Which city has the wealthiest?

Glasgow is the wealthiest city in Scotland, according to analysis of the fortunes of the 100 richest individuals and families from north of the border.

The city has produced 16 millionaires from the 2017 Sunday Times Scottish Rich List. Their combined wealth is just under £4.5bn – 13.7 per cent of the £32.7bn accumulated by the top 100.

The figures put Glasgow ahead of Edinburgh, which has 17 millionaires worth a total of £3.9bn, and Aberdeen with 16 millionaires with a combined wealth of £3.6bn.

The Glasgow Rich List is headed by John Shaw, who left the city to build a £1.15bn pharmaceuticals fortune in Bangalore with his Indian wife, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

The richest person from Edinburgh is property investor Jim Mellon, worth £920m, and now based in the Isle of Man. Author JK Rowling is number two on Edinburgh’s list, with a fortune of £650m.

Aberdeen’s richest is billionaire Sir Ian Wood, worth £1.6bn, who made his money in the North Sea oil industry.

Meanwhile, Moray has produced seven fortunes worth almost £5.4bn – 16.5 per cent of the wealth of the top 100.

Much of the money is centred on Speyside where the Grant Gordon family – who head the rich list in Scotland with £2.37bn – have two of their whisky distilleries.

The richest in Perthshire and Tayside account for 14.1 per cent (£4.6bn) of the rich list wealth. The Dundee-based Thomson publishing family are among the richest in Scotland having accumulated £1.285bn.

To say "Glasgow is the wealthiest city in Scotland," is mistaken. Their wealth doesn't reflect the wealth or otherwise of the city itself. Glasgow is one of the few cities that has so many run-down poor areas so close to the city centre. Apart from the west end of Glasgow if you leave the city-centre going north, south or east you very quickly come to the less prosperous areas without going very far from the centre of town. Glasgow has been badly served over the years and when we consider its rich successful industrial history that contributed so much wealth to the country it seems particularly sad.

Our Socialist Vision

One of the snags of presenting a vision of socialism as a solution to our numerous crises is that it's hard to know where to begin. The gap between where we are now with capitalism and where we'd like to be with socialism appears enormous and therefore we wonder how it might be accomplished. Charles Eisenstein once said “There is a vast territory between what we’re trying to leave behind, and where we want to go – and we don’t have any maps for that territory”.

Capitalists do not direct their capital, but in fact are themselves directed by and enslaved by capital, as Marx pointed out. Capital spontaneously flows wherever the most profit can be made. There is no society-wide overall planning under capitalism, nor can a capitalist economy as a whole be a planned economy. The interests of the capitalists are individual interests. Capitalists all fight for their own immediate interests, the interests of a particular company or sector. By their very nature, that is their sole consideration. They come into antagonistic conflict with other capitalists, other sectors and other industries. So long as the prevailing ideology supports it and the State apparatus is in the hands of the owners and so long its system maintains a reasonable hold, then the owning class are in control. Their system of exploitation is safe. Socialism challenges the whole prevailing ideology and socialist aim to capture of the State machine. The very experience of workers of their exploitation educates them. They ultimately require and acquire socialist ideas.

Socialism is the free association of completely free men and women, where no separation between private and common interest exist. The predictions of socialists with regard to future society cannot be exact because the great complexity of social phenomena does not permit, in our present time, of their being completely observed in all details, but only in their main features, and for that reason the picture of the new system also can only be drawn in its main outlines; but these are the most important considerations for the people of the present day. Socialism, however, can’t be built on the ruins of the existing society by a revolt of starving beggars in rags.

A British worker, employed in a nationalised industry is a ‘wage-earner’ in the Marxian sense of the word, and still ‘exploited’, he is only a wage-slave. Yet extraordinary enough in the former Soviet Union his opposite number earns less, works longer hours, has much less variety of goods on which to spend his money, has trade unions which exist only to squeeze more and more work out of him, is tied to his particular factory, and had the prospect of being sent to a forced labour camp if he protests against his lot; yet here presented the most advanced, emancipated and free worker in the world. Somehow when the amount of unpaid labour which is ‘surplus value’ goes to the British state, the same amount of unpaid labour is not ‘surplus value’ when the Russian state is on the receiving end. Who was kidding who? As Engels pointed out in his Anti-Duhring “State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution...neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital... The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.” The state is the owner of the conditions of production (‘the general capitalist’) and the direct producers are wage-earners, that therefore the relations between them are still the relations between capital and labour, between employer and employee. All the characteristics of the capitalistic system of exploitation are to be found in the Russian system of relationship between the state, owner of the means of production, and the direct producer, the worker. The state pays the labour it employs with wages, and ‘wages... by their very nature always imply the performance of a certain quantity of unpaid labour on the part of the labourer’ (Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 25/1), that is ‘surplus value’.

The Leninist platform contained nothing that was incompatible with capitalism. It allowed exploitation itself and class opposition to remain in place, and suppressed political rights, enslaved its workers to the yoke of militarism and the senseless waste of its labour power.

This is a general picture of the social process of change to socialism. While capitalism exists, it is suffice for socialism to establish the possibility of the emancipation of the working-class and to work towards that emancipation. There is no necessity to work out and settle every detail of the organization of the future socialist society. Let us not have the presumption to lay down rules for those who are to come after us, and let us be content with our present task. The whole goal of the Socialist Party consists in educating their fellow-workers, in explaining to assist them become conscious of their condition, their task and their responsibility, of organising them in readiness for the day when the political power shall fall into their hands. To win for socialism the greatest possible number of supporters, that is the task to which the Socialist Party must dedicate their efforts and energies. The Socialist Party is the only party which pursues these aims in a practical fashion. What is the use of talking of anything but socialism. We must talk of revolution and our aim should be to overthrow the capitalist system, not to modify it.

