Why we are for socialism

Many of us in our advanced years understand only too well that we will not be members the socialist future, except by anticipation. But it is precisely this anticipation, this vision of the future that we continue to advocate the revolution and promote the liberation of humanity. And that is the most worthy of causes for any man or woman, regardless of whether we personally see the dawn of socialism or not.  No matter what our personal fate may be, our fight for the social revolution has right on its side and will bring all mankind a new day. Socialists are concerned more with people and change than with anything else.

Most of us wonder what the future holds for ourselves, our family and our friends and we want to know if it is possible to see a future free from the poverty for millions free from hunger and free from homelessness. We ask ourselves I there can be such a thing as a secure and happy future for all of the world, or must the rat-race continue where a small number of rich people cream off the benefits of modern technology, while the rest of us spend our days in monotonous drudgery whether in a factory, building site or plush office?

People know that their lives can be improved and made better. It is not “human nature” that is the cause of the problems people face today but the way society is organised, where a minority of people own and control the wealth and exclude the vast majority of the people from any real say in the running of the world. This is what lies at the root of the problems that working people face. It is this capitalist system which cannot guarantee security of employment, which cannot provide the good things of life, which cannot offer an improved standard of living for the millions and cannot safe-guard peace around the world. It is this that must be changed. The working people who have produced all the wealth around us must come into ownership and control of what is their own by right, so that they can then build the society and produce the things they want. Socialists think that conditions can be changed for the better if the people are willing to fight for this. The vast majority of the people gain nothing from capitalism and would lose nothing with its passing.

Once political power has been taken out of the hands of the capitalists and placed in the hands of the people production-for-profit will be changed to production-for-use which is production of what is wanted and needed by the people. Rather than accumulate capital for the employing owning class, industry and technology will have a completely different purpose in socialism - to serve the people. The enormous waste by which the same goods are sold by competing companies under different labels using advertising to convince you that their product is best, will be replaced by real choice and not an illusion of choice. Socialism will enable us to overcome the brakes on progress of capitalism. It will release the creative energies of people. Mankind will be freed from worry about basic material needs as we know them today making it possible to open up vast new horizons of cultural and educational possibilities for millions. Classes will cease to exist and people will be free to make their contribution to the productive life of society. Men and women will be able to develop their own personality and talents to the full. With the harnessing of science and technology, boring and repetitive work will be eliminated and will become satisfying.

Empathy in Montrose

We read:

The destruction of the town of Guernica by Nazi planes under the direction of Francisco Franco in April 1937 saw the Basque government appeal to foreign nations to give temporary asylum to children. An old steamship designed to carry 800 passengers was loaded with 3,840 children set sail for Southampton Docks. Over the following weeks the children were sent to 90 locations across Britain which had been organised by churches, trade unions and private individuals.

On September 17 1937, 24 children aged between five and 15 arrived at Montrose Station where they were greeted by a number of the charities. A sign stating ‘Viva Espano Salud’ greeted the children. At the end of April 1938, nine children were returned to their parents in Bilbao but they were replaced by others who had either been orphaned or whose parents were themselves, refugees.

As tokens of their appreciation for their happy stay almost 50 years earlier, the former refugees presented Angus Council with a silver plaque from Bilbao and a silver salver from the Province of Biscay.

Surely, the desperate need still exists today to help refugees and the compassion expressed by the folk of Montrose can easily be repeated. 

Karl's Quotes

Many a non-Socialist has asked many an SPC'er ,''You guys say a Socialist Society would solve the social problems humanity faces, so why haven't we got it? why haven't millions flocked to your banner?'' Good question, though once again our old buddies Karly and Fred come through for us by supplying the answer. In the ''Communist Manifesto'', one sentence says it all, ''The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of the ruling class.''

Since the Capitalist Class own the tools of production, it logically follows the own the tools of propaganda which produce ideas, and ideas are a product too, a product of the mind. One can hardly expect newspapers, movies, radio and TV to advocate anything which runs counter to its owners' interests.

For the capitalist the rest becomes easy, from the moment of birth one is brainwashed to think their way, ''hate him, he's black or white or Jew or gentile, Catholic, Protestant, long haired, short haired, the list is endless, but it all boils down to one thing - at a given time and place a person is different in some way to everyone else who is hanging around, therefore this person must be shunned and harmed, all of which is pressure to conform.

