel secure in the place we live in, but this will be just that— a home and not a financial asset. Such individual “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist.

"Humans have evolved gregariously. We delight in each other's company; we care for one another. Altruism is built into us. We have brilliantly deciphered some of the patterns of Nature. We have sufficient motivation to work together and the ability to figure out how to do it. If we are willing to contemplate nuclear war and the wholesale destruction of our emerging global society, should we not also be willing to contemplate a wholesale restructuring of our societies?"  Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Socialism cannot come by stealth.

The emancipation of the working-class can be accomplished only by the members of that class consciously organised in a socialist party. Its work consists in educating the working class to the best of our ability. It is of the highest importance that we should keep the class position of the workers as against the capitalists clear in its actions. We are in the midst of a world-wide recession. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity and the prestige of even the strongest of governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the recession still continues. In some minds, there is a hope that the crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another. Some on the Left think that in a time of great distress and much despair workers would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and that they would place in power a government which would remould society on a socialist basis. The Socialist Party’s knowledge of past history and of the way in which the social system develops convinces us that no economic crisis can ever by itself bring us socialism.

Socialism cannot come by stealth. It can only come by the deliberate act of workers who understand socialism and are organised politically to obtain it through control of the machinery of government. The blind revolt of desperate workers would cause great distress and destruction. It might prove troublesome to the capitalist authorities, who would have to exert themselves to suppress it, but the outcome would not be socialism. The lesson to be learned is that there is no way out of capitalism until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending it. So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of capitalism there is no escape from its effects. The workers will continue to suffer from the hardships of the capitalist system.  That is the prospect before the workers of all the world unless they actively interest themselves in understanding socialist principles and assisting in socialist organisation. What are you going to do? Are you going to put it aside and carry on as before, or are you going to acquire socialist knowledge? One way lies poverty, misery and bondage; the other way lies the road to emancipation and, at its end, all the happiness and fullness of life that the gigantic and fruitful machinery of modern industry offers to a world of free and equal men and women. The choice is before you; only knowledge, desire and self-confidence are needed to realise the free society of the future. Place not your trust in others, but be assured that the work there is to do must be done by yourselves. The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the acceptance of the socialist idea.

It is not for us to detail the social system that will arise from the common ownership and democratic control of the instruments of labour. Our knowledge of the conditions which will prevail at the time of the change, and of the outlook upon life of people is not extensive enough to foretell the exact nature of the future social system. We can only state the broad changes that we know must arise from the revolution.

The wages system would be abolished because it is quite plain that there is no other course open than this. With all the means of production and distribution socially owned, no one would be in a position to exploit labour-power, therefore no one would buy it. On the other hand, with the socially owned instruments of labour open to every worker, none would wish to sell his labour-power for another’s profit, even if he could find a buyer. Thus the whole wages system tumbles to the ground. When society as a whole it owns and controls the means of production, it will produce the things society needs. Necessity alone will demand industrial activity.

When Will The Insanity End?

To say the least, capitalism is an insane system. It's fundamental that the ownership of the tools of production by a minority, with the majority of people selling their working abilities to them for money which they use to buy some of the goods they have produced, is insane enough.

 From this flow, all manner of insane situations and the latest being the Republican party selecting a cartoon character to be their Presidential candidate. It is so stupid that newspapers that have urged their readers to vote Republican for years are now telling them to either abstain or vote for Clinton. 

Whomever wins it will still mean the continuation of capitalism and the insanity of billions being spent on war instead of social programs because of capitalism's insane profit priorities. One may well wonder when the insanity will end. It could be with the establishment of Socialism.

 John Ayers.

No more class-divided society

The manner society will organise on a socialist basis will be by securing the co-operation of all in the production of the articles and the operation of the services needed by all the members of society. Goods will not be produced for sale and profit-making, or to provide incomes for investors in company shares or in government bonds, etc., but solely for use. Men and women will no longer work under the threat of starvation but because they will realise that, at last, the interest of the individual is the interest of the whole community and the interest of the whole community also that of the individual.

