The I.L.P. Peace Motion (1941)

Editorial from the January 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

On December 5th, 1940, the I.L.P. group of M.P.s (Messrs. Maxton, McGovern and Campbell Stephen) put forward a motion calling for a peace conference. They condemned the Government because it has failed to set forth the terms upon which peace could be made, and

has failed to propose that a conference should be called to bring this conflict to an early conclusion, on the basis of the restoration of freedom in each country, and the pledge of all the contending governments to put at the disposal of the conference all their resources, at present being massed for producing the instruments of destruction and death, for the production of all instruments of well-being for rebuilding the homes in Europe and the establishment of a new social order which would mean the end of German, British, and other imperialism and provide a decent home and standard of life for each family in every country of the world.

The motion was rejected by 341 votes to 6. The six who supported were the three I.L.P. M.P.s, together with two Labour M.P.s (Dr. Salter and Mr. Kirkwood), and also Mr. W. Gallacher, the one Communist M.P. (Hansard, December 5th, 1940, col. 763).

Mr. Gallacher explained to the Daily Worker (December 7th) that he voted for the motion but did not agree with it: —

    William Gallacher was unable to speak in the debate, but commenting on it afterwards, he pointed out that his vote for the motion was in order to demonstrate his opposition to the Government.
   “The I.L.P. amendment,” he declared, "is typical of a loyal, orthodox opposition. It raises no question of class. It does not present the question of ending the war as a task of the people in the warring countries, but proposes a peace conference of the Imperialist Powers to end war and imperialism.’
   “I went into the lobby against the Government,” said Mr. Gallacher, “in order to express the determination of the Communist Party to organise the fight of the people against the war and to achieve a People’s Government and a People’s peace.”

The Daily Worker's editorial attitude was summed up in the words, “Peace through an appeal to Hitler! The proposal is farcical. . . .”

The Labour Party officially opposed the motion, and Mr. Attlee devoted some time to show the impossible position in which the I.L.P. put themselves. They ask for a conference of Governments and make it a condition that they shall not only restore the position of August 1939 (i.e., German and Russian evacuation of occupied territories), but also that they shall pledge themselves to establish “a new social order” which would mean the end of all imperialism and provide a decent standard of life for all. What happens if one side or the other refuses to accept the conditions?

Mr. Attlee pressed the question on Mr. Maxton:—

    “Mr. Maxton is suggesting that this Government should put forward certain terms of peace. If the Government does, will he support them? If it comes to a conference and Herr Hitler refuses to listen to the so-called voice of reason and rejects Mr. Maxton’s idea of liberty and social justice, what will Mr. Maxton do then? Will he fight, or will he give way? ”

Mr. Maxton’s answer, after first seeking to avoid it by saying that it was a hypothetical question was : —

     “If he and His Majesty’s Government accept my suggestion, I and my hon. friends will not be found wanting.”—(Col. 758.)

This was, in fact, precisely the same situation that arose during the last great war, when Macdonald and Snowden, for the I.L.P., proposed peace negotiations. When pressed to say what they would do if the terms were rejected by the German Government, they replied that they would go on with the war.

No other answer was logically possible, then or now. If Mr. Maxton were to say that his present answer does not mean going on with the war but some action not directed to capitalist Governments but directed to the workers, he only shows up still more clearly the illogical nature of the I.L.P. motion with its call for a conference of Governments.

That, of course, is a difficulty inherent in the situation. Effective control is in the hands of Governments, none of which will or could pledge themselves to introduce Socialism (if the motion does not mean a pledge to introduce Socialism then it is meaningless altogether, for it assumes that wars and poverty can be abolished without Socialism). Mr. Gallacher points this out, but is in no better case than Mr. Maxton. How does Mr. Gallacher imagine that the Russian workers can represent their views at a Conference, over and above the heads of their own dictatorship? What does he think would happen to Russian workers who, for example, had sought to end the Russo-Finnish war by seeking direct contact with Finnish workers against the will of the Russian Government bent on capturing territory and controlling resources that happened to be inside the Finnish frontiers?

It is, as the Daily Worker says, farcical to appeal to Hitler, but it happens to be Russian Government policy to enter into friendly relations with the Hitler gang, both for the purpose of providing materials required by the German forces and for sharing the spoils of conquest. (What has happened to that one-time popular slogan of the Bolsheviks, “no secret diplomacy” ?)