Many folks will say they think for themselves and sure they do but within the framework of Capitalism. It's like two guys arguing and one saying he will vote Liberal and the other saying he will vote Tory. Since both are speaking within the context of Capitalism they have more in common than in discord.

So one must surely wonder how will Socialism be established and the best answer I can give is that when people realize that only through co-operation can humanity survive they will establish the great world-wide co-operative commonwealth of Socialism.

For socialism, Steve and John

Sickening Attacks on Sick Benefits.

Employees of the Canadian Hearing Society (CHS) have been on strike since March 6, their first since being, unionized in 1943. These workers perform a very valuable service for thousands of deaf and hard of hearing people who rely on them for counselling, employment help, interpretation, hearing aids and communication devices.

The union and CHS management started negotiating three years ago; the workers haven't had a contract or a wage increase for four years. They have maintained a sick bank that let them carry over unused sick days into the following year. CHS wants them to cut back to six paid sick days a year and bring in a short-term disability plan for anything longer which the employees have, quite understandably rejected.

Ninety per cent of the union membership are women who, one can assume, have families to support. It's enough to make anyone feel bitter just to think the working class fight for years to get benefits like paid sick days and then see management try to eradicate them. I'm sure they would just "love it'' if the government suggested cutting their fat salaries.

Though naturally enough, Socialists hope the strikers prevail, we nevertheless realize the limitations of union activity which at best will bring an improvement into their lives under Capitalism. A greater improvement would be its abolition so there would be no need for anyone to strike. 

Steve and John.

All change for no change

NEITHER GODS NOR MASTERS

The capitalist class – national and international – being in possession of the wealth stolen from the workers, compete with each other for the control of the world's markets. This capitalist class are continually embroiled over the disposal of the spoils on the markets, but they present a solid front to the workers whenever the latter get out of hand in the endeavour to better their conditions of life.  It is a false notion of the Scottish nationalists that the Scot workers must struggle for national independence before they can tackle the problem of poverty. But the working class everywhere is under one capitalist government or another. The form of government makes no difference to the workers. Government implies subjects and under the capitalist system of society the actual government machinery, Parliament, councils and judiciary, etc., are representative of the capitalist class – the necessary machinery for ruling a subject class composed of wage-slaves. There is no essential difference between the capitalists of England and Scotland. Both are characterised by the same greed for money, the same ambition for power, the same hypocrisy and corruption.  It is of no concern to workers in Scotland whether they are governed from London or by a separate independent government in Edinburgh. This is because the cause of the problems they face is the capitalist economic system of production for profit, not the form of government. And the capitalist economic system would continue to exist in a politically independent Scotland. The only people to benefit from Scottish independence would be the local politicians, who would be able to award themselves grander titles and greater salaries.

We oppose nationalism. We, as Socialists, have no sympathy whatever with the demand for independence. We would no more assist the SNP than assist the British Government against them. A plague on both their houses! Our only interest is to try to get fellow-workers in both camps to mind their own business and leave this quarrel about the right to exploit to the people who gain from exploitation. Left-nationalists think and act, differently. Some of them are still very much the victims of the mental disorder patriotism, and their understanding of socialism is nil; others are playing a double game which they call "tactics." They argue that as the people among whom it is desired to propagate socialism are still entirely wrapped up in all kinds of antiquated illusions, then the way to clear their minds is to tack their superstitions on to the socialist case. It is hard to imagine anything less calculated to further socialism, their propaganda becomes a farce and they degenerate usually into the more or less open tools of local business interests. They talk about smashing up British imperialism as a step towards the final struggle with the capitalist class. They forget some things. First, there is no movement or combination of movements which has at the moment the power to scratch the power of Britain's hegemony, much less dismember it. Secondly, the effect of their attitude is simply to strengthen the patriotism of the British worker and make him still more ignorant of, and hostile to, socialism.

