A Better World

There has been discontent, unrest, protest and movements for democracy and against austerity across the globe. These movements have been a strong expression of anger and address concerns about the lack of democracy, social justice, and dignity. Modern society is a system based on private property and dominated by the capitalist mode of production with the aim to create surplus-value. People are being socialised into passive producers and consumers. Today’s democracy has broken all its promises and the progressive liberal political parties have been reduced to piecemeal reform of capitalism. But even this palliative policy has become problematic as capitalism has developed into a more global system where state interventionism becomes more and more difficult. International free trade agreements and institutions such as the IMF restrict what an individual nation can do and not do. Transnational corporations are powerful players in domestic and international politics.

Unless humanity breaks through the denial that there is no alternative and that this is the best there is we face dim and daunting days ahead. Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the primary goal of making profits. In capitalism, people are not considered important unless the market potential makes them important. We want a new and better future. Socialism is the worldwide ‘movement of movements’ driven by an awareness that the multiple crises we face are fundamentally caused by an outmoded economic system in need of wholesale transformation. But this is what we still lack - a truly unified fusion of movements that comprises the collective actions of an engaged working class yet this is our greatest hope for bringing about world socialism. We are fighting for a different kind of world, one in which folks stand united in which we dare to see the humanity in each other. Cynicism is the greatest enemy we face in our struggles, even above and beyond the terrors of oppression, because it saps us of the energy we need to actually change our circumstances. We cannot simply wait for the implosion of the capitalist system and expect the socialist utopia to arise spontaneously from its ashes. We can build upon the cooperative and empathetic values if we struggle against those who aim to exploit and systemize our more anti-social attitudes.

If you don’t own the means of production you can never turn them to your advantage. We want a world where we produce things for need, not for profit; for use value, not for exchange. We cannot achieve that without a political challenge to the capitalist class. If we look at ourselves, we find we are not as selfish and calculated as the ideologists of capitalism would have it. We often forget that the vast majority of people know deep down inside that the world is unfair that a few have too much and most have too little. What stops them from taking action to remedy the problem is rarely the lack of knowledge but instead a lack of hope. They feel that capitalism, inequality, and injustice are inevitable. The idea that to struggle for a better world is naive, and that if the system were to collapse, a far worse tyranny would appear. Hasn’t that been the evidence of the past? Not only should we argue that human beings have the capacity for good and evil and people aren’t always cruel and vicious, but we must emphasise that the negative side of our behaviour was not when social order broke down, but when order and the State was restored.

The capitalists who would pit us against each other via the construct of the labour market. Leaders don’t unite us, instead, they incite us one against the other. Leaders don’t respect us, instead, they deceive us. Leaders don’t help us, instead, they corruptly fill their own coffers.

We are set to enter a period for unprecedented change. The world needs to change and has to do it fast. Climate change and environmental degradation war, and economic inequality are key problems the global community currently faces. How can we create participatory workplaces that make decision-making more democratic and equitable? To imagine a better economic and political system is a necessary step in making it happen. It seems impossible to deny that our current global capitalist system has created, and prevents us from fixing, the mess we are in. Primarily this is due to the power of the profit engine of capitalism, which in turn incentivizes the externalisation of as many costs as possible. The owners of capital are driven to make ever greater profits -- the system rewards those who do and punishes those who don't -- which of course leads the profit seeker to reduce costs in any way possible. To survive, capitalists must try to avoid paying for the negative consequences of whatever is the source of their profits, be it the instruments of war, environmental destruction, global warming, over-consumption or an unhealthy food system. Protecting and maximising profit gives capitalists the motive to deny the ill effects of its production methods. Few governments will pass laws that may negatively affect profits which is the source of what some call crony capitalism, but which is, in fact, a logical outcome of a system that promotes greed and private profit. The reality is that governments are run by and for the rich.

But what sort of social system can be imagined which will save us from global warming and growing inequality; one that can come about so that weapons are turned into ploughshares? We refuse to see this one truth: we need a new economy. It is time to come together and build a better system, one that promotes environmental sustainability, equality, and cooperation. For change to happen peacefully it must be popular, supported by most people around the world. That, in turn, means the new system must ultimately be more democratic because the most popular system is one in which most people feel they have a stake and share in.

Socialism aims to create new, free, collaborative economic relationships where the technological tools are owned by everybody and used for everyone in a cooperative way. The World Socialist Movement plans a planetary cooperative and a better world of the future.

Towards real socialism

Did you ever ask yourself why capitalism continues to exist in spite of all the problems it is causing in the world? The simple answer is because the people support capitalism and that they support it because they believe in it. As long as most people believe in the ideas of capitalism it will remain unassailable. A battle of ideas is required, not street battles at the barricades. A popular movement if it is able to ideologically defeat the ruling class then civil servants and police will defect, making a non-violent peaceful revolution possible. Armed insurrection usually gives cause to adversaries to be savage and ruthless, and the State is very much better organized and equipped for any such militarised confrontation. The outcome is inevitably tragic for the workers’ side. The ruling class is increasingly nervous because they know that if revolutionary ideas that question their legitimacy prevail and if their own propaganda to justify their privilege and power fails, they are finished. This is why voices of dissent are suppressed by the state. It is tempting to view the ruling class as simply sadistic but they are mostly acting out of fear, afraid of equality, afraid of real democracy, and afraid of justice. Batons and tear-gas may work in the short-term, but they won’t put out the spirit of change.

Although it appears that the social struggles are lying dormant, radical ideas are percolating are rising among our fellow-workers. Popular discontent for the ruling elite across the political spectrum, from Right to Left is nearly universal. A righteous anger of the people exists. It is a question of which ideas will win through. An insignificant spark can easily ignite a rebellion. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. We cannot ‘make’ a real revolution. No person or movement can ignite it. No one knows the form it will take. They appear suddenly and unexpectedly, neither the rulers’ nor the workers’ parties having any warning.  But socialists must be organised to educate and agitate when it arrives to transform destructive anger into constructive revolution. The articulation of a viable socialism is of a vital necessity. Once the vision of a new society takes hold in the popular imagination, the old regime is finished. Opposition and protest devoid of ideas and vision are never a threat to the ruling class. Without a clear definition and direction, without ideas behind it, revolution descends into chaos. The development of revolutionary consciousness often goes unseen and unnoticed. The slow, quiet, and peaceful social evolution becomes a revolution. This is where we are headed. Other than an apocalyptic catastrophe, socialism is the only option left. The Socialist Party has the potential to educate people before it’s too late.