To those who believe the capitalist teaching that men and women only work when driven to it by starvation and under the threat of losing their job and their livelihood, this is indeed a revolutionary idea but it is time for the working class came to understand their own capability and potential. There is nothing fantastic in holding that the world has now attained the capacity easily to provide an abundant and varied life for all. It is for the working class to become aware of the mission history has allotted to them, that of ending class-divided society for ever, and to strive for the achievement of socialism under which the principle shall be “From each according to ability: to each according to need.”

Socialist society will function quite differently from capitalist society, although initially at least it will have to use mainly the same equipment. The primary task of socialism will be to produce enough of all the things that people need and to get them to the right places at the right times. This will require a large part of the administrative organisation already built up within capitalism. The difference that will be most noticeable will be the simplicity once the cumbersome paraphernalia of capitalism has been removed. Many people are completely engrossed in the ramifications of present capitalist society. They are so conditioned by the impossible job of trying to make capitalism work effectively that they find it difficult to imagine how a real alternative to it could function. To support the whole process of production and distribution, socialist society will need a highly sophisticated system of information: about what people want, in what quantities; and about what is being produced all over the world. Capitalism has already developed technology and techniques which could make such a world-wide system extremely fast, comprehensive and accurate. But because of competition and the secrecy that goes with it; because of the market and its fluctuations; above all because the main aim of capitalism is to produce profit, not goods, capitalism cannot develop a really sensible and workable information system. A socialist world can.

Socialism is only possible because capitalism has preceded it. Capitalism has developed techniques of production potentially capable of producing an abundance; it has developed a world-wide working class which runs every aspect of modern society and it is rapidly developing information technology making world-wide communication simpler and more direct. But at the same time capitalism frustrates all of the developments because of the workings of capital itself and the interests of the capitalist class. The same sort of pattern can be seen in details. Supermarkets, for example, are a highly efficient method of putting a wide range of consumer goods within the reach of a large number of people. The trouble with supermarkets is the bottleneck at the cash desk. Because money will be useless in a socialist world, so will the cash desks. "Supermarkets" will then be able to function at full efficiency. Their shelves will be kept full by the removal of all the financial and trading restrictions that now cause butter-mountains, milk-lakes, and often ruin for farmers.

Modern production is social production. This means that what society can achieve depends on individuals doing different things in different places, but that all these link up with the effect of improving the quality of life for everyone. In socialism, the human capacity for co-operation would be set free to operate where it matters most — in the organisation, production and distribution of goods and the running of services. Co-operation would then operate throughout the entire structure of society. This will bring work under the democratic control of those who carry it out. It will be the self-determined activity of individuals, responding to the needs of the community of which they form a part and having responsibility and the real power of decision-making and action. Combined with the powers of production which already exist, co-operation in socialism would, in a relatively short period of time, deal with problems that now appear to be beyond control. There are few problems which cannot be solved by useful labour, acting throughout the world in co-operation. This is the prospect that world socialism holds.

Profit, rent and interest.

What is the ultimate source from which the landlord derives his rents, the industrialist his profits, and the banker his interest?

The property-owner knows that he receives rent from his tenants, whether those tenants are factory owners, farmers, or home-occupiers. The factory-owner knows he receives his profit from the sale of the goods produced by the workers employed in his factory. The money-lender knows that his interest likewise comes also ultimately out of the proceeds of the sale of goods. Likewise, the worker who rents a house is able to pay the rent only because his employer has sold goods and can pay wages out of the proceeds of past sales of the goods the worker produced for him. Ultimately, therefore, all forms of income arise from goods produced for sale.