To split territories, set up new governments, or to re-establish old ones will not help Scottish workers nor even simplify the problem. Their only hope lies in the speedy establishment of socialism. They must join hands with the workers of the world, and make common cause against the ruling class. Not until the working class in Scotland clearly grip the essential fact that they are slaves to the master class no matter what nationality these latter may be; fully realise that such slavery is confined within no national boundary but is worldwide; throw off the mental shackles of "nationalism" and join their fellow-workers the world over to abolish capitalism - not until then will they be free to enjoy Nature's resources. We don’t want or care about Scottish independence any more than we care or support an “independent” Britain after Brexit,

For many people, nationalism has a bad reputation. Yet, few take issue with identifying with their home nation – they call it patriotism. Marxism explains how workers are exploited and unfree, not as individuals or particular nationalities, but as members of a class. From this perspective, identifying with a class provides a rational basis for working class political action. The objective would be a state-free world community. Given that nationalism does nothing to further this understanding, however, it is an obstruction to world socialism. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class is concerned in a “free” Scotland. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one. Independence will be merely a change of masters. Would the working class be worse or better off under London or Edinburgh? Would there be anything to choose between the two "solutions"? Surely, in both a British Union or a sovereign separate Scotland, the workers' standard of living would be much the same. So would the slums, the unemployment and the other problems of capitalist society. The only difference would be the colour of the flag that would fly over the government buildings: Union Jack or the Saltire? Independence will solve none of the problems resulting from capitalist exploitation. All governments are wedded to the same set of priorities and subject to the same constraints. What then has national independence done for the mass of the population, whether we take the European nationalist movements of the 19^th century, such as the Italian struggle against Austria or the Balkan countries’ struggles against Turkey, or the new States set up in former colonies of the European empires? We can say that independence is good for local politicians, lawyers, army officers, manufacturers and business men; it opens up careers and money-making opportunities for them, as also for those in local government posts. The disappointing results of nationalism from the worker's point of view is that when countries achieved independence, absolutely nothing changed except the personnel of the State machine. The sooner the left-nationalists give up pandering to working-class political ignorance and devote themselves to socialism, the sooner will the nationality problem be solved.

Free the wage slaves

Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, consequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour. Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers. Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power. Socialism entails the total abolition of money and the wages system. Any system by which the buying and selling system is retained means the employment of vast sections of the population in unproductive work. It leaves the productive work to be done by one portion of the people whilst the other portion is spending its energies in keeping shop, banking, making advertisements and all the various developments of commerce which, in fact, employ more than two-thirds of the people today. So long as the money system remains, each productive enterprise must be run on a paying basis. Therefore it will tend to aim at employing as few workers as possible, in order to spend less on wages. The payment of wages entails the power to dismiss the worker by officials. The existence of a wage system almost inevitably leads to unequal wages; overtime, bonuses, higher pay for work requiring special qualifications. The future society will not produce "commodities" to be "bought" and "sold", but produces the necessaries of life that are used up, consumed, and have no other purpose. In the new society the capacity to consume is not limited by the individual's ability to buy, as it is in bourgeois society, but by the collective capacity to produce. If the instruments of labour and the labour force are available every need can be satisfied. The social capacity to consume is limited only by the consumers' saturation point. There being no "commodities" in the future society, neither call there be any money. There will not even be any bookkeeping transactions or coupons to regulate how much one works and how much one gets. When labour has ceased to be a mere means of life and becomes life’s prime necessity, people will work without any compulsion and take what they need.  For in the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one’s share. “Wages” will become an obsolete word. There would be no need for compulsion or forcible allotment of material means by the means of rationing via wages.

Society cannot exist without labour, though. But, work should be useful productive activity. No enjoyment without work, no work without enjoyment. Each individual decides on the type of work he wishes to engage in. The great number of diverse fields of activity makes it possible to take account of the most varied wishes. If it appears that there is a surplus of labour in one field and a shortage in another, then arrangements must be made to establish an equilibrium. To organise production and to give the various workers the chance to be used in the right place, this will be the main task of the elected administrators. The various sectors of production and departments choose organisers, who are to take over adminstration. They are not task-masters like the managers and overseers of today but fellow-workers who exercise an administrative function specially entrusted to them instead of a productive function. Since all work for each other's benefit, all are interested in producing articles of the best possible quality with the least effort and in the shortest possible time. Labour is organised on the basis of complete freedom and democratic equality, where it is each for all and all for each, hence, where full solidarity reigns, will generate a desire to create and a spirit of emulation not to be found anywhere in the economic system of today. This creative impulse affects the productivity of labour as well. In socialist society the antagonism of interests is removed. The application of new technology, which under capitalism is determined by considerations of profit, in the future system will depend entirely upon productivity. Technology which may be very useful for saving labour is very frequently useless from the standpoint of capitalist profits. In socialist society such a point of view will not prevail and there will therefore be no obstacles to the application of labour-saving machinery.