Because the socialist movement is an organic living network around the world, it is difficult to set forth a clear blueprint or predict the future. Still, we can embrace certain general principles. Socialism is a concept not well understood, but it essentially advocates a system of common-ownership and democratic control. The goal is actual participation by the people in the running of our affairs, including the work place. Rather than having politicians make all of the important decisions “for” us, a socialist society would have delegates who could be recalled and replaced if they started making decisions on matters of import without the consent of the majority. This is actually the way we have organized ourselves for most of our time on planet Earth. In other words, real participatory democracy of self-governing associations. Socialism is interdependent, interconnected and integrated.

Socialism will consist of  communities with rules, social norms, and accepted practices for managing their commonly-owned shared resources. It is not a free-for-all society in which there is no community, no rules which, in truth, is something more akin to the right-wing libertarian free-marketeers where people’s lives become more atomized and communities have been broken down. Socialism will run by the people who will choose to administer resources in a democratic collective manner, with a special regard for free and equitable access, production for use, and responsible stewardship of the environment. There will be no more private or state plunder of our common wealth. Cooperative activity will supersede the predatory markets and centralised bureaucracies. The scale of human connection has grown - from tribes to communities to nation-states and norms and ethics become inevitable in spaces where groups of human beings come together to interact with another. We know that urban populations are going to keep increasing in the foreseeable future. So we must radically re-imagine our cities. They must become not only ecologically productive and sustainable but able to reflect its citizens’ wishes by participatory democracy and socialising sports and leisure, the arts and culture, cooking and eating.

If the revolution is to be successful it must be global. The very thought of workers internationalism has always struck fear into the capitalist class everywhere. They are accustomed to living in a transnational existence and benefit when we the people are confined within borders but the digital revolution permits us, for the first time, to create a true international. It is time to recapture the spirit of the Industrial Workers of the World and the idea of a global “One Big Union”. The modes of socialist organisation are extremely elastic and can be formed, modified adapted and adjusted, added to, re-shaped and re-formed according to local conditions and changing circumstances, therein is its chief strength. The world socialist movement will be a flexible network of various relationships of mutual aid. Errors and mistakes will thus be confined to the jurisdiction of specific groups and so limiting damage.

Socialists have a daunting task ahead. But it may not be as hopeless as it seems. Capitalism relies to a great extent on voluntary servitude. When enough people in what may be a mass awakening decide the game is up, the game will be up.

Children Exposed To Poverty

As child poverty in British Columbia increases, kids are reaching school age more vulnerable than at any time in the last fifteen years, a new University of BC report has found. Teachers were asked to rate each child based on their physical health, social skills, emotional maturity, language development and communication abilities. The results showed 32.2 per cent were below par.

According to Joanne Shroeder, director of the Comox Valley Child Development Association,''High levels of poverty in BC are a major factor in children's well-being. The stress of living in poverty is not good for children. Many families with young children are working long hours to balance child care and shift work.''

It is one of the most damning indictments of capitalism imaginable that children should be exposed to poverty with all the social ills it creates and alarming that child poverty is increasing. 

Ms. Shroeders suggestion is increased public investment in early childhood development which would do minimal good as long as capitalist politicians can spare the money. 

A society where poverty would not exist would be a better answer. 

John Ayers.

Not So Compassionate

Jarley Silva is an illegal immigrant from Brazil, whom, after living in Canada for nine years, was hit by a car, in 2011, and still bears the scars including 23 screws in his shattered leg. The accident, in Toronto's west end, was a hit and run as he was crossing the street. Since no one took the licence number the driver was never identified. Though Silva has tried hard he hasn't been able to collect a cent owing to his illegal residency. Under Provincial law the government doesn't give payouts from its Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund to anyone in Ontario illegally. 

That's what so great about capitalism - it's so compassionate.

 John Ayers

It's Time to Imagine a New Society

We live in the beginning of a global technological revolution which will turn society’s conditions upside down. We cannot stop this transformation, but we can influence where it will go. Capitalism has corroded the social fabric of societies around the world, destroyed solidarity among people and established a climate of fierce competition and struggle for survival. People are left without any positive prospect or hope for the future. People feel cheated by something or someone that they cannot properly identify yet there exists an immense anger. There have been endless mass protests. The position of the Socialist Party, however, is that the irrationalities of capitalism can only be countered by an organised social movement rather than any individualist and anti-technology politics that permeates the so-called anti-capitalist current. There are libraries of books that analyse what is wrong with society, the majority of which are trying to advocate the impossible – which is to propose reforms both old and new that are claimed will benefit the people. We cannot create a better world by waging a war against capitalism while at the same time upholding the current economic system. We have gone too far now trying to make improvements within a society that is led by blind and unbridled market forces. The time has come when we must demonstrate in our millions not against this or that, but rather for something. The one solution is to unite the people throughout the world, for social revolution. No other solution will work until the people throughout the world rise up in unison together. When millions of people gather in protest from nation to nation, there is an unconscious to conscious realisation that we are one humanity.

Humanity must share the world’s wealth and resources. Sharing is inherent in every person and integral to who we are as human beings. The greed and selfish indifference that defines our society has been implanted and conditioned within us. For the Socialist Party, the fundamental thing is that people must want change before they can achieve a social revolution. And they must prepare for a social revolution. We do not place much faith in spontaneous uprisings. We stand for a class-free, state-free society of common ownership in which money becomes redundant and the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" applies. We are committed to the concept of a self-organised majority revolution without leaders and for the working class forming a political party to contest elections and eventually win control of political power, not to form a government but to immediately abolish capitalism and usher in the money-free, wages-free society that real socialism will be. The alternative to capitalism is a society in which all forms of exchange and money will be abolished and all land and property will be taken into the control of the community. The parliamentary path does not imply that people hand over their power to others every few years. Parliament is the institution to which the working class shall send their delegates with the purpose of declaring capitalism abolished and to validate this revolutionary act. There has to be some means to effect the necessary transfer of power from the capitalist to the working class, a means which clearly and democratically indicates the will of the socialist majority. This conquest is, indeed, an indispensable condition of the social revolution, in other words, of the transformation of capitalist property into social property. It is only after and by the political expropriation of the capitalist class that its economic expropriation can be achieved. The parliamentary process is the answer.  It will be within our party, not parliament that the “self-activity” and “self-organisation” of the working class will be realised. Far from excluding each other, electoral action and revolutionary action complete each other. There is not, and there never will be, other than a single category of means, determined by circumstances: those which conduct to end pursued.

We can also dismiss the idea of the “workers’ state” peddled by some Trotskyists. In ‘Socialism: Scientific and Utopian’ Engels gives us a repudiation of the view that the state can be progressive:

“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal collective capitalist. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more it actually becomes collective capitalist, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-workers, proletarians. But the capitalist relation is not done away with; it is rather brought to a head.”