What is it that gives goods of all kinds a value and enables them to be sold at their appropriate prices which provide both for the wages of the workers and for the profits, rent and interest of the propertied class? The explanation is that commodities have values which arise from what Marx termed the “socially necessary labour” embodied in them. To take a simple explanation, a bicycle worth £100, a suit of clothes worth £100, and a certain weight of gold worth £100, all have the same value because the amount of labour required in their production is the same. (The selling price of an article may in practice deviate from value, and secondly only that labour is value-producing which is “socially necessary” labour)

There is one commodity which has two peculiar features. This commodity is the “labour-power”, the physical and mental energies of the worker. Its first peculiar feature is that it is possessed by the working-class who, apart from this, have no commodities to sell. Not having any other commodity to sell, the worker has to obtain his livelihood by selling his “labour-power” to the capitalist, by the hour, day, week or month as the case may be. Like other commodities, it has a value, which is proportionate to the amount of labour required for its production; which means the amount of labour required on an average to produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc., of the worker and his dependents. Under the different climatic conditions of different countries and the different conditions of different occupations the worker requires differing amounts of means of subsistence, but this is a qualification which need not detain us in considering the simple elements of the position.

The second peculiar feature possessed by the commodity “labour-power” is that it has the quality of being able to produce a value greater than its own. When the worker expends his labour-power by working on the employer’s raw materials he is capable of adding a value greater than the wage he is paid, or in other words a value greater than the value of the food, clothing, etc., that he consumes. In a working week of six days, for example, the worker may be working, say, three days producing value equal to the value of his means of subsistence (his wages), but in the remaining three days, he will continue to work producing value which is retained by the capitalist. This “surplus value” is the source from which all forms of property income, all profit, rent and interest are derived.

This, then, is the answer to our question. The property income of the capitalists, like the income of slave owners in former times, is derived from the exploitation of the workers. The workers are carrying on their backs the whole of the propertied class.

It may seem that the contract between employers and employees is just like any other bargain entered into voluntarily, as, for example, the contracts between capitalists when they buy and sell commodities. The wage contract however only appears to be free but, in truth, it is forced. The capitalists, because they are the owners of property and their ownership is endorsed by law and protected by the State, can impose more or less their own terms when they bargain with the property-less working-class. They are able to do so for the reason that the workers are always only a short distance from destitution. The workers must accept more or less the terms that are offered because otherwise they face unemployment and have not the means to hold back for more than a short time. The workers’ bargaining position is helped but necessarily to a limited extent only, by trade unions.  

A slave owned by a slave-master, knew very well that he was labouring to provide for the slave-owner as well as himself. He did not imagine that he was entering into a voluntary arrangement. Similarly, a serf, obliged to work unpaid for the Lord of the Manor could clearly see that he was being robbed and exploited. To-day exploitation takes the form of “wage-slavery”.

Defenders of capitalism do their best to argue that their incomes arise from sources other than the exploitation of workers. They talk of the thrift and self-denial of the capitalist. They talk of their own long hours of “work”, and that they are indispensable as “supervisors” and “organisers”. They make much of their superior business knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. Or that they are inventors and discoverers.

But at the end of it all, the propertied class provide the facilities and the instruments of they allow the working-class to produce and operate them – on condition that the workers agree to their own exploitation, working part of the week to produce the equivalent of their wages and the rest of the week creating surplus-value which is the source from which all the sections of the propertied class derive their profits, rent and interest.

Socialism is all about organising

Socialism is the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Socialism is not a utopian ideal or a blueprint for society that exists in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity; it is the direction that people, in order to satisfy their social needs, must take in order to save society from disintegration. To be a socialist merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work in an organised manner for the realisation of the goal.

Production is already carried on socially. Labour has been socialized. Capitalism has become concentrated and centralised which organises a great multitude of little operations under a single direction. Capitalism has already accomplished a great deal in eliminating the need for high skills by simplifying the operations in production. The only important thing that has not been socialized is the ownership and the appropriation of the products of industry. They remain private. And therein lies the root of capitalist exploitation and oppression, of the anarchy of production and of crises. Social production represents the seeds of the socialist society growing right in the soil of capitalist society itself.

Capitalism also produces the force capable of reorganizing society - the working class, brought into existence and developed by capitalism itself. Capitalist production organises the workers as a class. The very way in which work is carried on assemblies the workers for cooperative labour. Capitalism wipes out the basis for the workers’ interest in maintaining private property. The workers are now propertyless workers. The workers suffer intensely from the rule of capitalism. Their interests are diametrically opposed to those of the capitalists. The struggle between working class and capitalist class is the sharpest and most irreconcilable. The workers cannot rid themselves of their sufferings without abolishing the domination that the machine has over them. They can do this only if they gain control of the machine itself. In doing so, they must destroy capitalism and proceed with the complete reorganisation of society. The working class is thus the bearer of socialism.