Socialist society does not come into being so that men and women shall live in proletarian conditions but to abolish the proletarian way of life. Socialism should not be thought of as an arbitrary scheme of society to be constructed from a preconceived plan, but understood as the next stage of social evolution. Future society will grow out of the new conditions when the class struggle will have been carried to its conclusion—that is, to the abolition of classes and consequently of all class struggles. Our vision of the future socialist society is a forecast of the lines of future development already indicated in the present. Instead of capitalism’s: “From each whatever you can get—to each whatever you can grab.” The socialist society of universal abundance will be “From each according to ability—to each according to needs.” In the socialist future society of shared abundance, a nightmare will be lifted from the minds of the people. They will be secure and free from fear; and there will come about a revolution in their attitude toward life and their enjoyment of it. Humanity will get a chance to show what it is really made of.

Travelling Pollution System

We continue our monthly soap opera about the TTC. On April 16th, a study that was published in the journal, "Environmental Science and Technology", claimed that concentrations of fine particulate matter on the Toronto subway system, are roughly ten times the level found outside TTC stations. At 95 micrograms per cubic metre, researchers say the levels are typical of an average day in pollution-choked Beijing.

Under some conditions, the kind of particulate matter that was measured, known as PM2.5 has been associated with lung problems and Health Canada advised that indoor concentrations "should be kept as low as possible."

And I thought smoking was bad for one's health! As long as the capitalists have a transit system to get their workers to their places of exploitation, they ain't going to worry too much about their health. 

Steve and John.

Flooded Milk Market.

Trump represents the Wisconsin and New York Dairy Farmers against what he perceives to be the unfairness of Canadian rules governing dairy trade. While Trump has not indicated exactly what he considers unfair about it, it is believed he is referring to the trade of ultra-filtered milk - a high protein product sometimes used in cheese and yogurt production.

After losing their buyers for the dairy product, 75 farm families in Wisconsin blame Canada, saying, their livelihood has been threatened. They may say what they want, but the root cause is a flooded global market.

Trudeau mentioned Canada prefers to have a fact-based re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Those two brilliant minds can squabble all they want and farmers and anyone else can attempt to analyse the situation all they want, but inevitably it's the little guy who gets screwed. 

Steve and John.

Against Caledonian Capitalism

The Socialist Party has often been accused of being aloof to workers' struggles but on the contrary we do not stand aside from the struggles of nationalism. These struggles are a potent force for the delusion of workers, for the promotion of divisive, anti-working class theories, for the diversion from the essential object of the establishment of socialism. So we cannot stand aside from them; we must expose their basic fallacy, we must be unrelentingly hostile to them and we must strive to replace their theories with the idea of the united, co-operative world of socialism.  It will be a society in which all human beings will be together in the single aim of making life as abundant, free and pleasurable as possible. There will be one people, working together for one object. In socialism the national divisions of capitalism will fade away into a distant memory.

The nationalist argument, as propounded by the SNP in Scotland, is quite simplistic. The people of Scotland, they say, suffer because they are misgoverned from England; what they need is an independent State of their own so that they could begin to solve their problems.  In fact, the problems faced by workers in Scotland are basically the same as those in any other country; they are caused by international capitalism A sovereign Scotland will remain dependent upon the whims of those who own the wealth. and whose interests whatever government is pledged to defend. The Scottish capitalists and their SNP servants will try to sway us one way or another with crumbs or the promises of crumbs but we’ll only receive what they feel they need to spare to protect their privilege and wealth.  The Scottish elite has got behind nationalism and the independence movement, disguising (as it always does) its own interests in the language of idealism. Yet the reality as explained by Edinburgh University's School of Business' Professor MacKay who said that his research suggested that business attitudes towards independence tended to be dictated by where their customers were primarily located. It's buses, hotels and betting shops versus international banks and mining companies. Consumer goods industries v producer goods industries. Big capitalists v smaller capitalists. Marx's Dept I v Dept II. Some choice. The majority of the Scottish people will find little difference under Holyrood than under Westminster and it could be worse if a global crisis erupts again. Scotland as a small economy, dependent on multinationals for investment, still dominated by British banks and the City of London and without control of its own currency or interest rates, could face a much bigger hit than elsewhere in terms of incomes and unemployment.