Marx and Engels saw the state as the "executive committee" of a ruling class. In a socialist society, the state, as the government over people, would give way to a simple, democratic "administration of things". The vision of a socialist society can be fairly summed up as a world-wide system of social organisation based on 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, a  society where human beings would voluntarily contribute in accordance with their mental and/or physical abilities to the production and distribution of the needs of their society and in which everyone would have free and equal access to their needs.

Capitalism can’t be reformed so as to work in people's interests. Profits always come first and people second. William Morris writes:

"The Socialist League has declared over and over again its sense of the futility of Socialists wasting their time in getting . . . palliative measures passed, which, if desirable to be passed as temporarily useful, will be passed much more readily if they do not mix themselves up in the matter, and which are at least intended by our masters to hinder Socialism and not further it. Over and over again it has deprecated Socialists mixing themselves up in political intrigues; and it believes no useful purpose can be served by their running after the votes of those who do not understand the principles of Socialism."

Socialists understand the global nature of capitalism and the folly of trying to establish socialism in one country. Capitalism is international.

TO CREATE IS TO RESIST - TO RESIST IS TO CREATE

NO MORE RUSH HOURS

The majority of Torontonians are finding the construction projects in the downtown core to be an inconvenience when both streets and sidewalks are closed. 76 per cent, in a telephone survey, said they disagreed with the developers and contractors who said it was necessary. Whether it is or isn't is hardly the moot point, which is the fact that it's just another problem that capitalism causes. Most of the congestion is, obviously, in rush hour. 

In a socialist society work would be organized in such a way there wouldn't be a rush hour. It's probable there wouldn't be a downtown either.

 John Ayers.

The National's Blinkers

Andrew Carnegie was the wealthiest Scot that ever lived, and at one point was the richest man in the world with a fortune that some experts have estimated at the equivalent of $200 billion in current money, or more than twice the worth of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. However, The National’s hagiographic portrayal of Carnegie, as the man who worked himself up from nothing with hard work omitted certain unsavoury aspects of his life. He is absolved of all responsibility in brutal strike-breaking because as the newspaper has it – “he was on holiday”.

The truth is that he did not have the courage to execute his own murderous designs so he commissioned another to carry out the crimes while he mixed and mingled with the upper classes until the ghastly work was done. Just before he left for his Highland estate, Carnegie instructed the head of the plant Henry Clay Frick to reduce wages by 25 percent and end union recognition. Carnegie was not holding back from any confrontation with his strikers. Frick had reputation for ruthlessness against unions and strikers. Carnegie may not have been at the scene of the crime at the time and although he may not have personally pulled the trigger, he had loaded and aimed the gun for Frick to fire. In the cables sent to Frick it clearly shows he supported the move to employ strike-breakers and gave instructions to Frick do whatever was necessary to win the battle against the strikers. Carnegie was fully complicit in how the Homestead incident was handled and he himself wrote: "The handling of this case on the part of the company has my full approval and sanction." 

 Carnegie broke the strike and slashed wages even further, imposed a longer work day and blacklisted over 500 men who would never again work in the mills again. The union lost virtually its entire treasury supporting strikers and successfully defending them against attempts by Carnegie to have them convicted of murder and other crimes. Carnegie effectively crushed the workers at Homestead and as a result, unionism would die in steel plants throughout the country. By 1900, not a single steel plant in Pennsylvania remained union. By 1910, the union had no members at all. Unionism had been eradicated from the entire steel industry, and though the output of steel mills had doubled and the number of working hours had increased from 10hrs to 12hrs a day, pay barely increased. In many mills, it actually decreased. Workers would have virtually no say in their conditions or wages, and while the company's profits soared, its work-force was reduced to a state of semi-slavery. So just remember whose blood, sweat, and tears paid for those libraries.  

Unlike The National newspaper, Henry Frick held a more honest view of his and Carnegie’s morality.

“You can tell Carnegie I’ll meet him. Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going.” Frick explained.

Likewise, this anonymous poem well understood the Carnegie that The National refrains from exposing.

"A Man Named Carnegie"

Sing ho, for we know you, Carnegie;

God help us and save us, we know you too well;

You're crushing our wives and you're starving our babies;

In our homes you have driven the shadow of hell.

Then bow, bow down to Carnegie,

Ye men who are slaves to his veriest whim;

If he lowers your wages cheer, vassals, then cheer.

Ye are nothing but chattels and slaves under him.

Evolution or Extinction

Humanity has suffered a loss of vision and direction. Life, as it is, cannot carry on in this way forever. We continue to destroy our forests, pollute our air, soil, and water, and wreak havoc upon our eco-systems. If we continue with our current practices, we may destroy ourselves. Socialists recognise the looming catastrophe, but a few of us also realise that this crisis can also be driving us toward positive change. In the midst of this nascent consciousness, the capitalists try to maintain the status quo despite the many warnings that the old ways are no longer sustainable. We still are lacking a coherent social potential movement to connect our communities and society as a whole. But the fact that people are now awakening is evidence of the emerging progress of humanity. A leader-free network is working to bring about radical change.

Capitalism is built on violence and it was created with violence. Make no mistake there is a class war. Nevertheless, the socialist movement is not here to attack but rather to transcend and include the best of what has come before and to attract that which needs to come forth for the flourishing of our human and planetary potential. Its objective is to evolve all of us, our communities, and our world so that all people are free to fulfill their highest potential. Its aim is not to destroy, but to fulfill. Socialists recognise that we have inherited enormous resources from capitalism and that many of those resources can be re-purposed now for the social good.

We as individuals have not changed much physiologically or intellectually in the past thousands of years, but our larger social body has become radically empowered. We have now been born into an extended social and scientific capacity that has never before existed on Earth. We are beginning to discover a path of collaborative action that will lead us toward an immeasurable and positive future. The crises and opportunities we face today are triggering the next stage of social evolution in which we can cooperate and re-pattern our economic and political systems. We need people who are willing to stand together, build a transformative movement for social change that unites people behind a vision of a world based the economics of production for use and not for profits. The role of the Socialist Party is to simply unlock and open doors to get people thinking more deeply about the world they live in and what is around them.

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign which misdirects us into believing that life-style and individual consumer choices will change things rather than organised political resistance. We so often hear that the world is running out of water and people are dying from lack of water so we need to take shorter showers. The truth is more than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual individual humans. Golf courses use as much water as human beings. An individual’s consumption compared with commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government and military is a negligible impact on energy use, global-warming, and atmospheric pollution. Town and city waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States. Let us not delude ourselves that going “green” is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change. It incorrectly assigns blame and guilt to the individual, not to the system. Our only option is to act decisively to stop the industrial capitalism.

