The Scottish Drink Problem

22 people a week died from alcohol-related causes in Scotland in 2015, 54% higher than in England and Wales. The alcohol-related death rate was more than twice as high in men as in women, with 30 deaths per 100,000 of the population in men compared with 13.8 deaths for women.

Alcohol-related death rates were six times higher in the 10% most-deprived areas than in the 10% least deprived. The report highlighted inequalities, with alcohol-related stays in hospital nearly nine times higher in the 10% most-deprived areas than in the 10% least deprived areas in 2015/16.

 Lucie Giles, lead author of the report, said: "It is worrying that as a nation we buy enough alcohol for every person in Scotland to exceed the weekly drinking guideline substantially. This has harmful consequences for individuals, their family and friends as well as wider society and the economy. The harm that alcohol causes to our health is not distributed equally; the harmful effects are felt most by those living in the most disadvantaged areas in Scotland."

In 2016, the equivalent of 10.5 litres of pure alcohol were sold per adult in Scotland, representing 20.2 units per adult per week. Official guidelines advise against men and women drinking more than 14 units a week on a regular basis. Enough alcohol was sold last year in Scotland for every adult to exceed the weekly guideline by 44% every week of the year. Sales of alcohol per adult per week were 17% greater in Scotland than in England and Wales 

Alcohol Focus Scotland chief executive Alison Douglas, said: "Alcohol is so cheap and widely available that it's easy to forget how it can damage our health."

And it is also easy to overlook the fact the tremendous power of commercial advertising and retail pressure that exists to expand the market for the manufacturers and distributors. Booze means profits. 

All we want is the whole wide world

'Our Demands Most Moderate Are, We Only Want the Earth’

Wage-workers in industrial and developing countries, skilled and unskilled labourers, manual and mental workers, urban and rural workers, all are ravaged by this global scourge with lost jobs and low pay, wage freeze and wage cuts, downsized and diminished benefits, factory closures and run-away shops, and casualisation of labour, strike-breaking and union-busting. he prophets of Globalization talk of “free markets” and “free trade”. But how about freeing labour from wage-slavery?  The gap between the rich and the poor is wider and deeper than ever in history. Despite all the advances in social production through new technology, billions today still have no food on their tables or roofs over their heads. The last 100 years of capitalism has been a century of over-abundance for the owners of capital and utter deprivation for those who live only by the sale of their labour. Globalisation has inaugurated not a post-scarcity society but the unadorned class rule of the international capitalism and its insatiable pursuit of profit.

The Socialist Party is not prepared to collaborate with any political party which supports the capitalist system. The Socialist Party soley wants to see the end of capitalism, a system which has caused unemployment, zero-hours contracts (better known as modern slavery), homelessness, cuts and privatisation of our health and social care systems, education and pensions resulting for the first time since the 1930s food banks established throughout the entire nation. Today’s world is wracked by wars, racism, xenophobia and the rise yet again of organisations and political parties who preach fascistic doctrines. These facts alone demonstrate that capitalism has no place in the twenty-first century. The Socialist Party wants to see a world free from war, free from want and free from oppression. We want a world which promotes and protects the environment and the earth’s resources, not just for human beings but for all other forms of life. The Socialist Party wants to see a world at peace with liberty, justice and prosperity for all, above all we want a Socialist world. We want to see the dreams and aspirations of all those who fought for rights and freedoms become reality; a world where there are no leaders. We want to secure for the people a full return of all the wealth generated by our industries and services on the basis of common ownership of the means of production and distribution. Socialism means that production is based on human need and is not designed to satisfy the greed of the few. The capitalist market should not dictate what is produced but the majority of people should be able to debate and plan what is needed for society as a whole. The road to socialism requires a clear vision. The Socialist Party has no desire to add itself to the number of people's leaders. We are not back slapping or head patting when we say that young people of Britain and the world are the hope of the future. Without their present and future labour power, capitalism has no future. We seek understanding and cooperation in the biggest of all projects, not to fight for the abolition of this or that, or the amelioration of that or the other, but for a complete revolution in our social system. Capitalism took the idealism of our fathers and their fathers and covered it with the muck of two great wars. It took their young bodies and shattered them for its narrow interests. It continues to poison the Earth with pollution: it continues to cloud your vision with nationalist falsehoods wrapped up in sentiment and cheap patriotism. It will, if necessary, throw you in conflict against our brothers and sisters of other lands.

These demands are not excessive; they are most moderate. We only want the earth! It is humanity’s choice.

Jacque Fresco, Futurist Who Envisioned a Society Without Money, Dies at 101

Jacque Fresco, a self-taught and passionate industrial designer who envisioned an alternative society where money would be eliminated and resources distributed equitably by computers, died on May 18 in Sebring, Fla. He was 101.

His death was confirmed by Roxanne Meadows, his partner, who said he had Parkinson’s syndrome and had recently broken a hip.

Mr. Fresco created the Venus Project on 21 rural acres that he and Ms. Meadows acquired in south-central Florida in 1980 to pursue his quixotic plan: creating a resource-based economy that would rescue modern society from the ills of failed political systems.

About two hours south of Orlando, he and Ms. Meadows constructed domed buildings and other structures to showcase his ideas for energy-efficient cities that would be built in circular arrangements. They supported the project with $200 tours of the compound and by selling books and videos.

“I would like to see an end to war, poverty and unnecessary human suffering,” he said in an interview on his website. “But I can’t see it in a monetary-based system where the richest nations control most of the world’s resources. I cannot see that happening. I see a constant repeat of the same series of events: war, poverty, recession, boom, bust and war again.”