Humanity will no longer be the slave of the machine. Automation and robotics will serve mankind. Every increase in productivity through technological innovation will bring with it two things: an increase in the things required for the need, comfort and luxury of all; and an increase in everyone’s leisure time, to devote to the free cultural and intellectual development of humankind. Despite all the restrictions that capitalism places upon production, industry, properly planned and organised, can produce the necessities of life for all in a working day of four hours or less. Men and women will not live primarily to work; they will work primarily to live. As the necessities and comforts of life become increasingly abundant, and the differences between physical and mental labour, between town and country, are eliminated, the last vestiges of inequality will disappear. These divisions will be eliminated as will all aspects of commodity production (production for sale and profit rather than production for use.) Wage-slavery will be seen as just as criminal and absurd as ancient slavery. The slave-owners and the capitalists have one fundamental thing in common–they are both exploiters, and they both regard it as the correct and perfect order of things for a small group of parasites to live off the majority of laboring people. They differ only in the form in which they exploit and therefore in their view of how society should be organised to ensure this exploitation. The working class has no interest in promoting private gain at the expense of others and every interest in promoting cooperation. For only in this way can it emancipate itself and all humanity.

Fracking Awful

A series of new reports published by the Scottish Government into the potential health effects of fracking found there was “sufficient” evidence to suggest that a number of “air and water-born environmental hazards” would be likely to occur should the operations go ahead.

Workers could also be at risk from breathing in dangerous crystalline silica during operations, the report found, a risk to health that could also affect those living near to fracking sites. Energy and Climate Change Minister Paul Wheelhouse emphasised the importance of remembering that shale gas and coalbed methane resources are located in the most densely populated part of country. Increases in traffic could also result in more noise and emissions in the affected areas. However, the report found that there was “inadequate” data to determine whether the development of shale oil and gas or coal bed methane would pose a risk to public health overall. He told MSPs that a “precautionary, evidence-based approach” would continue.  

Also, analysing the impact fracking could have on climate change, experts from the Committee on Climate Change concluded that developing unconventional oil and gas (UOG) would make it harder for the country to meet environmental targets. Left entirely unregulated, the emissions footprint of unconventional oil and gas production could be substantial,” the report warned.

Researchers reported it was “unclear” if the fracking industry was “commericially viable”, with current low oil prices providing a “challenging” financial climate. The industry would contribute an average of 0.1 per cent GDP.

Friends of the Earth Head of Campaigns Mary Church said: "Fracking is bad for the climate, bad for public health and won't do much good for the economy. That's the damning verdict of the independent studies published by the Scottish Government today, echoing the concerns of communities across the country.

Poverty Scotland

Up to one in three children grow up in poverty in parts of Scotland, a new study for the End Child Poverty coalition suggested. 

3.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK - with 220,000 of them in Scotland. The worst-hit local authority area in Scotland is Glasgow, where 34.1% of children are affected.

Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, explained: "Poverty in Scotland continues to harm the lives of children across Scotland… Living on a low income not only affects their well-being now, but can have a negative impact in the future. This is an unnecessary situation and one that requires urgent attention."

A separate study has revealed that 63,794 three-day supplies of emergency food were handed out to people in Scotland at Trussell Trust foodbanks. The figures showed that problems with benefits remain the most significant reason for foodbank use, accounting for a total of 42% of referrals. One in four were due to benefit delays and 17% were sparked by benefit changes.

The trust's Scotland network manager, Ewan Gurr, said: "… we are still experiencing an epidemic of hunger in Scotland. Benefit delays and changes are still the primary reasons underpinning the increased number of referrals to foodbanks. What is more concerning, however, is that hunger is also clearly and consistently being driven by low income. A decrease in the cash in people's pockets leads to an increase in the use of foodbanks."