We must not falter

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

The biggest question for socialists is whether we can build a permanent organisation that can carry forward the political revolution in the long-term; or whether, like so many other previous attempts it quickly dissipates and disappears. There has rarely been a better opportunity to create and build an effective socialist organisation than now. The historical moment is right, with millions now understanding how rigged the economic and political system has become.  We’re at a historical turning point where it is imperative to halt and reverse climate change. Of course, socialists still have a long way to go. Many of the people now declaring themselves socialists aren’t clear about what they mean by the word and it’s safe to guess that they are merely referring to a welfare state and increased government regulation that Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn speak of. Common ownership of the means of production is not yet on their agenda. But this increased interest in socialism generally does make it clear that discontent with decades of stagnating wages and the pain caused by the 2008 economic crisis are starting to take a political form. For millions, the many problems of capitalism are no longer seen as individual problems or the result of personal mistakes but instead, the remind people that the difficulties they face are not their fault and that they deserve more than they are getting. They are looking for collective (class) solutions to social problems. They are beginning to realise that capitalism is an economic system which sacrifices workers to the logic of the capitalist market.

 The role of a socialist party is to offer a direction for this discontent and anger, to name and shame the forces and individuals that benefit from the way society is run and from how the world’s resources are distributed, the capitalists and their politician lackeys. People are stirring again. The era of "me-ism" is drawing to a close. People are awakening again. The courage, imagination and commitment required to begin the journey to a better, just and peaceful world are returning and growing stronger. Our collective voice of protest is shattering the silence once more. Now is not the time to falter. No one said the socialist revolution would be easy. We must remain engaged and engage with others. The greatest problem we have is that many of our fellow-workers can’t imagine any alternative. And that is the challenge: to invent, create and think as if we were living just after the collapse of capitalism, and how we will organise. The socialist movement must endeavor to deepen our relationships to one another, and to reinvent ways of being that are rooted in horizontal solidarity, sharing, and democracy. We cannot legitimise the power of the state through policies of begging and petitioning for reforms. In our revolution, we cannot substitute intermediaries for class participation. We begin with our needs, and from there we decide what we want. The solution is based firmly on the principle of sharing and it that which holds the key to addressing the whole spectrum of interconnected social, economic and environmental challenges we face in the critical period ahead. 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that our political and economic system is not run by the people, but controlled by the economic elite in their own private interest. The World Socialist Movement aims to build a peaceful, people-powered revolution, creating a society that benefits the many and not the few, where our world is founded on economic security and shared resources. We do not live in a world of scarcity. We do not need continuous economic growth through the conquest of nature because there is enough for everyone to live peacefully and prosperously on the planet. Greed, competition, violence should not be regarded as natural phenomena. This is the time for taking care of each other, relying on one another, for our well-being is interconnected. Socialism brings resiliency and freedom. Climate change crisis and ecological devastation forces upon us the possibilities for reshaping how we live.

We are going to win

"Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are built of star stuff."—Carl Sagan

Sometimes it is difficult to imagine alternative ways of living and organising. Capitalism is not the only system there is. It’s not inherent within us. It isn’t some inevitable expression of predefined human nature. It was developed by human beings and so human beings can change it. But in order to get there, we first have to engage in thinking about real change.

Capitalism equates wealth with success, which is then equated to virtue e.g. rich people are good, poor people are bad, therefore poverty is a moral failing of the person and that if we can’t be rich, there is something wrong with us and we deserve to suffer the consequence. We are programmed from birth to believe in the moral philosophy of competition, individualism, the virtue of material consumption, and social status determined by the wealth hierarchy. They tell us that it is people of merit who rise to the top of the system. We are told that those with the most money deserve to have power over the rest of us. Accumulation of money and property is seen as the be all and end all of life. Capitalism promotes the idea that selfishness is rational and efficient. Capitalism turns people and natural resources into commodities in order to attract more capital. That’s its sole purpose. The capitalists use a culture of indoctrination as the means of ensuring we remain submissive, docile and obedient. There is no conspiracy other than the logic of capitalist thought selling us false ideas.  We are told that as the rich get richer the rest of us will get richer too.  We are told that we can solve global poverty if rich countries give more aid to poor countries. We are told that our governments are democratic. They tell us that our media is free, honest and impartial. But we know that these are lies. Education and the news are so heavily filtered and propagandized that it bears little resemblance to any truth.

The World Socialist Movement challenges the capitalist belief-system and points to another way of living. We seek to make our future and create the better world we know is possible, where there is no 'I' or 'you', but only 'we.' I am another you and you are another me. We are all one. I am in you, and you are in me. All of humanity is just one. And all 7 billion of us are all variations of the same. We are different manifestations of the same yet in our details our diversity is endless. Socialism is where no one is excluded.

The WSM sign-posts the first steps on a journey to more connected communities. We are on the side of the people who are willing to fight back. Socialists do not resign ourselves to the fate we are told is inevitable. We are people who refuse to continue as wage-slaves. We are people who know we are human beings. We understand that unless it is stopped, capitalism may kill everyone and everything on the planet. If we don’t change our direction we’re going to wind up in a world of ecological collapse and  social collapse. It’s essential for all of us to look ahead and ask, ‘What kind of world do we want to have? What’s the personal contribution we can make in bringing such a world about?’

A new world  will only arrive when people begin to want it and start to build towards it.

Dundee and Poverty

Large numbers of Dundonians live below the poverty line.

But a number of neighbourhoods in the Lochee council ward suffer more than most.

More than half of residents in some areas in the city’s north-west live in deprivation.

In Whorterbank, the situation is grave, with more than half of residents living below the worst poverty line. And almost a third of children across the Lochee area are facing impoverished conditions on a daily basis.

In addition to that, a fifth of people in the ward fare poorly when it comes to work and income — with unemployment also an issue in the majority of areas — though Gowrie Park fares better than most here with around 60% of folk in a job.

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/poverty-needs-addressed-lochee/

Societies change, nothing stays the same.

Revolution is the overthrow of previous existing social system and modes with their ruling class. i.e. feudalism to capitalism, capitalism to post-capitalism. The media persist in lying that the Cuban revolt was a social revolution. It was nothing of the kind. Socialism is a post-capitalist system of society. Nothing to do with the state-capitalist, Leninist regime which existed in Cuba, most of the pseudo-'communist' regimes were post-feudal revolutions, attempts to kick-start capitalism and in the absence of sufficient home-grown capitalists, the state stepped into the breach. Socialism is not some top-down management by the state, or a replacement of one dictatorship for another, or reformed Labourite government. Those are certainly doomed to fail, as capitalism cannot be managed or reformed, but they are failures of capitalism and not socialism. Socialism is common ownership, production for use and free access. We use socialism and communism interchangeably, meaning the same thing, as Marx did.