He wanted all sovereign nations to declare the world’s resources — clean air and water, arable land, education, health care, energy and food — the “common heritage” of all people. In his so-called resource-based economy, he said, people would get what they want through computers. He looked upon his plan as a practical, even inevitable response to the inequities rampant in the modern world. But he conceded that only a catastrophe would lead to the adoption of his concept.

“Economic collapse,” he said, would demonstrate to people that elected politicians “aren’t competent enough to get us out of these problems, and they will look to possible solutions.”

Unfortunately capitalism is an extremely resilient social system and economic collapse in some sectors provide opportunities in others even unto war. He was quite correct though that capitalism itself was incapable of reform and required to be replaced with a production for use post-capitalist society, where access was free.

Robert Murphy, an associate scholar at the Mises Institute, which promotes the teaching of Austrian economics, wrote in 2010 that idealists like Mr. Fresco were “wrong to blame our current dysfunctional world on capitalism or money per se.” Instead, Mr. Murphy wrote, if property rights were respected by all, “humanity would become fantastically wealthy.”

Murphy and the Mises institute are more idealistic than Jacque Fresno could ever be and are quite incorrect. It is private, corporate and state ownership of property, specifically the means of producing and distributing wealth, which creates poverty, both relative and absolute, requiring an economically dependent working class (90-95%) to produce a vast array of commodities for sale for the profit of the economic parasite class (5-10%) in return for  a subsistence ration payment(wages).


Mr. Fresco, who believed fervently in science’s power to transform life for the better, said on Facebook: “We have the technology to build a global paradise on earth, and at the same time we have the power to end life as we know it. I am a futurist. I cannot predict the actual future — only what it can be if we manage the earth and its resources intelligently.”

Socialists can only agree.

Source New York Times

The Illogic of capitalism

It’s apparent to everyone today that the world is going through an environmental crisis. Climate change is already impacting our lives. As it gets worse, we will be affected by more floods, forest-fires and droughts. Climate change is a result of an economic system — capitalism — in which profit-making takes precedence over the real needs of communities and their surroundings regardless of what the science tells us we should do. Capitalism is an economic system profoundly and irrevocably at odds with a sustainable planet, as it requires ever-increasing amounts material and energy to keep expanding. Capitalism of necessity exploits the land and the people and sacrifices the interests of both on the altar of profit. The contradiction between the environment and lust for profits is one that capitalism will be unable to overcome. A socialist society would not be bounded by the illogic of capitalism and would pursue clean energy because profits wouldn't be on the line. Nature and society, however, need not be seen as always in opposition but could co-develop with one another.

Under capitalism, decisions on what and how to produce are made by corporate executives maximising profits by increasing sales and decreasing costs to the business. People and nature are exploited directly and indirectly as external costs are imposed on them. Controls on corporate excess, through regulation can limit abuse, but tend to be too little, too late. Changes in individual consumer behaviour and introduction to better technology can buy time but are insufficient to save the planet as long as “capitalism allows companies to continue polluting. The entire production system must be transformed; we must change the way society decides to allocate resources in the interdependent web of the world economy.  Securing an environmentally sustainable production system will require fundamental political and social change on every scale and in every sphere. Human and environmental needs can be brought into sustainable balance only if production takes account of all environmental consequences. A sustainable economy requires a system in which production is owned by all and democratically planned and controlled by well-informed people.

Today's consumer-orientated life-style campaigns are a distraction to the urgent action needed. The environment can be sustained by collective stewardship as our material needs are securely met by a fair distribution and sharing of resources. Leaving the process to the status quo of Big Business and their politicians is to guarantee mutually assured destruction. Humanity cannot afford to allow the narrow profit interests of a tiny super-rich elite to cost us the planet. The very future of the earth depends upon overthrowing the rule of profit and replacing it with socialism, which can utilise the world's resources for the common good. 

If humanity is to have any chance of re-entering a sustainable relationship with nature, we need to stop the rot at its source: capitalism and class society must be gotten rid of.   The current exploitative system must be replaced by one in which humans are not divorced from nature, but become the conscious aspect of nature.  Doing that requires a revolution: we must get rid not only of the exploitation of nature, but also the exploitation of one human being by another. In order to prevent a future ecological nightmare and preserve our planet for generations to come; a sustainable society in which the working class empowers itself—a socialist society—is vitally necessary. Capitalism’s insatiable reliance on ever-expanding profits cannot be sustained on our finite planet. Capitalism engages in production to produce profit. This is the primary motive and the satisfaction of human needs is secondary to this. Because of the internal workings of the system there is a need for continual growth. Capitalism must grow or die. Our rulers are not in control of the system, they only respond to its demand for cheap raw materials and any means of keeping monetary costs down and profits up. This is the real reason why years of climate conferences have failed to halt the destruction of the planet. Our rulers measure their success by economic growth rates. The only way to halt the trashing of our planet is to end the capitalist system of production. The entire system of capitalist production needs to be ended before we can have any hope of reversing the dreadful damage capitalism has inflicted on the planet. The production for profit, and the system of wage labour which supports it, need to be replaced with social production. The productive forces need to become common property for the satisfaction of human needs.  All attempts to reform capitalism and make our rulers see the error of their ways are a waste of effort. The choice today is engaging in the struggle for a socialist planet or seeing the ruin of civilisation.

 The watchword for such a society will be:

“From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.”

A new society for a new world

We are living in one of the most volatile periods in history.  There is the looming possibility of environmental catastrophe.