The question of appealing to workers over the heads of Governments, either to end war or for the purpose of helping Socialism, has a double aspect. No workers are going to be influenced by appeals to oppose the Government in their own country, no matter how much they are opposed to it or its policy if the appeal comes from quarters associated with the Government of some other capitalist country. Those who could address an appeal to the workers of all countries without their own bona-fides being suspected are those whose every word and every action demonstrates their single-minded concern for the establishment of Socialism.

Paying for school uniforms

More than 250,000 Scottish children live in relative poverty. 

Last year, a record number of food parcels were handed out to users of food banks in Scotland.

 In Glasgow’s “corridor of death”, a seven-mile stretch from west to east, male life expectancy drops by more than 20 years.

Now, Scots are being asked to “sponsor a child” this summer – by buying uniforms for deprived youngsters in their own communities.

The Back to School Uniform Bank network in Scotland aims to provide free school shoes, ties and blazers among other essentials for primary and secondary pupils from disadvantaged communities. Edinburgh School Uniform Bank received more than 100 offers after issuing an appeal last weekend. 

http://www.thenational.scot/news/15416677.Sponsor_a_Scottish_Child_plea_as_back_to_school_uniform_bank_struggles_to_meet_demand/

The World Socialist Movement

As wage and salary earners, the vast majority of us have endless economic problems to worry about -- wages and prices, rents and mortgages, sickness, unemployment, old age. Even more worrisome can seem the large and perhaps overwhelming problems facing us as human beings: war, poverty and the compulsive destruction of our own planet by those who seek to persuade us they can do our thinking for us. There are numerous other problems, like racism or sexism, which distort human judgment and reinforce a system that thrives on human misery. Many people look to leaders to solve these intractable problems, sometimes through union action, more often by demanding social, political and economic reforms.

Come election time, all the parties suddenly grow excited, urgently recommending laws they will introduce if they gain control of the government. But they don't regard it as their business to deal with the basis of any of those problems, where the cause actually lies. Neither Right, Left nor Center has any intention of tackling and dealing with the core of our troubles: the system of employment, known traditionally as wage labor, and the associated use of capital to produce all of the wealth we depend on. This system, we maintain, generates massive artificial scarcities in a society with the technological means to afford us abundance.

We, in the World Socialist Movement, hold that the social system needs to be changed fundamentally: we advocate the abolition of social classes through production based solely on meeting people's needs, democratically administered. This goes much deeper than a mere change in government, but it also assumes widespread understanding of what needs to be done. We are members of the working class, which includes everyone around the world who must sell his or her working abilities to some employer to stay alive, not just people whose collars are blue. We understand capitalism has gone as far as it can go; the time has come to put it behind us and start with a system of society that really works for everyone.

If you agree generally with arousing the rest of the world's workers to an understanding of how easily within our grasp it is to achieve a world of abundance and peace -- and a world we can pass on intact to the coming generations, join us.

Those of us in the World Socialist Movement seek a world without:

Poverty; War; Sexism, racism, nationalism, and other forms of hatred; Environmental devastation; Bosses and politicians telling everyone else what to do

Socialism is for anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if:

Democracy meant more than an election every few years; Freedom meant real freedom, and respect, for everybody; People cooperated to satisfy human needs

Socialism is for anybody who wants real solutions, not repeated failures. The Left, Centre, and Right haven't solved anything that counts - and they can't.

Real solutions may take a while, but that's better than never. Real solutions require rational thought, not hype. Real solutions require people to work for them

We reject the idea that socialism has been tried in countries sometimes referred to as socialist. Look below at our definition of socialism and ask yourself if this in any way describes the state capitalist, police states of modern China and Cuba or the old regimes in Russia and eastern Europe, or the past and present "social-democratic" governments in many countries.

We reject the idea of socialism in one country. National socialism equals non-socialism. The capitalist system is global and so must the system which will replace it.

We reject the idea that people can be led into socialism. Socialism will not be established by good leaders or battling armies, but by thinking men, women and children. There can be no socialism without socialists.