So independence would not bring dramatic economic improvement to the majority of Scots; indeed, it could mean a worse situation. In an independent Scotland, the City and the architects of the cuts would have more power over Scotland, not less. If Scots want to tame international capitalism, it can only be done internationally. They have to make links, not break links, with other people in other countries, like England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, who agree with them. The struggle of the workers of the United Kingdom must be a united one. The workers are under the domination of a class who rule by the use of a political machine which is the chief governing instrument for England, Scotland, and Wales. To appeal to the workers of Scotland for a Scottish Workers' Republic as the Left-nationalists do is to arouse and foster the narrow spirit of nationalism, so well used by our masters. Independence simply means a transfer of power to a new group of politicians, while the structure of state and society is but little changed. Foolishly, both the Brexit voter and the Scot Nat fanatically believe that Paradise awaits them. 

capitalism is necessarily a competitive system for profits and that states are and have to be, just as much involved in this as capitalist enterprises. Capitalism is a system of competitive accumulation based on wage labour, and these two defining aspects also point to the reason for the persistence of the state's system: on the one hand, the need for capitals to be territorially aggregated for competitive purposes; on the other, the need for that territory to have an ideological basis – nationalism – that can be used to bind the working class to the state and hence to capital.  Nationalism is a product of capitalism,

Edinburgh-born James Connolly tried to stand with a foot in both the socialist and nationalist camps simultaneously. Like the left nationalists of today, he hoped that the bulk of nationalist supporters would learn in the course of the independence struggle to throw in their lot with the socialist movement. Unfortunately, that was not to be, as the siren call of the national patriot proved stronger than the appeal to class solidarity. The Socialist Party rejects nationalism as an anti-working class because it has always tied the working people to its class enemy and divided it amongst itself. Independence has not benefited the working class of Ireland. It has not freed them from wage slavery. It has not freed them from exploitation and inequality. The Irish economy is not run on behalf of the people who live in Ireland, but on behalf of the owners of capital. For all the state intervention, it is still subject to the anarchy of production and the vagaries of the market. Ireland is enmeshed in a worldwide capitalist system, and only by joining a general struggle to emancipate the working class of the whole world, and turn the planet into the common property of humanity will people in Ireland or Scotland liberate themselves.

Ultimately can only be solved by world socialism. Socialists reject allegiance to any State and regard ourselves as citizens of the world. We accept the boundaries between States as they are (and as they may change) and work within them to win control of each State with a view to abolishing them all. Our aim is the establishment of a world community without frontiers based on a cooperative commonwealth, sharing ownership of the world's resources. The only way to end nationalism is for us to take ownership and control of the wealth into our own hands.  We could use the wealth to meet our mutual needs and grant the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in a free and voluntary association of equals. The message of socialism is worldwide. It reaches across the artificial national boundaries erected by mankind.

In this general election, we have adopted the only possible socialist policy when we have no Socialist Party candidate to vote for - casting a write-in vote for world socialism.  If you want to register your rejection of both SNP nationalism and British unionism in favour of World Socialism, we suggest you don't abstain but go to the polling booths and write the words "WORLD SOCIALISM" across your ballot papers. The real issue is that of rallying the workers to something which will hold their allegiance against all spurious appeals and hold it for all time. Only socialism can do that. Only socialism is worth struggling for. The job of socialists at all times is to propagate the case for socialism 

Labour-Tory

Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, has suspended every Labour councillor in Aberdeen after they ignored orders to abandon a power-sharing deal with the Conservatives. Dugdale said the nine councillors, including the newly elected lord provost of Aberdeen, Barney Crockett, would now be disciplined for refusing to tear up a coalition deal with the Tories in a bid to prevent the Scottish National party from taking power. The Tories had helped to get Jenny Laing, the Labour group leader, elected as council leader on Wednesday, and allowed Crockett, a former council leader, to become lord provost.