The environmental crisis is not the fault of the working class. The only thing the workers are “guilty” of is not as yet overthrowing the capitalism system. Under the profit system, the majority does not have a say in how resources are used or production is organized. The capitalists are behind these decisions, and their main decision-making criteria is the pursuit of profit. Under capitalism, businesses must compete with one another and maximize profits in order to survive. The individual efforts of consumers cannot defeat the powerful structural incentives that drive environmental destruction. The structure itself must be fundamentally transformed. Capitalism is not something that can be reformed. Some in the environmentalist movement, however, seek in effect to pass the burden onto the shoulders of the working class. The workers are asked to sacrifice their standard of living in an effort to stave off environmental disaster, while the capitalists can continue to fill their coffers with profits. It is true that workers have both the power and the responsibility to ameliorate the effects of climate change. But this cannot require punishing people for wanting a good quality of life. The working class has the power to ensure that the planet is habitable for everyone precisely because it has the power to defeat capitalism. The environment is an interconnected system of which we are a part, in which humanity participates and manipulates with our technology. Humans must interact with nature. However, the interaction between humans and nature – production of food, extraction of raw material, waste disposal, pollution, etc. – can be better managed to allow mutual prosperity. It is only in the epoch of capitalism, that our tools have become so powerful that they threaten to destroy the system on which everything, including ourselves, depends. However, we are not fated to be doomed. Humans are rational beings. We are able to adapt. Technological innovation has already provided the possibility of re-tooling our economy and our societies with clean, renewable energy from the sun, wind, and water. There is no need for new breakthroughs to achieve this even though further breakthroughs still arise. By shifting towards a cleaner and more sustainable approach, this is entirely possible. For example, quality food production does not inherently require stripping the soil of nutrients and then clear-cutting rainforests to find more fertile soil. No new technology or ideas are required to grow enough food to feed humanity while preserving the soil (and the rainforests) for future generations. We already know how to do that. 

The problem is that the capitalist economy is not subject to our intelligence or reason.  It is subject to the anarchy of the market and not consciously planned to be in harmony with the environment. Under capitalism, we allow the vast bulk of the economy to be run undemocratically by a tiny minority.  The only thing standing in the way is Big Business and the elite who make the decisions about what is produced and how it is produced based on the prerequisite of increasing profits for the owners of corporations and their investors.  The incessant quest for profits at the expense of climate stability and human well-being and life, serves only those who collect the profits: the super-wealthy. Unsurprisingly, the capitalists run things in a way that serves the interests of their own class. In the capitalists’ eyes, the earth is there to be plundered and exploited.  Under capitalism, no value is placed on nature or human life. Production, therefore, is driven by short-term profit interests – and powered by “cheap,” polluting carbon-based energy – with no consideration of the damage inflicted on the environment and human lives. 

What is needed is the next step in social evolution. We need an economic and political system that will not attack, but rather, will improve our standard of living in a way that is not detrimental to the environment. No longer would we need to rely on technology that pollutes our water, air, and land because “the market” deems it the cheapest. A socialist economy would be run by all layers of society, democratically, from the bottom up.  The producers in every enterprise would link up with entire workplaces, industries, states, countries, and eventually the whole world. This would be a new, truly democratic political system embedded in the very structure of the economy. Everyone would have the opportunity to put forward their ideas and opinions. When workers have the ability to be creative in the workplace they would innovate to make things safer, more efficient, and environmentally sustainable. There would be little interest in planning an economy that would create pollution or rely on hazardous materials that kill and maim workers. We could put our best and brightest minds to use, not in developing earth-destroying technologies for the benefit of the minority. Under capitalism, these are merely “externalities.” But if subject to a democratic discussion, we are confident they would be quickly eradicated. By ridding ourselves of the profit motive and private ownership of the means of production, humans can reconnect with the earth and their own labour, thereby fully connecting with each other and their natural surroundings. Instead of the world being to benefit huge multinationals, it would be organised to apply the resources and skills of workers to improve the conditions of people around the world. We could the attain the worldwide cooperation necessary to deal with problems like global warming, and begin to reverse the environmental catastrophe. Only by overthrowing the capitalist system and replacing it with one where production is democratically and collectively owned controlled by the community will climate change be stopped and our future secured. 

For the future of humanity and for the panet, we need socialism.

Common Sense - Common Ownership

Quite simply, common ownership of the world’s resources and productive capacity is the basis for a reorganisation of society that would ensure plenty of the necessities of life for everyone on the planet – no more starving, malnourished people, no wandering homeless, no senseless deaths for the want of easily affordable medical care and medicine, no more poverty, unemployment, or inequality. How can this be so? Surely, if it were possible to eliminate these scourges we would have done it long ago. Aren’t we working on these problems anyway? At present we live in a world where the resources of the earth and the products made from them, the processes needed to make them, and the transportation systems to get them to you, are all owned by private individuals. A company proposes to extract resources or manufacture commodities. It needs money in order to do this. Wealthy people loan the company the necessary capital, but they don’t do it for nothing. They will expect a healthy return on their money every year of say, 10%, or $100 000 on every million dollars loaned. If this return is below expectations, then the lender will withdraw his funds and look somewhere else to invest. This puts every enterprise in a competition for capital to fund their operations and for expansion. Thus all companies must compete and strive to do whatever is necessary to create profit to pay dividends to lenders. If a company fails in this, capital will dry up and production will stop, rendering its physical assets as junk or sold at a fraction of its value, and its employees will be out of work. In other words, commodities are only produced for the purpose of profit or they are not produced at all. As we have seen, profits go to a tiny minority of big investors of capital to enhance their already vast fortunes that allow them to live in luxury while contributing no work whatsoever.