The WSM:

1. claims that socialism will, and must, be a wageless, moneyless, worldwide society of common (not state) ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution

2. claims that socialism will be a sharp break with capitalism with no "transition period" or gradual implementation of socialism (although socialism will be a dynamic, changing society once it is established)

3. claims that there can be no state in a socialist society

4. claims that there can be no classes in a socialist society

5. promotes only socialism, and as an immediate goal

6. claims that only the vast majority, acting consciously in its own interests, for itself, by itself, can create socialism

7. opposes any vanguardist approach, minority-led movements, and leadership, as inherently undemocratic (among other negative things)

8. promotes a peaceful democratic revolution, achieved through force of numbers and understanding

9. neither promotes, nor opposes, reforms to capitalism

10. claims that there is one working class, worldwide

11. lays out the fundamentals of what a socialist society must be, but does not presume to tell the future socialist society how to go about its business

12. promotes an historical materialist approach - real understanding

13. claims that religion is a social, not personal, matter and that religion is incompatible with socialist understanding

14. seeks election to facilitate the elimination of capitalism by the vast majority of socialists, not to govern capitalism

15. claims that Leninism is a distortion of Marxian analysis

16. opposes all war and claims that socialism will inherently end war, including the "war" between classes.

17. noted, in 1918, that the Bolshevik Revolution was not socialist. Had earlier, long noted that Russia was not ready for a socialist revolution and was the first to recognize that the former USSR, China, Cuba and other so-called "socialist countries" were not socialist, but instead, state capitalist

18. claims a very accurate, consistent analysis since 1904 when our United Kingdom companion party was formed

World socialism can only be brought about democratically. Socialism means a global system of social organization based on:

Common Ownership: All the productive wealth of the world will belong to all the people of the world. No more transnational corporations or small businesses and therefore nobody will own the world. It will be possessed by all of its inhabitants.

Democratic Control By All: Who will run socialist society? We all will. There will be no more government and governed. People will make decisions freely in their communities, in regions and globally. With the existing means of information technology and mass communication this is all possible.

Production For Use: Instead of producing goods and services for sale and profit, the sole reason for production will be to satisfy needs and desires.

Free Access: A society in which everyone owns everything, decides everything and only produces anything because it is useful will be one in which all will have free access to what is produced. Money will cease to have any function. People will not work for wages or salaries, but to give what they can and take what they need.

The World Socialist Movement  (WSM) consists of ordinary people who have organised themselves democratically with one objective; to bring about a complete change in world society. Although small, we are made up of members in several countries.

Democracy

Everybody in the WSM has equal value and equal power. Real democracy is fundamental to socialists. The revolutionary transformation of society must be brought about by the will of the great majority of the people if it is to succeed. We have no leaders. Every member can take part in making decisions. Our democracy works both locally and party-wide. All our meetings are open to the public.

The Task

All the necessary conditions of production and communication now exist for establishing a world socialist society. What is lacking is the understanding and will among those men and women who would most benefit from it. The task for socialists is to spread the necessary information as widely and thoroughly as possible. This often involves correcting a great deal of misinformation put out by those who want society to remain as it is, with all its poverty, oppression, and war. We have a thorough analysis of the workings of present society, how it is developing, and what needs to be done to make changes that would be beneficial for the human race. Discussion and debate are essential to the progress of the movement. We welcome them. Everyone is encouraged to put their point of view.

Glasgow's Crime Lords

Despite billions spent over decades in relaunching Glasgow as a modern and sophisticated city of opportunity and leisure, it has never quite managed to shrug off its legacy of 1930s razor gangs. It’s no coincidence that the crime gangs’ main centres of operation are among the UK’s most disadvantaged communities. The districts of Maryhill, Possilpark, Milton, Springburn and Barlanark form a belt of acute deprivation along Glasgow’s northern urban approaches. Their hearts once beat to the steady thrum of heavy industry and employment was plentiful. When a succession of postwar governments dismantled the industries, a void was all that remained in the absence of any long-term or sustainable replacement.  Hbard men offered leadership and a sense of purpose in the absence of anything similar being offered by governments. They offered affluence and status in exchange for unshakeable loyalty and generations of young men whose futures had been snatched away by mass unemployment were attracted by the opportunity to even up the score.

John Carnochan was a detective chief superintendent in Strathclyde police and co-founded the world-renowned Violence Reduction Unit. He has no doubt about the role that poverty and social disintegration plays in young men being attracted to this lifestyle. 

“You can trace a line of inequality through the communities that the crime gangs operate in,” he said. “If you are a young man who knows he has no future in work but everywhere sees evidence of grossly conspicuous consumption, then of course he wants some of that for himself. And if he feels the state has denied him that, he can easily justify helping himself. Especially if he is given a sense of belonging and purpose to a cause he can belong to. These are attributes valued in public life and by governments. It’s time they started to ask themselves why young men in these communities are seeking it in crime. It’s time they got radical about tackling inequality in these communities. It’s about early intervention in very young lives to combat adverse early events.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/22/glasgow-gangland-feuds-erupt-in-public-killings

Not The Bees Knees

Capitalism's Contradictions

An article by Steve Volk in the science magazine, "Discover " about bees, starts with, "The science and politics of saving America's bees gets messy, and the bees continue to die."