We have been supporting the 5% parasite capitalist class through hell and back with two world wars and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for our pains and they are picking sides for another go, as capitalism has entered its decadent phase, since the start of the last century never mind this one. We 95% do not freely produce for the free use by all but are enslaved by the wages system (rationed) to produce for sale, for the profit of a minority parasite class 5% of owners.

We have created the technological conditions for superabundance and leisure for the free access future society, but require a conscious political seizure by the immense majority of the ownership of the means of production and distribution. Abolish the wages system and establish a society of superabundance where lawyers and bankers, money, prices, etc. will not exist and no more wars over competing economic parasite interests. It is time you stopped following leaders. Everybody else should know better by now to stop clutching at the will o' the wisp capitalist or state capitalist or reformist straws.

Educate agitate and organise, as we have a cooperative commonwealth world of free access and democratic control by us all, to win. Dissolve the governments over you and their politicians. Elect yourselves for the last great emancipation, that of the wage slaves.

"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois." Marx and Engels, 1879

The choice is socialism or barbarism.

Capitalism progressive purpose is served. It is now in its decadent phase and has been so since the start of last century. It can't resolve the problems of distribution without the twin concomitants of war (arising out of competition between rival capitalists and poverty relative or absolute, (arising out of waged slavery and exploitation at the point of production to produce profits for the parasite owning class).

Humankind has reached the ‘era of social revolution’ but the revolution is yet to begin. Capitalism has gone into its phase of global crisis cycles and anarchy leading to world wars involving capital against capital, fomenting national prejudices and pitting workers against workers to slaughter one another, destroying productive forces on all contending sides and producing misery, poverty, waste, pollution and environment destruction. This is, however, not to say that capital has come to a dead halt. Capital’s nature of exploitation, appropriation, and accumulation of surplus value continues as long as it exists.

Capital develops unevenly through concentration and centralization. And for that matter capital is still going on accumulating globally whereby one capital kills many giving rise to gigantic conglomerates. Accumulation is going through destruction and annihilation. This is reactionary. This is decadence

Productive forces have developed to the stage of both actual and potential abundance for all. But the working class consciousness and organization have remained subdued under the domination of capitalist ideas and interests – constantly and crushingly campaigned by all pervading 'right', 'left', 'centre' chronicles and ideologies.

They comprise all various belligerent factions of capital. Although they use different names and slogans on their banners, they don’t have any scientific alternative to capital’s devastatingly continued reproduction. They are mere reformists of all various hues. We have experienced enough of such things. And enough is enough! They have given capitalism a century-long anachronistic existence. Measures which were once very necessary and useful for maturation of the system have already more or less accomplished their tasks and grown old and outdated.

The material productive forces of society have come into conflict with the existing relations of production. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations have turned into their fetters or, in other words, the productive forces have outgrown the production relation. The real revolution takes place with the battle of ideas in the lead up to the post-capitalist society, to ensure the majority is a politically aware one with the consciousness.

Why settle for crumbs when we could have the whole bakery.

We have a world to win

But nothing will stop an idea which time has come.

Wee Matt

Are Cooperatives the Way?

“If cooperative production is not to remain a sham and a mare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system; if the united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of Capitalist production—what else, gentlemen, would it be but Communism, ‘possible’ Communism?” – Marx

“My proposal envisages the introduction of cooperatives into existing production ... just as the Paris Commune demanded that the workers should manage cooperatively the factories closed down by the manufacturers’… [neither Marx nor he himself had] ‘ever doubted that, in the course of the transition to a wholly communist economy, widespread use would have to be made of cooperative management as an intermediate stage’ – Engels

Co-ops have been embraced by significant groups of people at different times and places. Their attraction is offering a means to consolidate small producers and take advantage of economies of scale, shared risk, and common gain. At the advent of the capitalist era, cooperatives were one of many competing solutions offered to ameliorate the plight of the emerging working class. Cooperatives were considered as intermediate steps towards socialist relations of production. Cooperatives offer advantages to both workers and consumers. Workers are thought to benefit because the profits that are expropriated by non-workers in the capitalist mode of production are shared by the workforce in a cooperative enterprise. Working conditions are necessarily improved since workplace decisions are arrived at democratically without the lash associated with the profit-mania of alienated ownership. In reality, cooperatives are largely indistinguishable from small businesses. Like small private businesses, they employ few people and rely heavily upon sweat equity for capitalization. Like other small businesses, cooperatives mostly operate on the periphery of the economy.  Most present day advocates proponents, see cooperatives as a “third way” between reformism and revolution yet without noting the steady evolution of these once “third way” institutions towards a conventional capitalist business model.

Economic democracy and workers’ self-management is absolutely central to any genuine socialist society, but they can only be permanently established by adopting a strategy aimed at dismantling the power of the capitalist state and expropriating the expropriators. In other words a political strategy, not one focused primarily on attempting to create alternative economic models within existing capitalist society. The concept of cooperatives as an alternative to both private and state ownership resurfaces over and over again.

The questions we must ask in regard to cooperatives are co-ops models of socialism within a capitalist society, possible islands of socialism in the ocean of capitalism and are they politically practical steps along the road socialism, laying down the foundations of such a society? Cooperatives certainly show that workers can run factories themselves, that democracy in the workplace is possible, and capitalists are not necessary for the organization of production but can they bring about fundamental social transformation.

Worker co-ops replace the capitalist with the democratic association of the workers - the workers become their own capitalists, they can thus arrange operations amongst themselves to the extent they wish. “By deed, instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behest of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands.” And again Marx explains, “Cooperative factories provide the proof that the capitalist has become just as superfluous as a functionary in production…”

The workers’ welfare can be materially enhanced, since the profits that the capitalist would have made as a result of ownership of the firm become incomes of the 99%, which are proportionately increased as that of the share of the returns to the 1% disappears. The fact that workers control their own immediate work, itself a contribution also enhances their well-being, reducing alienation from their work. Yet these advantages have their limitations, because the pressures of competition and requirements of marketing in a private profit-driven market economy restrict their options. Co-ops operating within a capitalist, profit-driven market economy cannot operate independently of that economy. As Marx has it:

“The co-operative factories run by workers themselves are, within the old form, the first examples of the emergence of a new form, even though they naturally reproduce in all cases, in their present organization, all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them.”