We believe that the earth’s resources are the common heritage of all mankind and should be managed for the benefit of all. Those resources are easily abundant enough to feed, clothe, and house everyone on earth and provide medical care, education and everything else necessary to ensure a full and happy life for everyone. The establishment of common ownership would eliminate the competition for resources and for capital. It would eliminate production for profit only. It would eliminate the need for states and their central governments that exist to serve today’s competitive system. It would even eliminate the need for money and trading as goods and services would be produced solely to meet the needs of humans who would have free access to those goods and services, taking them as needed. Competition would be replaced by cooperation, eliminating conflict and war and because everybody and therefore no one person or group would own the means of producing wealth, everyone would stand equal to the powers of production – no owners and non-owners, no exploiters and exploited, no employers and employed, and therefore, no classes. Today, this is quite obviously not the case. We have constant conflict and war, vast inequality, poverty, malnutrition, starvation, and deprivation amid wealth and plenty. Workers produce all the wealth in the world and perform all the work, yet are only allowed to take home a small share of that wealth to enable them to exist so they can show up at work the next day to produce more profit that goes to the already wealthy. And they are only allowed to do so at the whim of that tiny minority of owners. Today, nobody starves or goes hungry because we lack food. Nobody is homeless because we lack building materials or builders, nobody lives in poverty because we lack wealth. People suffer theses scourges because they are unable to pay and thus realize a profit for some enterprise or other.

Is common ownership a utopian dream? Is it practical? At least we know our present system works, don’t we? Firstly, common ownership is a practical alternative to capitalism because it would rely on all necessary goods and services being produced by exactly those people who are doing the job now. It is only the capitalist class, the owners of capital, who presently do nothing in return for their financial rewards. The rest of us, the vast majority, go to work every day and earn our living by producing those necessary items. We are capable of doing that with or without the capitalist. The capitalist class, along with all those who now perform jobs that would be unnecessary in a system based on common ownership (soldiers, military- industrial workers, financial and insurance industries, salespersons, advertising, accounting, law and court workers, and so on) would become producers, too, reducing greatly the current workload of the rest of us. Common ownership would mean voluntary labour, no wages or employment, and free access for all to all the goods and services produced. Some say that in such a system many would choose not to work or take too much from the common store – that’s human nature, isn’t it? Actually, that’s human behavior learned and acquired under capitalist economic relationships, not human nature. If anything is free today that we normally pay for, we have to grab it because we know it won’t be free for long. But if it were free and available forever, we would soon learn to take only what we needed – like the air we freely breathe but take for granted. And if you had voted for such a system, why would you want to abuse it? 

Of course, a social revolution such as a change to common ownership would have to be the desire and democratic choice of the vast majority in order for it to work, but once that majority has been attained and the change completed, we would all want to make it work. Secondly, how well does capitalism work today? Very well, if you are a capitalist and receive the wealth to live a luxurious life style for no contribution to the common good. We acknowledge that capitalism is a system that has advanced human knowledge and the production of goods remarkably. Unfortunately, although capitalism is quite capable of producing enough for everybody, it is not capable of delivering. The kicker is that commodities can only be produced if there is a reasonable chance of profit so the supply is limited to match those who can pay, not all those who need. No money? Go without! No profit? No production! This means that the system doesn’t work for that half of humanity that must exist on $2 a day; or the almost 1 billion that go to bed hungry every day; or the tens of thousands of children who die every day from malnutrition; or the millions who live in poverty in the midst of incredible wealth and plenty; or the millions of unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, or food bank users even in our rich country. Capitalism doesn’t work at all well for a lot of people. Since power is invested in the state, and since capitalism is legitimised through the laws of private property, created and passed in state legislatures and upheld by the state police and army, then it becomes clear that control of the law-making bodies is a key element to effect change. A majority of representatives in the legislature in favour of social revolution could institute laws establishing common ownership safely and legally. A political party with a platform of common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth democratically, in the interests of all humankind, would be the one to bring this change about.

 This is precisely what The Socialist Party proposes, and all it proposes. No promises of a higher minimum wage, tax the rich, carbon taxes etc., just the establishment of common ownership which will address all the major ills afflicting society under capitalism such as war, poverty, and deprivation of food, housing, and medical care. The Socialist Party is a companion party in The World Socialist Movement, a federation of parties promoting Common Ownership. All we need to succeed is for you and your family, friends, and neighbours to read our literature to understand the incredible possibilities that establishing Common Ownership would have on all humanity. It would lift us to a higher form of social organization that would benefit mankind. Why wait any longer?  

Capitalist economics

Most workers realise they are hired to help create profit for the owners of the enterprise. Most realize that their wages are not equal to what their employer makes for their labour. A visit to your local car dealership service department will soon prove that. They advertise labour rates of around $90 per hour, and we all know the mechanics don’t make that much. But few would count themselves exploited, or be able to tell you exactly where profit comes from. That’s not surprising as the capitalist class does its best to hide it and it’s not taught in school. Their propaganda machine, the media, will constantly ask you, “There’s nothing wrong with making a profit, is there?” and tell you that profit comes from entrepreneurial skill, hard work on the bosses’ part, making smart deals, or buying low and selling high, all of which are pure nonsense. That’s because if the source of profit were general knowledge, many workers would be contemplating a better system of producing and distributing wealth. 