The plight of wild and domestic bees highlights one of capitalism's many contradictions – profit-making is dangerous to the environment and/or humans. Bees pollinate some $30 billion in US crops every year including most fruits and leafy greens. Their contribution to human food and health is, then, considerable. However, they are in a crisis called 'colony collapse disorder' (ccd) and dying at unheard of rates from deadly pathogens. In addition, those bees that do survive are weakened and underperforming. Queen bees, crucial to the colony's survival, struggle to survive even one-third of their normal life span and beekeepers are scrambling constantly to replace them.

Science quickly isolated pesticides, fungicides, and insect growth regulators as the main problem. A particular class of chemicals called neonicotinoid pesticides (neonic for short) that yield billions in revenue for their manufacturers was implicated in the problem. So we have the profit making part harming the environment and humans.

Rachel Carson's 1960s argument is cited as the cause of the problem. That is, as outlined in her famous book, "Silent Spring", pests and weeds quickly develop resistance to these chemicals and thus increasingly toxic and concentrated concoctions are applied in ever greater amounts. In fact, we apply about 2.5 times more chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides than when the book was written. In addition the number of regulatory labs has decreased with fewer scientists studying that larger application of chemicals on our foods and the effects. Scientific investigation has shown that the number of chemicals in our environment is so vast that the task of studying their effect and interactions is virtually impossible. One study of comb and wax samples from beehives in twenty-three states found an average of six chemicals and as many as thirty-nine different pesticides present. Scientists discovered that the more the bees were fed neonics, the more they were susceptible to pathogens. A French study confirmed these findings. Neonics, produced by companies like Bayer and Syngenta, spread through the plant, including the nectar, became widely used in the 1990s, used on crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans, and canola. Not surprisingly, manufacturers' research showed no negative effects but bees have been shown by tagging with GPS trackers, to be impaired in foraging capabilities, memory, and navigation systems. Disease and parasites kill the bees but neonics are the underlying common denominator in the problem.

Thus the bee problem follows the usual pattern of the problem. Scientific answer, and denial by those making the profits. The full force of capital is brought to bear when profits are threatened.

 Powerful agro chemical corporations contribute millions in political donations and lobbying and they want to see some results for their investment. They can exert pressure on governments and their departments to obscure the truth and necessary solutions. For example, when Environmental Protection Agency scientists released a study in 2014, showing that neonics provided no significant rise in crop yield, implying that they could be restricted or banned, the US Department of Agriculture rejected these findings. In 2015, scientist Jonathan Lundgren filed a report that his supervisors suspended him in order to prevent his publishing his opinions on the dangers of chemical pesticides. Other scientists complained of their research papers being watered down, retracted studies, and indefinite delays in receiving approval to publish. This, by the way, echoes what had happened in Canada under the Harper administration. Despite denials from the USDA administration, their own Inspector General announced in 2016 that she had received a significant volume of scientific censorship complaints. This chain of events follows a familiar pattern. Scientists, who we charge with doing the research into a problem and coming up with solutions are bullied, ignored, demoted, shamed, and fired to discredit and devalue their work. Think of climate change or tobacco, clean oil and coal production, or any number of other controversies and you will see the pattern. Aside from the relations implied in capital, owner and non-owner, producer and idler, a hierarchy of humans, and so on, profit making usually causes damage to humans and/or the environment. In a sane system, anything harmful would be stopped or modified to eliminate harm.

Capital, however, is a thing and has no conscience or feelings and this necessarily extends to those charged with managing capital. Having people work in dirty and dangerous buildings that collapse in Bangladesh is regrettable but necessary to fulfil the need to realize a profit and expand capital. They are not bad people but they are compelled by fiduciary laws, and the clamour from investors, and competition, to put profit-making above all other concerns. If this sounds entirely mad, you are right, but it happens to be true. Even worse is the fact that profit-making benefits only a tiny minority of humans while the vast majority just let it go on. To remedy this you must learn more about the only alternative, socialism, and if you have read this journal, you have made a star.