The pressures of day-to-day competition, pressure to cut costs, trim quality, and hold wages and the number of jobs down, is relentless. Efforts involved to run the business and compete successfully enough to at least stay afloat are daunting. Running an enterprise is time consuming, energy consuming, and beset by commercial problems. It weakens more than it strengthens political aspiration for system change. Most cooperatives seek only individualistic economic gains for workers through the market system, and do not work to mobilise workers into radical class consciousness nor revolutionary class struggle. Cooperative movements from this perspective were simply an individualistic capitalist enterprise that could not bring about fundamental social change due to the absence of political mobilisation

Marx rejected Lassalle’s belief that workers’ emancipation should be brought about by a system of state-aided producer cooperatives. Based on the Gotha programme, one means of solving social problems was to demand State aid to fund the establishment of producer cooperatives under the democratic control of the mass of the working people. Marx disagreed on this point by objecting ‘that the workers’ desire to establish the conditions for cooperative production on a social scale, and first of all on a national scale, in their own country, only means that they are working to transform the present conditions of production, and it has nothing in common with the foundation of co-operative societies with state aid’. Otherwise—Marx argued— socialism would be established through State action—in stark contrast with the central idea that workers will only achieve emancipation through their own efforts. If workers were to require the support of the State for their revolutionary movement, they would thereby only reveal their ‘full consciousness that they neither rule nor are ripe for rule!’ Marx concludes that ‘as far as the present co-operative societies are concerned, they are of value only insofar as they are the independent creations of workers and not protege´s either of the governments or of the bourgeoisie’

But socialists don’t take what Marx or Engels as canon. Rosa Luxemburg subjected cooperatives to criticism in her pamphlet Reform or Revolution.

“Co-operatives,” wrote Luxemburg, “especially co-operatives in the field of production, constitute a hybrid form in the midst of capitalism. They can be described as small units of socialized production within capitalist exchange.”

The problem is that cooperatives that are established in the context of the capitalist market must compete in order to survive, and if the rate of exploitation is high among your competitors, then you must match it.

As Luxemburg put it, “in capitalist economy exchanges dominate production. As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital—that is, pitiless exploitation—becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise.”

She continues:

“The domination of capital over the process of production expresses itself in the following ways. Labor is intensified. The workday is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labor is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market.”

Some cooperatives find small niche markets in which to survive, but the majority will either be driven out of business or be forced to copy the practices used by other employers.

In Luxemburg’s words:

‘The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur—a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving.”

Socialists have long argued that socialism in one country is not possible because a socialist revolution that does not spread will either be crushed from the outside or survive by being transformed from within. Socialism in one work-place is even more of a non-starter. 

And despite his sympathies for cooperatives Marx also realised that:

“the experience of the period from 1848 to 1864 has proved beyond doubt that, however excellent in principle and however useful in practice, co-operative labor, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries.”

Co–ops by themselves do not challenge the system and actually may divert energy away from doing so.  Individual co–ops do not threaten the system, are likely to degenerate, and can absorb time and resources that could be used for other kinds of organizing. Marx also noted that a variety of establishment figures had become supporters of co–ops:

“It is perhaps for this very reason that plausible noblemen, philanthropic middle-class spouters, and even kept political economists have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the very co-operative labor system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding it as the utopia of the dreamer, or stigmatizing it as the sacrilege of the socialist.”

Marx understood that the capitalist class would not stand idly by and allow themselves to pass into history. They had the power of the State behind them:

“To save the industrious masses, cooperative labour ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour. … To conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the working classes.”

To liberate humanity from the misery of capitalist exploitation and make full use of society’s scientific and technical achievements to overcome material and cultural inequality cannot be done by an uncoordinated set of cooperatives – it will require the pooling and coordination of all society’s productive capacities according to a common plan of production to meet all our individual and collective needs and desires.

On their own a cooperative can easily be a capitalist enterprise owned by its workers in which, as Marx says, the workers become their own capitalist. Nor can they “out compete” capitalism. Corporations will always have larger capital to invest in research, technology, machinery and their willingness to cut costs through lower wages, less environmentally sounds practices, outsourcing, etc, will give conventional capitalist enterprises an advantage. Worker cooperatives generally are in industries which generate lower profit margins and because they are smaller and do not have the advantages of scale which larger companies do, workers are often are forced to work long hours at lower wages to stay afloat. This can be called “self-managed exploitation.”  The pitfalls of workers cooperatives are often missing from its proponents’ discussion. Their proposals for getting rid of capitalism would actually lead to a entrenchment of capitalism

As Chomsky explains it:

 “Worker ownership within a state capitalist, semi-market system is better than private ownership but it has inherent problems. Markets have well-known inherent inefficiencies. They’re very destructive. … [what is needed is to] dismantle the system of production for profit rather than production for use…If you’re in a system where you must make profit in order to survive. You are compelled to ignore negative externalities, effects on others.”

There is no real or meaningful self -management insofar as it is limited to single companies operating within the market. As cooperatives exist within a market system, their interests are to compete with other companies and expand their market share. This is a key and important difference between workers cooperatives, where the means of producing goods and services are owned by a specific group of workers competing with other cooperatives and capitalist companies through a market system and the deeper and post-capitalist goal of a socialized economy whereby all the means of producing goods and services (or at least the vast majority) are seen as belonging to society as a whole and while directly operated and run by the workers at each entity would be federated and coordinated in a horizontal manner to produce products and services based on need. An analogy to the problem is that a strategy of advocating worker cooperatives is akin to allowing small groups of slaves on a small number of plantations to self-manage themselves. It makes life better for some, but it doesn’t end the system of exploitation. While worker cooperatives can have some uses, the perspective cannot be described as anti-capitalist in a meaningful sense.

 The Socialist Party supports the idea that workers should run the economy, but we think it needs to go way beyond what advocates of cooperatives put forward. Our aspiration is the socialist cooperative commonwealth described thus by Marx:

“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.”

If you want to open small businesses organized as cooperatives, as a strategy for survival, by all means do so but please do not declare that it's somehow a path beyond capitalism. Workers coops have persisted throughout the history of capitalist development, although today, with a few notable exceptions, they are mostly relatively small, local operations. When they are successful, they often tend to evolve in the direction of more conventional capitalist firms, hiring non-member employees as a way of expanding production rather than enlarging the full membership of the producer coop itself. While many, perhaps most, people who work as members in cooperatives continue to see them as an alternative way of life to working in a conventional capitalist firm, for most participants they are no longer part of a broad strategy for building an alternative to capitalism and are certainly not part of an organized anti-system strategy as was the case in the 19th Century cooperative movement.

The big question that has to be answered is, although, worker-owned cooperatives remain one of the central expressions a democratic egalitarian vision of an alternative way of organising economic activity , can worker coops cooperate with each other through a kind of voluntary federated structure which would facilitate coordination and joint action as suggested by mutualism that would form the basis of a new society, initially within capitalism itself and eventually replacing capitalism? The conclusion in not one of conjecture but a matter of historic record – No.