It was Marx who discovered the real source of profit through his Labour Theory of Value. Classical economists such as Ricardo, Smith, Say, and Mill regarded the value of a product as the amount of labour in it. Marx went further describing value as the amount of necessary labour embodied in a product, meaning the average amount of labour under average conditions ( hence the struggle to constantly improve productivity, i.e. reduce the amount of necessary labour). This definition of value applies also to the only commodity that the worker possesses, labour-power. Its value is determined by the amount of goods, services, and training needed to keep him fit to be able to show up for work the next day and perform his tasks. It includes the necessaries to bring up his family, the next generation of workers. The price of labour-power is your wage. Labour-power has the unique ability to add value to a product. This difference is called surplus-value, is embedded in the product, and realized by the capitalist when he sells the product on the market. Thus the worker produces a value equal to his wage in one part of the day, and the extra value that goes into the product and ultimately into the owner’s pocket, in another part of the day. Therefore PROFIT = UNPAID LABOUR. This we call exploitation as the worker is working for nothing for a part of the day. The length of the part of the day needed to produce value equal to the worker’s wage determines the rate of exploitation – the less time needed to produce the wage equivalent and the greater the amount of time given to the employer, the greater the exploitation. So, if you think you are not exploited, think again. No matter how generous your employer may be, or how pleasant your surroundings may be, the only reason you are there is to produce surplus-value, and when you cease to do this, or even if you don’t create enough surplus value, you’ll be out the door. Just ask Ontario’s manufacturing sector whose jobs are vapourising at an alarming rate, and reappearing in places like Mexico, South America, and Asia where the workers can produce more surplus-value, and therefore, more profit. This exploitation is the basis of capitalist wealth and will only end when the riches of the earth and the systems used to transform them into wealth are held in common and used to produce goods for the benefit of all mankind.

In capitalism, the production of wealth is created by the investment and production of thousands of competing companies. Economic growth is guided by the so-called “unseen hand of the market”. There is no oversight or regulation involved in the market system. Production occurs according to the expectation of profit and is not associated with the expansion of other industries. This “driving blind” approach to production causes imbalances in the quantity of wealth produced by the varying sectors of an economy. The competition for capital accumulation causes companies to inflate production above the levels of consumer demand. In the case of GM and Ford, overproduction has caused commodities to go unsold, lowering their exchange value in the market, causing massive losses in profits and majors cutbacks coming in the form of layoffs and plant closures. The main cause for these economic slowdowns is almost rarely ever touched upon. It is due to the competitive nature of the market system that owners of companies are increasingly forced to squeeze more and cheaper production out of their workers. In the chase for capital expansion, companies over-extend themselves, the result coming in the form of production cutbacks. As profits shrink and commodity consumption slows down, investment follows suit causing the shoring up of loans and the lowering of credit interest rates. Downturns in one industry soon begin to have a ripple effect in other sectors of the economy as commodity demands begin to fall causing other industries to follow suite with cut-backs. Along with the profit system comes the great cost to the working class. Out of the loop and unaware of the financial dealings our employers engage in, the working class are always at the bottom of the hill when the proverbial feces runs downward.Over-productivee workers are rewarded by their employers with the loss of their livelihood. While the owning class gets billions of dollars received in the form of a bailout designed to protect their control over the economy, thousands of workers who are in serious need of a “bailout” themselves are kicked to the curb and forgotten. This current economic downturn could get better or it could get worse. One thing for certain is that recessions and depressions are a unavoidable inheritance of the capitalist system of production. There will always be booms and slumps so long as the means of production are owned and controlled by the owning class and operated in their interests. It is because the profit motive is the driving force of production in our society that we face such times of uncertainty. 

When the working class removes themselves from this backward and illogical method of wealth production, society will finally be free from the unpredictable vagaries of the profit system. Production of wealth for the profit of a few individuals is the name of the game in todays world. Carried along with that are the unavoidable scourges of the so-called “market corrections”. The Socialist Party offers a practical alternative to a society that fails so many time and time again. We advocate a world where the production of wealth is owned and controlled by the entire working class in the interests of the working class as a whole. We advocate a world where labour exists not to make the rich even wealthier, rather to produce what mankind needs. In a world owned in common the worker possesses what he produces, and exploitation does not exist. Common ownership and free access to the wealth of the world is merely a breath away. The only element hindering the working class from achieving true emancipation is our lack of understanding of the class system and its inherent exploitative nature. In order to change the world for the better, we must first understand what it is about the world that we need to change. We have waited far too long for our so-called leaders and political saviors to create a fair and just world . It has come time for th e working clas s to pu ll its elf up fro m their bo ots trap s an d p ut an end to the system that brings continual insecurity to our lives. Worker, the time for common ownership has come!  

Turning On And Up The Flow Of Cash.

Despite overwhelming opposition in this country and beyond what any thinking person knows of the ludicrous madness increasing CO2 levels and global warming, The Canadian Press May 25th tells us that "Kinder Morgan announces Trans Mountain expansion will go ahead."

The sprawling Texas monopoly is quite used to public opposition, but what overrides any embarrassment of what science or the public says, what's highest in these bird's minds is their offering of 102.9 million shares at a price the of $17 to raise the underwriting capital powering the ecological nightmare and ensuring their profit$ keep going Up, Up and Up! And ain't that the name of the game? Profits at any cost?

With the company's two lapdogs Trudeau and Trump ensconced in power, horizons looks rosy for this oil hustling shifter to do quite handily out of the deal.

Environment? Who cares, other than what the gutter press tells about the BC Greens holding the 'balance of power' swaying BC's two other capitalist parties to do the right thing: keep those voters docile while turning on and up the flow of cash for the ever hungry capitalist lobbyists who pay big bucks to install these guys in power!

We read the Alberta NDP likes the deal too. Notley, says "opponents of the pipeline expansion have no power to stop it nor should they hold hostage the economy of another province." Well, that's a convenient thing to say Rachel – at least your tribe of labour fakirs are off the hook!

Citizens wake up! You're voting for capitalism here. Until we figure the racket out there ain't going to be any stopping pipelines like the Trans Mountain or any other. Like Hollywood tells us folks: The show must go on!

Next time voting comes around we wage slaves have to make it real socialism, cause that's a show where we plebs write the whole script!