Taken from

Organising for socialism

When millions of people feel alienated—politically, economically, psychologically—they are easy prey for spectacles inviting them to displace their feelings about themselves for someone or something else. National hysteria is nationalist hysteria. The nationalist illusion that UK Plc is "our" company and its ruling elite are our compatriots is precisely the way that the vast millions of workers have been kept in line ideologically over the decades of capitalist history-and earlier.  Far better to have the workers marching to the beat of the patriot drum and flag than behind a union brass band and banner. What it all boils down to is this: if you support capitalism, you will end up by backing this or that capitalist state against the others, even when it goes to war, kills innocent men, women, and children, and commits the most barefaced aggression. It is only the Socialist who sees all capitalist states for what they ar and sees that when their own interests demand it they will all kill, execute, and commit aggression however much they have denounced other states doing the same things in the past.

The emancipation of the working class must not be conceived as a simple, single step to be taken either on the political or the industrial field. It is nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it is to be a process, and an elaborate process at that, carried out upon both the political field and the industrial. The process commences on the political field and ends on the economic. The Socialist Party holds that the process of emancipation involves, first of all, the disarming of the master class. This must be the fruit of a political struggle, and therefore renders political organisation necessary at all events up to the time of its achievement.  When the revolutionary working-class organisation has accomplished its political aim, it has not by any means emancipated the working class. It has only, by destroying the State, made it possible for the workers to complete their emancipation. This they must do by taking possession of the means by which alone they can live, and operating them intelligently and collectively so that they may live. This is what we mean when we say that the workers must organise both politically and economically. The emancipation of the working class necessitating organised action upon both the political and the economic plane obviously necessitates both political and economic organisation. The economic organisation as part of the organisation of the working class for the achievement of their emancipation must be admitted by every socialist. That such organisation, since its aim is the organisation of the working class, must be upon class lines, is the simple logical implication of the facts. That such an organisation, since its object is revolutionary, must have a revolutionary basis and be composed of revolutionaries admits of no dispute. But beyond certain general conclusions clearly arising from the given premises, and which no changes that do not first disestablish those premises can alter, the Socialist Party is not called upon to pronounce. The work the Socialist Party is to make adherents to the socialist whole, not to blueprint socialism in detail. We do know before we can have socialism we must have, not merely Socialist Party members but a socialist working class; and before we can have even the socialist economic organisation we must have the socialist material with which to form it. 

The Socialist Party endeavours to guide the progress of society into a more harmonious form, wherein classes shall cease to exist, and class-war have no place. This is the mission of the working class, and by joining the Socialist Party each person can take a part in inaugurating the new human society. This will be a world without armed forces and all that goes with them, without money and all that that entails, without the need for charities. It will be a world in which human interests are the Number One Priority, in which the only motive for human activity will be a human benefit. the position of the Socialist Party has always been, no matter whether it is the economic organisation or the socialist commonwealth that is in question, that all matters of detail most be left to those upon whom the necessity to consider and arrange them is imposed by social development. Social development does not impose this task upon the Socialist Party at the present day. In every walk of life, the broad scheme comes first. No organiser ever proceeds from the particular to the general—from the detail to the whole.

The Socialist Party is clear that the trade union is not the starting point of the political organisation if for no other reason than the fact that the unit of the union is the work-place, while the unit of the political organisation is the geographic locality; and in the second place that the workers’ effort towards their emancipation must be made voluntarily as the result of conviction of “class-consciousness”; certainly not as the result of watering down the position to appeal to a majority, and then using that majority to enforce the financial support of the minority of a type of organisation which has been enabled to build up its membership partly owing to the fact that party feeling in political matters has been rigidly excluded. 

Robbed of their pension

The prosperous countryside of east Dorset is home to Britain’s longest living residents, with the average male at birth expected to survive 82.9 years. Maybe it won’t make too much difference to their financial futures that the government said this week that it would raise the state pension age to 68sooner than planned. They will still be collecting their state pension for nearly 15 years after retiring, picking up around £124,000 assuming the new state pension stays at £159.95 a week. They are certainly getting good value from their national insurance payments when they were working. Along the way they will also enjoy a £3,000 winter fuel bonus and once they reach 75, as they nearly all will, the TV licence is free, saving £147 a year.

Now compare that with the deal for someone born in Glasgow. It has Britain’s worst longevity figures, with the average male expected to live just 72.6 years. The new retirement age of 68 means our typical Glaswegian male will pick up a state pension for only four to five years, pocketing just £38,000 in total. That winter fuel payment, more needed in Glasgow than Dorset, will be more like £800, while on average they cannot expect to ever get the free TV licence.