Meanwhile, in West Lothian Scottish Labour's ruling body has told councillors in West Lothian not to do a coalition deal with the Conservatives. Tory councillor Tom Kerr was reappointed as Provost with support from all but one Labour member.
 SNP group leader Peter Johnston said his party had been prepared to work with Labour in West Lothian. "It is now clear that Labour prefer to sacrifice our services and our communities in return for Tory votes to put them jointly into control. Today it became clear that whilst Labour were pretending to talk with us they were doing a shabby behind-the-scenes deal with the Tories – now thrown out by the Labour National Executive.”

If we wanted Tory policies - we'd have voted Tory. It is so often said by ourselves that it is Tweedledum and Tweedledee relationship between the Tories and Labour. Regular readers of the Socialist Courier remember the days when the Labour Party used to denounce the SNP as "Tartan Tories". Not now, it seems.

Be a socialist

share the world
spare the planet

Socialism is a society where all the members of the community determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, people must own in common and control collectively, technology, factories, raw materials – all the means of production. The socialist goal is the humanisation of work. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as today where the 1 per cent of the population owns all, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

Technology and the massively expanded use of machinery, the application of science to production, the endless rationalisation and growth of output, are matters which belong to the history of capitalism. Capitalism emerged before the systematic use of machinery and then – as it developed – seized upon and transformed the instruments of men’s material production, destroying traditional ways of working and substituting its own. As a by-product of its development, capitalism vastly expanded the collective control of men over nature, creating the material possibility of a world of abundance for all.

The labour process under capitalism is not something ‘neutral’, but is shaped by its central’ purpose: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation of capital which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value). Where does profits come from.

That part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started. There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one which is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure which is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth. The capitalist’s problem is, always and everywhere, to squeeze out of the labour-power he has hired the fullest use he can.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour–power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class as whole, this is true.

If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about the way in which the most advanced forms of capitalist technology enable the worker to rediscover responsibility and skill. In practice, the chief skill required in the most highly automated plants is the skill of staying awake till the end of the shift. ‘Automation’, ‘modernisation’, ‘rationalisation’, ‘scientific management’, and the like have the effect, above all, of displacing from one sector of production after another great masses of workers, who ‘become available’ for hire in other, more labour-intensive branches of capitalist work. Whole new ‘services’ are now provided for large urban communities, ‘services’ which suck in to employment great masses of ‘surplus labour’, both the labour ‘freed’ from manufacturing industries by machinery and labour ‘freed’ from housework. Office work, like factory work, has been de-skilled to a vast extent, and the office worker turned into as much of a labourer as his or her counterpart in overalls on the shop-floor.

State capitalism was originally a term to refer to government ownership of economic enterprises. But nowadays its meaning has widened to include state intervention in economic activity to aid capitalism to overcome the contradictions and antagonisms which increasingly torment its being. Many on the Left still consider state capitalism a progressive unfolding of a new social order. The theory envisages an organized regulated capitalism which leads to state capitalism and socialism: the theory is of a gradual “growing into” socialism on the basis of the capitalist state. State capitalism is not a form of transition to socialism. State capitalism tries to “unify” the nation and “balance” class-economic antagonisms. State capitalism may make minor concessions to workers, within the limits, but the aim is to restrict workers from acting as an independent class in their own interests.

Money has the magical power of turning things into their opposites. “Gold! Yellow, glittering, precious gold”, can, as Shakespeare said, “make black, white; foul, fair; wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant.” Under capitalism, where everything enters the field of exchange and becomes the object of buying and selling, a man’s worth comes to be estimated, not by his really praiseworthy abilities or actions, but by his bank balance and credit rating.

The liberation of mankind can only be brought about through the world socialist revolution which will concentrate political and economic power in the hands of the working people. A rational planned economy will enable mankind to regain mastery over the means of life and abolish the conditions permitted, and even necessitated, the subjugation of man to man, the rule of the many by the few.