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet and John

The Essence of Capitalism

A corporation doesn’t have a heart or compassion. It is simply a paper entity and an agreement between risk investors whose DNA is to make a profit. It’s all about money and in tough times, all measures must be taken to protect that capital. Lay-offs are an unfortunate part of the business cycle. This is an assessment of the system with which we can agree, except to him it’s perfectly natural to continue this insane way of doing business. The ‘business cycle’ to which he referred is what Marx identified a hundred and fifty years ago as regular periods of steady production, leading to rapidly increasing production (a boom), eventually causing oversupply and reduced profit and production (a recession), followed by recovery of steady production. This cycle is inherent to the capitalist mode of production so we can expect to see crises and job losses every decade or so. The timing, length, and depth of such recessions are not predictable, only that they will occur sporadically. All this shows that we work at the pleasure of capital. When profits are high and production is expanding, the worker is a sought after commodity. 

When profits dip and production falls, the worker is expendable. Capital, therefore, dictates when you will have a job and when you will be out of work, struggling to survive. The worker must tolerate this insecurity because he has no ownership of, and no say in, the productive process. In fact, the workers own practically nothing but their personal possessions (and ability to labour). Even our houses and cars, for the most part, are owned by the banks. That fact has been shockingly brought to our attention as 2.3 million American homes, and 3% of all California homes became bank properties in 2008, and 2009 is expected to be even worse. In a system of common ownership and free access to all goods and services produced, energies in unneeded sectors of production would simply be applied where needed with no interruption in the access to the necessary goods and services for citizens. This end to recessionary insecurity and obeisance to capital can only come about when we end the wages system altogether and transform society to fulfill our needs rather than private profit.

Most people are drawn to examine and accept the socialist case because of its pure logic and common sense. Once socialism is comprehended, the view of our current system of production, capitalism, comes into focus and the view is bleak and incomprehensible. The very basis of capitalism – that the ownership the earth’s resources and riches should belong to a small minority that stole and plundered them, eliminating millions of people who stood in the way in the process, is sheer insanity. That those riches, and the means to convert them into useful goods, should be organized in the interests of that minority to the detriment and deprivation of the vast majority of the earth’s population only serves to compound that insanity. This state of affairs leads to our present relations of production, e.g. oppressor and oppressed, owner and non-owner, boss and worker. This gives us our two classes – those who own but do not produce and those who produce but do not own. The owners take possession of the producers’ products and the profits realized from their sale to live a life of ease and luxury, while those who labour to produce them get just enough to keep them labouring and often much less than that. Does this make sense? Unfortunately, it gets much worse. The parasitic owning class enjoys the best housing, clothing, education, healthcare, holidays and recreation that money can buy, with so much left over that they couldn’t possibly spend the excess if they tried. Meanwhile, most of the producers make do with substandard housing, food, healthcare, and education. While some workers, whose skills are in high demand by the system for making a profit, may do quite well, they are greatly outnumbered by the millions, even billions who live in abject poverty and scramble daily to survive. 

Sadly, thousands every day, mostly children under five years, lose the struggle. All producers, including those considered relatively wealthy, live with the insecurity of job loss and the prospect of falling into poverty. The workers only work at the pleasure of the owners and their expectations of profit. Like compound interest, inequality in the capitalist system compounds as profit and dividends are re-invested to accumulate ever-larger sums of capital, increasing the gap between owner and producer. The competition for resources and profits between these groups of capital, to which the owners contribute, frequently leads to conflict and, sometimes, even war, surely the greatest insanity of the human experience. What could be more insane than one group of humans dropping bombs on another group, or having 20% of the world’s scientific brains given to creating more efficient tools of death and destruction? For the thinking person, many everyday realities are insanities – food banks in the “developed” rich nations where food abounds; homelessness or unsatisfactory housing where building materials and skills are prevalent; malnourished, sickly people where hospitals and doctors are, or could easily be, plentiful; recreational, educational and job restrictions where there is no need, save to serve the profit motive; a whole “third” or “developing” world of billions who live in unimaginable poverty and deprivation when our productive forces could provide good food, housing, health care, and education. Ready for the common sense part yet? 

A socialist world would be based on the common ownership of the world’s riches and the productive forces to turn them into useful goods. Since all products would, therefore, be commonly owned, they would be freely accessed by all, according to their needs. Imagine, No more rich or poor, privileged or marginalized, boss or worker, owner or non-owner. All producers would meet as equals to decide what, how, where, when to produce to meet everyone’s needs, without regard to money or profit. Would we then produce the shoddy goods of today, using dirty, polluting techniques? Would we ravage and despoil the earth’s forests, soils, waterways, and air, in the pursuit of profit for a privileged class? Of course not! That’s just common sense. Would we go to war over resources, or manage them sensibly in the interests of all humankind? Would we allow anyone to live malnourished, homeless, illiterate, unfulfilled lives if we had the power to change it? Of course, we wouldn’t. It is only the restriction of the capitalist mode of production and the pursuit of profit that creates the insanity of our world. It is only the common sense of a socialist society that can remedy our present situation and create a world of cooperation and plenty for everyone – no classes, no money, no war, no poverty, no want. Capitalism has brought the potential to do this but cannot deliver. That next step must be the purpose of a socialist society. It is possible given today’s productive capacities and scientific knowledge. So it’s up to you, reader, to choose to continue this insanity or to look at the alternative. When a majority have done that and decided to act, socialism and common sense will become a reality. There really is no choice, is there?  

Profiting From Your Vital Organs.

SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA

The daily MailOnline, reports in NY organ trafficker admits buying kidneys in Israel for $10,000... and selling them in U.S. for $120,000 that: "The 60-year-old was arrested two years ago following a huge investigation into corruption in New Jersey.

The probe led to 46 arrests, including several rabbis, the New York Daily News reports. Many of the donors were desperately poor immigrants from eastern European countries such as Moldova, Romania and Russia."

I am just at a loss for words. Impoverishing masses (and now their vital organs) for private gain is the game. 

Steve and John.

What we want

'But of late, since Bismarck went in for state ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkeyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the state of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of socialism.’ Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific.