Industrial Serfdom

The business of making profits is shrouded in great mystery by the capitalists. They seek to make the workers believe that it is by magic that they make the processes of production yield them profits and build up great fortunes for them. Capitalists do not create wealth out of the air in juggling with industry. They make profits because they purchase the labour-power of the workers for less than the value of the goods the workers produce; that is, they do not pay the workers the full value of their labour. There is no other way of making profits out of industry. The power to hire and fire the workers, to give and take away the opportunity to earn a living, carries with it the power to compel the workers to work for such wages as will leave the capitalists a profit from their labour

The opposite of low wages is big profits. The lower the wages for which the capitalists can purchase the labour-power of the workers and the longer their hours of labour, the greater will be the capitalist’s profits. Naturally, the capitalists pay the lowest wages at which they can induce the workers to work. Since they are in a position to deny the workers the opportunity to earn a living if the workers do not accept their terms, they have been able to keep the wages at the point where they yield the workers a mere subsistence, or even less than a mere subsistence. The plain fact is that a numerically small group of people, the capitalists, who own the machinery of production and the natural resources of the country, have the masses at their mercy. They can take from them individually, and collectively for a time, their opportunity to earn a living. They are the industrial barons and the workers industrial serfs. We work long hours, we sacrifice our health and strength in the work of producing wealth for others, yet we do not receive in return sufficient wages to retain our vigour and vitality. We are driven into submission to accept the terms of our masters.

The social evils which we find about us are the result of our economic system and they are not  unrelated issues, that must be remedied separately. We know that businesses do not exist primarily for the purpose of supplying human needs. Their purpose is to make profits for their shareholders. If they cannot make profits for their shareholders, they go out of business. They are interested in producing wealth as a means of securing wealth for the limited number who share in their profits. The motive which drives the vast industrial machine which has grown up under capitalism is the desire for profits. The work of supplying human needs has become a mere incident to the process of realizing profits. The evils of the present social order — insecurity, low wages, and unemployment— are the product of a system in which the supreme purpose is the taking of profits. The system divides people into two classes. Anyone with an ounce of common sense will have to admit that. There are people who work for wages and those who employ wage workers. There are the people who own the industries and those who must go to the owners of industry or their representatives for the opportunity to earn a living. The ownership of industry is the source of the power of the profit-seeking class. It gives them control of the opportunities of the masses to secure the necessities of life. The millions of men and women  who are dependent upon the wages they earn for a living are economic serfs. They have not yet gained the “inalienable right to life, liberty, and happiness,” because their opportunity to earn the necessities of “life, liberty, and happiness” can be taken from them by the owners of industry, and is taken from them whenever the owners of industry are unable to make profits for themselves from the labour of the workers. This makes the capitalists who control huge corporations an oligarchy with almost unlimited power over the lives of the people. No people can be free nor achieve happiness that permits such power to exist in their midst.  The right to elect politicians is a poor consolation when the more fundamental right to earn a living is controlled by a class in society with no other interest in production than to make as large profits as possible.

The idea that socialism would be established through a series of reform measures and legislative acts has been shown to be an illusion. The struggle of the working class is a political struggle for control of the state because it must gain control of the government before it can hope to establish democracy in industry. For the working class to endeavour to take control of industry while all the repressive power of the class state remained in the hands of the capitalist class would be to invite destruction. The work the workers have to do is building a class-conscious political movement which will carry on the work of educating the workers to an understanding of the system of exploitation which now exists and the class character of the government and to organise the workers for the struggle to wrest control of the government out of the hands of the capitalist class. The Socialist Party is the medium through which this work can be done. The reconstruction of the capitalist system into a better world, a world of prosperity, and peace can only be achieved by the working class itself.

Marx says read the Socialist Standard

Why the Socialist Party?

The battle between bosses and workers rages everywhere. Capitalism has failed miserably to provide the basic necessities of life for hundreds of millions of workers around the world. Millions upon millions are hungry and homeless. Millions of youth will never find work in capitalist society. Older workers are thrown on the scrap-heap when they no longer have any value to an employer. The boss class is presently ripping up many of the reforms that workers have fought hard to gain. Like all thieves, the capitalists have no honour among themselves and are constantly falling out causing wars across the globe. The only solution is the socialist revolution, otherwise, we will suffer capitalism's ceaseless exploitation and endless wars. Capitalism means the ruination of, our families, our friends, our fellow-workers and our neighbours. Productivity has reached undreamed of heights; skills are available and so are the raw materials. We have solved the problem of carrying on agriculture, the widespread system of transportation we have organise, the wonderful machinery of production we have built, have freed us from the danger of lack of food, clothing, or houses to live in because of the inability to produce them. We have been able to supply our needs. We have solved the problem of production. We can produce all that is needed to supply the necessities of life, as well as some of the comforts of life — education and the opportunity for recreation — to all the people. And, yet, people go without. Does not this indicate the bankruptcy of a system? The ruling class would like the workers to forget these things. Only world socialism offers an alternative to the misery of capitalism.

The Socialist Party wants a society where the people run everything in the interests of the world's people. We want a system that encourages everyone to become involved in running society for the common good and does not indoctrinate people to "look out for number one;" that opposes placing selfish interests above the social needs. We want society to help each person grow to his or her full potential. In a capitalist society, only the employing owning class are free--free to hire and fire, free to pillage and plunder, free to make our class fight for their profits. In contrast, socialism will allow no freedom to exploit workers. Instead of the principle "every man for himself" in socialism, it will be "to each according to need." Socialism will abolish the wage system and people will work because they want to, because their brothers and sisters around the world need their contribution. The measure of work will have nothing to do with what people receive. People should and will get what they need, within the limits of what everyone can produce. For the first time in history, workers will receive a fair share of society's wealth, regardless of the work they do. They will share in decision-making, including the distribution of goods and services according to society's needs. They will share shortage along with abundance. Socialism will abolish socially useless forms of work that exist now only for capitalist profit. Socialism will not need of lawyers, advertisers, or salespeople. In one stroke, it will do away with layers of needless government bureaucrats, as well as the hordes of petty supervisors and administrators who oversee and manage us for the bosses. It will free everyone to perform socially useful work, which is the source of true creativity. The socialist re-construction of society requires the active commitment of the majority. Socialism will not succeed unless people understand it, agree with it, and help to make it succeed. A society of free individuals in which all, through their own work, contribute to the liberation and enrichment of the lives of others, is the only environment in which any individual can really grow normally to stature. Business wants interchangeable docile and trained personnel for their offices and factories and voting sheep for their parties. They do not need independent, critical-minded individuals.