Once everyone’s primary needs are capable of satisfaction, abundance reigns, and the labour time required to produce the necessities of life is reduced to the minimum, then the stage will be set for the abolition of all forms of alienation and for the rounded development of all persons, not at the expense of one another, but in fraternal relation. The abolition of private property must be accompanied by the wiping out of national barriers. The resultant increase in the productive capacities of society will prepare the way for the elimination of the traditional antagonisms between physical and intellectual workers, between the inhabitants of the city and the country, between the advanced and the undeveloped nations. These are the prerequisites for building a harmonious, integrated system. When all compulsory inequalities in social status, in conditions of life and labour, and in access to the means of self-development are done away with, and when individuals no longer are at war with each other—or within themselves then the manifestations of alienation will wither away. Such is the socialist revolution and its reorganisation of society as projected by Marxism.

Property Prices

East Ayrshire has the most affordable housing in Scotland with an average salary of £24,700 and house prices averaging £90,371 – the cost of buying a home in the local authority area is 3.66 times the average wage.

 Edinburgh is the lowest in the affordability stakes. Annual salaries in the capital average £30,800, while the average house price is £227,928 – giving a wage to price ratio of 7.4.

Across Scotland, the affordability count comes in at 5.07.

In upmarket Kensington and Chelsea wages average £123,000 per annum. But, based on a mortgage approval rate of 4.5 times annual salary, an aspiring home-owner would actually require a wage of £285,086 to raise the £1,425,428 needed to buy the average house.

However, it is in poorer areas of London that houses are least affordable. Worst is Hackney where wages and house prices average £33,800 and £575,511, respectively. This means that house prices are 17.03 times the average salary .

The emoov research is based on a single purchaser putting down a 10 per cent deposit.

Neither Union Jack nor Saltire but the Red Flag

An independent Scotland would be neither better nor worse than any other capitalist state, however, the Scottish Socialist Party and Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity have painted it in pseudo-socialist colours, portraying the SNP as progressive. Scottish nationalism represents the interests of a faction of the capitalist class as represented by the SNP, hoping for a greater share of Scotland’s assets, including oil and tax revenues, plus welcoming multinational corporations by offering low business taxes and a subservient working class. Only 10% of whisky is Scottish owned and 80% of salmon production is owned by firms based outside Scotland. As for ‘Scotland’s oil’, of the 20 firms investing to increase oil production only 5 are based in the UK, none in Scotland. Companies owned and registered in Scotland account for one-third of the financial services revenue generated by the financial and banking sector.

The left-nationalists are doing the dirty work of the capitalists of duping our fellow-workers. The Socialist Party calls upon working people to reject nationalism and separatism and instead adopt the perspective of world socialism. We are for human solidarity and oppose false divisions. Real solidarity is not based on keeping the Union Jack flying or replacing it with the Saltire. Solidarity is more crucial than ever in an era of globalised capital in which transnational corporations shift their capital across borders and into tax havens. Separatism creates an illusion of democratic control while leaving the power in the hands of the financial elite.

There are those who see the constant globalisation of production and life as a threat to "national sovereignty". This reactionary position has been officially adopted by most of the left-wing parties thus showing that they have no right whatsoever to call themselves "socialist" or "communists". Socialism can only be a world-wide system and socialists do not defend capitalist national independence. On the contrary, one of our criticisms of capitalism is precisely that it has divided the world into competing "nation-states". What we want is not national independence but a socialist world without frontiers.

Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these millions across the world to run society in their own interests. But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact, a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced, such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

When the working class becomes socialist there is no reason to assume that this will be confined to those in one country. Quite the contrary. First, because the conditions and problems which face wage and salary earners everywhere are essentially the same. And so, of course, is the solution. Second, because Socialism is the concept of a world society so that, even if it did happen that the Socialist movement grew more quickly in one country than in all others, then the Socialists in that country would take action to correct this imbalance by helping the movement in other countries.

The ideal world for the capitalist class is one where national boundaries are only political boundaries posing no serious obstacles to the movement of money. The capitalist class may claim allegiance to the country of his or her birth but will nevertheless move investments from one part of the world to another according to the potential for profit. He or she may espouse a particular set of beliefs or principles - for freedom or democracy; against communism - but this will not stop him or her trading with or investing in South Africa, Russia, Chile or Korea, providing the price is right. In other words the capitalist class, in practice, recognises the world for what it is - a global village. Despite national boundaries, different cultures and languages, we are all part of the world system of capitalism whose lifeblood is competition.  The capitalist class recognise the global character of capitalism and despite the competition between individual capitalists or between sections of capital, in the final analysis they act as a class with common interests. Workers would also do well to recognise not only the global character of capitalism but the necessary consequence of that - the common class interest that unites workers wherever they happen to have been born. 