Reformism is the conviction that socialism can be achieved by the use of and participation in the existing political institutions by petitioning for regulatory and legislative measures to ameliorate and improve the conditions of the working class. Every delay in breaking with and exposing reformism does harm to the cause of promoting working-class consciousness. Revolutions do not take place against backgrounds of recessions and austerity. They take place when in a period of rising expectations the established order cannot satisfy the expectations which it has been forced to bring into being, a working-class with further horizons than mere wage rises.

One of the most enduring myths about socialism is that it is a doctrine of nationalisation and state ownership. Engels explained, ‘The more the state proceeds to the taking over of productive forces the more does it actually become the national capitalist ... The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.’ Nationalisation is a reform within capitalism, not a measure that overthrows it. To the Socialist Party it was self-evident from 1917 that the Soviet Union was not socialism but a form of state-capitalism, a centralized command economy where the state performed the function of the capitalist. The Socialist Party recognised the fraudulent claims of the Bolsheviks and their followers. Even before the NEP, all the conditions which led to the growth of state-capitalism were already being developed. The market, i.e. the exchange of commodities between independent producers, cannot be abolished by a political act.

Socialism as understood by Marx and other socialists does not mean a state-capitalist programme of national ownership and control. Marx declined to give any detailed picture of what he expected it to be like: that was something for the working class to work out for itself. Nevertheless scattered throughout his writings, published and unpublished, are references to what he believed would have to be the basic features of the new society the working class would establish in place of capitalism.

Nowhere did Marx distinguish between "socialist society" and "communist society". As far as he, and Engels, were concerned these two words meant the same, being alternative names for the society they thought the working class would establish in place of capitalism, a practice which will be followed in this article. As a matter of fact besides communist Marx employed four other words to describe future society: associated, socialised, collective and co-operative. All these words convey a similar meaning and bring out the contrast with a capitalist society where not only the ownership and control of production but life generally is private, isolated and atomized.

Of these the word Marx used most frequently — almost more frequently than communist — was an association. Marx wrote of future society as "an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism" and as "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". In Volume III of Capital Marx writes three or four times of production in future society being controlled by the "associated producers". Association was a word used in working class circles in England to mean a voluntary union of workers to overcome the effects of competition. This was Marx's sense too: in future society, the producers would voluntarily co-operate to further their own common interest; they would cease to be "the working class" and become a classless community.

Natural resources and the man-made instruments of production would be held in common: Marx speaks of "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common" and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, of "the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production" and of "the material conditions of production" being "the cooperative property of the workers themselves" . It is significant that Marx never defined communist society in terms of the ownership and control of the means of production by the State, but rather in terms of ownership and control by a voluntary association of the producers themselves. He did not equate what is now called "nationalisation" with socialism.

The State as an instrument of political rule over people and an organ of coercion was, in Marx's view, only needed in class-divided societies as an instrument of class rule and to contain class struggles. As he put it, in a socialist society "there will be no more political power properly so-called since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society" and "the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another" Socialism would indeed need a central administration but this would not be a "State" or "government" in that it would not have at its disposal any means of coercing people, but would be concerned purely with administering social affairs under democratic control. Marx endorsed the proposal of Saint Simon and other early critics of capitalism for "the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production", and also declared that "freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it." Once Socialism had been established and classes abolished, the coercive and undemocratic features of the State machine would have been removed, leaving only purely administrative functions mainly in the field of the planning and organization of production.

In Marx's view, there would be consciously planned production. He writes of a society "in which producers regulate their production according to a preconceived plan" and of "production by freely associated men . . . consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan". He was well aware that to regulate "production according to a preconceived plan" would be a huge organizational task. Indeed, that it would be, if you like, the economic problem of socialism. Matching production with social wants would in the first instance be a huge statistical exercise. Marx emphasised that for this sort of reason "book-keeping" would be more necessary in socialism than under capitalism — not that he envisages the books in socialist society being kept in money. Socialist society, he felt, would use some direct measure of labour-time for its statistics and planning. Calculations would have to be made of how much labour-time would be needed to produce particular items of wealth; the real social (as opposed to monetary market) demand for the various items of wealth would also have to be calculated; and all the figures put together to construct a definite plan for the allocation of resources and labour to the various different branches of production.

Marx compares how capitalism and socialism would tackle the same problems, for instance, a long-term project which would not bear fruit in the form of finished products for some years but which in the meantime would have to be allocated labour and resources. Under capitalism, said Marx, this creates monetary problems and upsets; but in socialism, it is only a question of "preconceived" planning, of making allowances for this beforehand. Similarly with miscalculations, say overproducing: under capitalism (where overproduction means in relation to market demand) this causes a crisis and a drop in production; in Socialism (where overproduction would be in relation to real social demand) there would be no problem: it could be corrected in the next plan.

In his Critique of the Gotha Programme and in Volume III of Capital Marx lists the various major uses to which the social product would have to be put in a socialist society:

1) Replacing the means of production (raw materials, wear, and tear of machinery, etc.) used up in producing the social product.

2) Expanding the means of production so as to be able to produce a larger social product.

3) A small surplus as a reserve to provide against accidents and natural disasters (and planning miscalculations, we might add).

4) The individual consumption of the actual producers.

5) The individual consumption of those unable to work: the young, the old, the sick.

6) Social consumption: schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, etc.

7) Social administration not connected with production.

This is obvious but it is as well to spell it out so as to show that Marx did discuss some of the practical problems of totally planned production.