Ending the wage system will reduce the problems capitalism causes inside the working class. Racism, one of capitalism's greatest evils, exploits one worker to a greater degree than another. Marx said over 100 years ago that, "the worker in white skin can never be free as long as the worker in black skin remains in chains." Only an egalitarian society that ends the exploitative wage system in the context of sharp anti-racist political and ideological class struggle can eliminate racism once and for all. We oppose nationalism. Borders are artificial and exist to divide workers and keep different sets of bosses in power. Workers need no borders. Workers in one part of the world are not different from or better than workers in another. Workers should be loyal only to other workers, never to a boss. We endorse the revolutionary slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!"

We will never settle for a few reforms or a few crumbs.

“Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.” –Murray Bookchin

Climate change poses a major threat to the future of humanity. Today, climate change threatens life itself. Extreme weather, rising seas, ocean acidification and biodiversity collapse will undermine many of the eco-systems on which we depend. Climate change poses a significant threat to future social and economic activities. Today the single biggest threat to our climate is the group of billionaires who profit most from its pollution and, in turn, push government policies that promote more fossil fuels. Our planet is being held hostage by a handful of profiteers who wield decisive power over our governments. They seek economic boom even if it means ecological doom. Climate change compounded by the concentration of wealth and distribution of poverty is pushing natural and humans systems to a perfect storm of tipping points. There is little doubt that the docility of the world population has contributed greatly to keeping intact the increasingly unequal, barbaric and rapacious society that is global capitalism. In our struggle, the Socialist Party depend for the success of our message on people who are prepared to think.

Under the capitalist system, “production of surplus-value is the absolute law of this mode of production” (Marx, Capital). The nature of the monopoly capitalist class is to seek profits. In exploiting energy resources, the capitalists do not consider the rational use of natural resources but only seek maximum profits. Capitalism means waste. Armament expansion, war and wars are bottomless pits in consuming and squandering resources. The world, however, could be experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation to becoming an ecologically literate and socially just civilisation. Imagine technology integrated with the ecosystem.

"In London," Karl Marx wrote "they can find no better use for the excretion of four and a half million human beings than to contaminate the Thames with it at heavy expense".  Marx was scathing of the capitalist economic notion that the air, rivers, seas, and soil can be treated as a "free gift of nature" to business.

The Socialist Party’s analysis of the environment under capitalism shows how saving the planet is inextricably linked to transforming our society. Exploitation, war, hunger and poverty are not problems that can be solved by the market system. Rather, they were inescapable outcomes of the system itself. This is because capitalism is dominated by corporations devoted to profit above all else. According to the Socialist Party, capitalism is an economic system profoundly at odds with a sustainable planet. The exploitation of nature is as fundamental to the profit system as the exploitation of working people. Capitalist farming is unsustainable because it inevitably starves the soil of nutrients. It is nothing less than "an art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil" as Marx pointed out.  As Engels later put it, “The present poisoning of the air, water, and land can only be put an end to by the fusion of town and country” under “one single vast plan.” Despite its potential cost to society in terms of increased labour time, he viewed this fusion as “no more and no less utopian than the abolition of the antithesis between capitalist and wage-workers.”

The Socialist Party is seeking ultimately to establish a “steady-state economy” or “zero-growth” society which corresponds to what Marx called “simple reproduction” – a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using fewer resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market.

In socialism, we would not be bound to use the most labour efficient methods of production. We would be free to select our methods in accordance with a wide range of socially desirable criteria, in particular, the vital need to protect the environment. What it means is that we should construct permanent, durable means of production which you don’t constantly innovate. We would use these to produce durable equipment and machinery and durable consumer goods designed to last for a long time, designed for minimum maintenance and made from materials which if necessary can be re-cycled. In this way we would get a minimum loss of materials; once they’ve been extracted and processed they can be used over and over again. It also means that once you’ve achieved satisfactory levels of consumer goods, you don’t insist on producing more and more. Total social production could even be reduced. This will be the opposite of to-day's capitalist system’s cheap, shoddy, “throw-away” goods and built-in obsolescence, which results in a massive loss and destruction of resources.

The case for socialism starts from a concern for the suffering of humans and look for a solution to this. This makes socialists “anthropocentric” as opposed to the “ecocentrism” – Nature first – of many environmentalist activists. The plunder, looting and rape of Nature is rejected as not being in the interests of the human species, not because the interests of Nature come first. Nor do socialists say humans, as such, are a pollutant or a parasite on Nature. The materialist conception of history makes the way humans are organised to meet their material needs the basis of any society. Humans meet their material needs by transforming parts of the rest of nature into things that are useful to them; this, in fact, is what production is. So the basis of any society is its mode of production which, again, is the same thing as its relationship to the rest of nature. Humans survive by interfering in the rest of nature to change it for their own benefit. Environmentalists are wrong to see this interference as inherently destructive of nature. It might do this, but there is no reason, nothing inherent, why it has to. That humans have to interfere in nature is a fact of human existence. How humans interfere in nature, on the other hand, depends on the kind of society they live in. Capitalism differs from previous class societies in that under it production is not for direct use, not even of the ruling class, but for sale on a market. The competitive pressures to minimise costs and maximise sales, profit-seeking and blind economic growth, with all their destructive effects on the rest of nature, are built-in to capitalism. These make capitalism inherently environmentally unfriendly.

Human beings are both a part and a product of nature and humans have a unique significance in nature since they are the only life-form capable of reflective thought and so of conscious intervention to change the environment. It is absurd to regard human intervention in nature as some outside disturbing force, since humans are precisely that part of nature which has evolved that consciously intervenes in the rest of nature; it is our nature to do so. True, that at the present time, the form human intervention in the rest of Nature takes is upsetting natural balances and cycles, but the point is that humans, unlike other life-forms, are capable of changing their behaviour. In this sense the human species is the brain and voice of Nature i.e. Nature become self-conscious. But to fulfil this role humans must change the social system, change from capitalism to a community where each contributes to the whole to the best of his or her ability and takes from the common fund of produce what he or she needs.

Naomi Klein is also dismissive of capitalist solutions. Geo-engineering – deflecting the sun's rays with space-based mirrors, for example – is "magical thinking". Emission-trading schemes are a shell game, easily exploited by profiteers and frauds. Then there are the "philanthro-capitalists" – Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett – all of whom have, at various times, promised to use their billions to help save the planet but thus far delivered little. The only alternative, then, is to throw the whole system out and begin again. Replace the profit motive with the justice motive. It sounds radical, she says, and it is. But we have our backs up against the climate wall. There is no time for tinkering, no room for compromise. "People are angry," she says. "The system is failing them on multiple levels. If ever there was a moment for transformative change, it's now."

On this point, the Socialist Party and she can agree.