Perhaps then the destructive nationalist rallying cry of “Come on, Scotland" will be replaced by the socialist call of "Workers of the world unite". 

The Planetary Socialist Movement

The idea that climate change is a vast global conspiracy -- involving everyone from NASA and the British Met Office to Chinese government scientists and – has persisted to an alarming degree. Scientific issues can be vulnerable to misinformation campaigns. Plenty of people still believe that vaccines cause autism and that human-caused climate change is a hoax. So much information about climate change now abounds that it is hard to differentiate fact from fiction. Scientific reports appear alongside conspiracy theories. Corporate lobby groups urge governments not to act. Correcting misinformation, however, isn't as simple as presenting people with true facts. When someone reads views from the other side, they will create counterarguments that support their initial viewpoint, bolstering their belief of the misinformation.

The dream of a just and class-free society has long stirred the hopes of women and men, shackled by exploitation, poverty, oppression, and war. The early 19th century labour movement envisioned a cooperative community of producers and many constructed intricate blueprints for egalitarian societies. So we can’t claim that Marx and Engels invented the idea of a society defined by common ownership, mutuality, freedom. Climate change in particular has radicalising potential, as more and more people are beginning to question the prevailing economic system’s detrimental effect on the environment. But mainstream environmental groups aren’t offering a coherent critique of capitalism’s ecological consequences or doing the work of presenting alternatives.

Capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the earth. Tragically, the future could be even worse for a simple reason: capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic to expand, is doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms all around the planet. Capitalism can sell everything; but it can’t sell “less.” Capitalism knows no limits, it only knows how to expand, creating while destroying. Rosa Luxemburg famously said that humanity had a choice, “socialism or barbarism.” In these days of climate change, her warning has even more meaning. One way or another, the coming decades will be decisive for the fate of human civilisation. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Unless we radically change our methods of production and pattern of consumption, we will reach the point where the harmful effects to the environment will become irreversible. Even the most modest measures of environmental reform are resisted by sections of the capitalist class. This makes the establishment of a socialist society all the more imperative. We are fighting for the planet. People may not care much about a few islands disappearing or even various animals. But untold millions of people will face the need to escape coastal cities worldwide that will not be able to cope with and survive many feet of higher oceans flooding their infrastructure, streets and housing. Where will those millions of people go?

For sure, to address climate change, we clearly need massive development of solar, wind and other clean energy. And we need improved and expanded public transit, energy-efficient housing. A "divest and reinvest" strategy is being advocated. Selling fossil fuel shares will not significantly hurt fossil fuel companies financially. Buying solar company shares may lead to small increases in the price of those stocks but that’s all. A divest-reinvest strategy is not likely to lead to the clean energy economy we need. We have evidence. Ethical investors have failed to end the arms trade or the tobacco and alcohol industries.  Such campaign gives a legitimacy to the capitalist system by focusing on money rather than politics undermine the rationale for capitalism’s existence.

Imagine, though, an alternative society where each individual has the means to live a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated. This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society. With socialism our work would engage our skills and bring personal satisfaction. Leisure time would be expanded and fulfilling. Our skies, oceans, lakes, rivers and streams will be pollution free. Our neighborhoods would become green spaces for rest and recreation. Communal institutions, like cafeterias, will serve up healthy and delicious food and offer a menu of cultural events.

Slumps By Trump!

U.S. hotels say they've seen a wave if cancellations since Trump's first attempt to restrict certain overseas travellers and demand for U.S. flights has fallen in nearly every country since January, according to Hopper, a travel-booking app.

There has been a 40% decline in searches for U.S. flights from China and Iraq, since Trump's inauguration: a 15% drop in US. hotel bookings from Mexico, according to Marriott International: there will be 4.3 million fewer people estimated to visit the United States this year, according to Tourism Economics, this represents 7.4 billion in lost revenue.

Isn't it ridiculous that one of the greatest believers in capitalism, who has the number one job in the world looking after capitalism's interests, should be screwing up one of America's greatest industries? The fact that this is happening only goes to underline the fact that capitalism is a crazy system. 

Steve and John.