Socialism, Marx repeatedly makes clear, would be a non-market society, with all that that implied: no money, no buying and selling, no wages, etc. In fact, it was his view that proper planning and the market are incompatible: either production is regulated by a conscious previously worked-out plan or it is regulated, directly or indirectly, by the market. When Marx talked about men under capitalism being dominated by blind forces, which were, in the end, their own creations, it was precisely blind market forces he mainly had in mind. For him, capitalism was essentially a market economy in which the allocation of labour and resources to the various branches of production was determined by what he called "the law of value".

Although production under capitalism was not consciously controlled, it was not completely anarchic: some sort of order was imposed by the fact that goods exchanged in definite proportions, related both to the amount of socially necessary labour-time spent in producing them and to the average rate of profit on invested capital. Under capitalism it was the averaging of the rate of profit on the capital invested in the different branches that regulated production. But this was an unplanned hit-and-miss process which was only accurate in the long run; in the short run it led to alternating periods of boom and slump, labour shortage and mass unemployment, high profits and low profits. The assertion by society of conscious control over production, and the allocation of resources to the various branches of production in accordance with a previously settled plan, necessarily meant for Marx the disappearance not only of production for profit, but also of the whole mechanism of the market (including the labour market, and so of the wages system), of production for the market ("commodity-production"), of buying and selling ("exchange") and of money.

The Communist Manifesto specifically speaks of "the Communistic abolition of buying and selling" and of the abolition not only of capital (wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit) but of wage labour too. In Volume I Marx speaks of "directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities . . ." and in Volume II of things being different "if production were collective and no longer possessed the form of commodity production . . ." . Also, in Volume II, Marx in comparing how Socialism and capitalism would deal with a particular problem twice says there would be no money to complicate matters in socialist society: "If we conceive society as being not capitalistic but communistic, there will be no money-capital at all in the first place . . ." and "in the case of socialized production the money-capital is eliminated" . In other words, in socialism it is solely a question of planning and organisation. Marx also advised trade unionists to adopt the revolutionary watchword "Abolition of the Wages System" and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, stated "within the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products" for the simple reason that their work would then be social, not individual and applied as part of a definite plan. What they produce belongs to them collectively, i.e. to society, as soon as it is produced; socialist society then allocates, again in accordance with a plan, the social product to various previously-agreed uses.

One of these uses must be individual consumption. How did Marx think this would be organised? Here again, Marx took a realistic view. Eventually, he said, the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" would apply. In other words, there would be no social restrictions on individual consumption, every member of society being free to take from the common stock of consumer goods according to their individual need. But Marx knew that this presupposed a higher level of productivity than prevailed in his day (he was writing in 1875). In the meantime, while the productive forces were being expanded, individual consumption would unavoidably have to be restricted. How? Marx made the simple point that how wealth would be allocated for individual consumption in a communist society would depend on what and how much there was to allocate: "The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers".

This was another obvious point, but on three or four occasions Marx went further and referred to a specific method of regulating distribution: by "labour-time vouchers". The basic idea of such a system is that each producer would be given a certificate recording how much time he had spent at work; this would entitle him to draw from the common store of wealth set aside for individual consumption an equivalent amount of consumer goods, likewise measured in labour-time. This, as Marx himself recognised, was only one of many possible systems Socialist society could democratically agree on for allocating wealth for individual consumption in the temporary conditions of relative scarcity here assumed — realistically for 1875 — to exist. As long as the total number of vouchers issued matched the total amount of wealth set aside for individual consumption, society could adopt any criteria it chose for deciding how many vouchers particular individuals, or groups of individuals, should have; this need bear no relationship at all to how many hours an individual may or may not have worked. Similarly, the "pseudo-prices" given to particular goods to be distributed need bear no relation to the amount of labour-time spent on producing them. Marx himself described some of the defects of the labour-time voucher system, but also made the point that any voucher system of allocating goods for individual consumption would suffer from anomalies, being forced on socialist society by the not-yet-developed-enough productive forces in what he called "the first phase of communist society".

When Marx mentions labour-time vouchers in Capita! he always made it quite clear that he was only assuming such a system as an example: "merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities" or that the producers "may, for all it matters, ..." receive labour-time vouchers. He also emphasised that these vouchers would not be money in its proper sense: "Owen's 'labour-money' ... is no more 'money' than a ticket to the theatre" and "these vouchers are not money. They do not circulate" .

Marx's point here is that the vouchers would merely be pieces of paper entitling people to take such and such an amount of consumer goods; they would not be tokens for gold like today's paper money; once handed over they would be cancelled and so could not circulate. Besides, they would be issued as part of the overall plan for the production and distribution of wealth. Finally, we repeat, any voucher system, whether on a labour-time or some other basis, was seen by Marx only as a temporary measure while the productive forces were developed as rapidly as possible to the level where they would permit socialist society to go over to free access according to individual need.

This is why this is now only an academic problem. The further development of the forces of production since Marx's day has meant that the system he always said was the final aim of Socialism — free access to consumer goods according to individual need — could now be introduced almost immediately Socialism was established. The problem Marx envisaged labour-time vouchers as a possible solution to no longer really exists.

Conclusion

We have seen, then, that Marx held that future communist society would be a class-free community, without any coercive State machine, based on the common ownership of the means of production, with planning to serve human welfare completely replacing production for profit, the market economy, money and the wages system — even in the early stages when it might not prove possible to implement the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", which, however, always remained for Marx the aim. Marx, and Engels, never drew any distinction between "socialist" and "communist" society, using these (and other) terms interchangeably. He did, however, believe that this society would only be established after a "period of ... revolutionary transformation" of a number of years duration during which the working class would be using its control of political power to dispossess the capitalists and bring all the means of production under democratic social control — but, here again, the further development of the productive forces since Marx's day means that the socialist revolution can now be carried through very quickly with no need for any lengthy period between the capture of political power by the working class and the establishment of socialism.

AND A WAGE-LESS WORLD