Our solution appears 'utopian' and not practical and so the aspiration is abandoned in favour of short-term remedies that prove to be no cure.  Socialism is a society without money, barter or trade, with the awareness that Humanity is One family and where technology, science and spirituality is used to its fullest to develop and manage the planet’s resources to provide abundance for everyone in the most sustainable way. That is a big leap to make because this idea of an abundant, peaceful, sustainable and cooperative world may well seem impossible yet it isn't. It is a feasible future.

Remember Our Past, Organise Our Future

'If they speak consciously and openly to the working class, then they summarise their philanthropy in the following words: It is better to be exploited by one’s fellow-countrymen than by foreigners.’ Marx, 1848

'Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.'- Engels, 1847.

The abolition of capitalism and the transformation to a socialist society is the only solution to Scotland's many problems. The capitalist class say that socialism is impossible because it is in their class interests to say so. No party of capitalism can solve the problems faced by the wage and salary working class and so none of them are worth voting for. Scotland's independence is just not possible within the context of globalised capitalism. Certainly, formal sovereignty, is possible, where it would have the full power to make decisions without reference to any “mother parliament”. But there’s a difference between the mere legal power to do something and what can be done in practice. In practice all states, when exercising their sovereign power to make decisions, have to take into account the economic reality that there exists a single world market economy on which they are dependent. A state can exercise some degree of influence on how the world market operates in relation to it - it erect tariff walls, subsidise exports, devalue its currency - but this depends on its economic clout. The interest of the working class in all countries is to reject all nationalism, to reject in fact the very idea of “foreigner”, and to recognise that they have a common interest with people in other countries in the same economic situation of being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a living.  The liberation for Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders. All the fuss abour Scottish separatism is an irrelevance. It will not give the people of Sotland more control over their own affairs. The only change that will do that is a change in the whole social system, replacing competitive production for profit and minority ownership by co-operative production. Neither an independent sovereign Scotland or United Kingdom can achieve this. It is only feasible in a money-free, frontier-free society which, for those with vision, is the next stage in human social evolution.  Scotland can achieve, along with the workers of all countries, the victory which will end for all time the exploitation of man-by-man. The history of the future will tell of the final assault and triumph of humanity over slavery and humiliation and the world will be the inheritance of the people as a whole.

Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because they will still be the wages labour and capital relationship. There is no truly independent country in the world, because international capitalism has made sure of this. The SNP tell us that independence from England and the control of our own purse strings will cure all our problems. What they do not seem to realise is that the problems they are going to try to solve are an integral part of the capitalist system. The SNP demand for its constitutional “right" to control the economy, completely ignores the fact that this is purely a paper right. The capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which no government or legislative body can over-ride. So the argument about sovereignty is not really about what the constitution may or may not say. It's about the effective power that a capitalist state can exercise within the capitalist economy. Capitalism has always existed within a framework of competing states, none of which is strong enough to impose its will on all the others. States, as weapons in the hands of rival groups of capitalists, intervene to further the interests of the capitalists that control them. They do this by using state power to set up protected markets, raw materials sources, trade routes and investment outlets. In normal times their weapons are tariffs, taxes, quotas, export rebates and other economic measures. When they judge that their vital interest is at stake their weapons are . . . weapons. They go to war.

Workers have nothing to gain from the redrawing of the boundaries, but some Scottish entrepreneurs and bureaucrats certainly do have a chance of making good if only they can persuade the electorate to back them. Can't we see that the only people who would gain anything from Scottish independence would be local politicians who would become big fish in a small pond?  There can be no relief for the oppressed Scotsman in changing an English robber for an Scottish one. The person of the robber does not matter—it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity and action, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends. The Scottish capitalist is in no wise more merciful than the English exploiter. The Scottish capitalist competes with the English capitalist because the latter stands in the way of a more thorough exploitation of the Scot workers by Scottish capital. Let the thieves fight their own battles! For the worker in Scotland there is but one hope. It is to join the Scottish branches of the Socialist Party and to make common cause with the socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation; saying to both English and native capitalists: "A plague on both your houses". For the true battle-cry of the working class in broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rally cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

What, in all honesty, do nationalists got to gain with the “independence” they so dearly yearn after. It means being trapped within borders - artificial constructs, no, prisons - inside of the bigger prison of capitalism. We always have a choice: we can continue to place our power as a class into the hands of leaders who use it to pursue the interests of a capitalist elite, or, we can take responsibility for it collectively and use it to further the interests of all humanity. Socialism is a form of globalisation – a globalisation of human community that abolishes capital against the sort of globalisation that is subservient to the transnational corporations.  Members of the Socialist Party do not aspire to Scottish independence but to the emancipation of all humanity through the establishment of world socialism. It is not “English rule” that is responsible for the problems faced by workers in Scotland, but capitalism. Socialist society will mean the liberation of all mankind. As socialists, we don't take sides in any inter-capitalist argument. We don't support one section of the capitalist class or the other.  Let the capitalist class and their parties and supporters settle the matter for themselves. In the meantime we continue to campaign for the establishment of a world society without frontiers where the resources of the Earth are the common heritage of humanity. 

The voice of the Socialist Party in Scotland is a small but a constant one. All parties are in opposition to it but it persists. It will continue to expose those who, under the guise of liberators, continue to mislead the working class.

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.