As the state pension age creeps up and up, with experts saying further rises to 70 are inevitable, workers with poorer longevity prospects – those in manual trades in particular – may legitimately ask why they are expected to pay loads of NI when their prospects for much of a payout are rather limited. 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2017/jul/22/one-size-fits-all-state-pension-too-simplistic

No Future

Capitalism should be put in a museum.

When socialism is established people will look back on today’s society and wonder how everything was topsy-turvy. This strange social system we live under today completely distorts our way of looking at things and makes double think a necessity. The amount of wealth wrung out of the wage-slaves has increased so greatly and so rapidly that it has enabled the plutocracy to run their lives with a magnificence and greater than ever before. There is no limit to the plausible but futile schemes for reforming Capitalism put forward by professional politicians and well-meaning but badly-informed would-be saviours of the working class, and that nothing but Socialist knowledge will make the workers secure against these political frauds and cranks. 

Much can be learned about the aim and method of a political party from a study of its history. A look at the history of the SPGB shows complete adherence to a certain object and declaration of principles. We in the SPGB have been in politics for a very long time and we have more than a nodding acquaintance with the theories of Karl Marx, but we must confess our ignorance when we say that the Marxism referred to by the left-wing is unknown to us.  Long before environmentalism became fashionable, the socialist indictment of capitalism included the waste of the profit system of market production where a small minority own the means of production, that is the land, raw materials, factories, communications etc. Through this ownership, they are able to buy from the majority, the working class, their working ability.

It is ourselves, the members of the working class who run the transport system, who run industry from the gate to the board room, who research, design and make every kind of commodity etc. In other words, it is the men and women of the working class who co-operate to perform all of the work necessary to the running of capitalism. But it is not done on their own behalf. All of this work is geared to the profit of the owning class.
Every kind of product, including food, has sale at a profit as the first motive for its existence. It may be thought that it is because commodities are useful that their sale will realize a profit. The fact is that goods are not produced to fulfill human need, on the contrary needs are stimulated so that the results of enormous productive capacity can be sold. A remarkable feature of modern society is the small number of the population who actually engage in wealth production. The percentage of the population who are really producing is declining daily. The use of improved machinery and more scientific and economical methods has made it possible to produce wealth in superabundance, and with fewer workers than were formerly required. Thus we have seen want forced upon them on account of the very improvements our class has made and their skills have put in motion.

Society does not have to be organised this way. Capitalism is not the natural order of things and it has outlived its usefulness. When an immense majority of working class men and women become aware of their position in capitalism they will join with us in consciously organizing to elect for Socialism. Thus to carry out the legal formality of abolishing private property. Then the means of production will be owned and democratically controlled by the whole, worldwide, community. This vital fact of common ownership and control will mean production at last geared to human needs. The one reason for making any articles and supplying any service will be that they are of use to human beings. Only the best quality need be made and with due regard to the careful use of raw materials.

Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, is responsible for the insecurity of subsistence, the poverty, misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of our people; but the same economic forces which have produced and now intensify the capitalist system will necessitate the adoption of socialism, the collective ownership of the means of production for the common good and welfare. The present system of social production and private ownership has created two antagonistic classes — i.e., the capitalist class and the propertyless class. Independent political action and the trade union movement are the chief emancipating factors of the working class, the one representing its political, the other its economic wing, and both must cooperate to abolish the capitalist system. While the Socialist Party welcomes every sign of revolt against oppression on the part of the workers, we hold that revolt is useless and dangerous unless based upon a knowledge of the cause of their condition and its remedy. It is necessary to capture political power to install socialism and to do this, workers must organise themselves as a political party having socialism as its sole aim and send elected delegates to Parliament or its equivalent. However, it is important to bear in mind that the objective to obtain a socialist majority in Parliament is totally subordinate to the need for a majority of workers to want and understand socialism. Marx hailed universal suffrage as a “socialistic measure” in England and claimed that “Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class” (The Chartists 1852). Yet many so called “marxists” repudiate the “parliamentary road” to “socialism” even where such a road is open to them. Some of these critics indulge in flagrant hypocrisy in damning Parliament as a “farce” whilst exhorting workers to “vote Labour” or even contesting elections themselves! The Socialist Party have never asserted that Parliament controls capitalism — indeed it is part of our socialist case that capitalism controls Parliaments and dictatorships alike. Parliament does, however, control the state. It would be very wrong to attribute political impotence to Parliament, as many "leftists” confusedly do, on the basis of its inability to solve the problems built into the capitalist economy. The political machinations of capitalist parties which involve attempting to solve these insoluble problems while conveying to a non-socialist electorate the illusion that they can be solved are inevitably farcical. For the Socialist Party, the end and the means are in harmony. If political power relies on mass consent then likewise the methods to capture political power must be socially recognised and that means contesting elections — anything other than this would mean the forcible imposition of the will of a minority on the majority. The creation of alternative structures like workers’ councils, does not constitute a positive rejection by the majority of the rule of the capitalist class through its state machine and leaves state power intact in the hands of a capitalist Parliament. Any attempt to appropriate this state power would constitute a direct threat to the state and would inevitably founder. The attainment of a majority of socialists in Parliament is the only practical way to unambiguously and democratically signal the existence of a mass socialist consciousness which is an absolute prerequisite for what can only be a clean-cut, change-over to a new social system. The formation of a revolutionary party to contest elections with a built-in anti-reformist democratic constitution is the only practical way to clearly demonstrate the extent of socialist consciousness in isolation from reform- mindedness and to unite and coordinate socialists, thereby welding them into a political force to capture the state. The fundamental function of the socialist delegates in Parliament would be the political act of declaring capitalism abolished. Indeed, as delegates (as opposed to representatives) their actions would be wholly subordinate to the active control of the whole working class. For the Socialist Party what matters is not the activity of a few delegates but majority understanding.

In the co-operative commonwealth that socialism will herald in, wage slavery and servitude will disappear. Then only will men and women have a chance to live a full life, unhampered by the cares and anxieties that now distract them. There is plenty of work waiting with fellow slaves to be aroused, and educated in the principles of socialism, and organised for the fight for the emancipation of our class.

The People's Voice

We live in a world controlled by corporate power and the individually wealthy. Today, there are think tanks who get paid to make the cranks sound rational; to justify the illegitimate; and to increase fear, hate, greed, and xenophobia. The world is beset with a series of unprecedented inter-connected crises. The need to establish peace and avert environmental catastrophe are two most pressing issues facing humanity. But then there is the poverty and hunger in a world of plenty, the global refugee crisis. All the consequence of an unjust economic system that lies at the heart all our social ills.

For anyone with the ambition of constructing a truly democratic world beyond borders, the best ideas aren’t likely to come out of global capitalism but rather from the case for world socialism. We’re talking about how to build an alternative world.  People are presently scared about what’s happening around the world today. The planet is currently in chaos. There is a serious impending crisis unfolding. We continue to burn fossil fuels and destroy the air. Due to climate change and conflict,  people are unable to grow their own food and far too poor to buy food when harvests fail. There has never been too little food to go round, for and world food supplies has not been anywhere near complete depletion.  The problem has been one of poverty.  Capitalism continues to squeeze working class people and thus xenophobia rises and keeps people voting for populist politicians who serve the masters of an unequal economy.

Many people are now behind the idea that we need to build something else, something very different but building a sustainable world requires that we understand clearly what we are up against.

The technical solutions to the climate crisis are already well at hand. Renewable energy and alternatives to dirty technologies have emerged in virtually every sector of production. The world produces enough food to feed everyone, and our technology has developed to the point where we can meet our needs with very little work. Imagine workers developing better ways of doing things and sharing the wealth that comes from those developments.

Marx believed that as it became easy to meet our needs through the high level of productivity of the machines we used, the time would be right to get rid of capitalism and move to an economy based on the principle of “from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their needs.” It seems clear that we have reached that point to let us live in peace and reap the rewards of our prosperity made possible by the collective knowledge and hard work of mankind. We are now on the brink of a new world where people are able to meet their needs without the exploitation of labour that leads to the enrichment of a few. We can achieve a “sharing economy” where people share what they have with each other and need to use less, and therefore work less, using fewer natural resources. That idea holds much promise, but it cannot fit within the tired old paradigm of profit maximisation. Our aim is the development of a solidarity economy, based on meeting human needs within ecological limits through detaching from consumer culture. We hold a vision of a world where people share what they have without anyone profiting and with no one’s labour being exploited, where we would not rely on money, on wage labour or on capitalists. The exploitative profit system needs to be abandoned. Choose to see others as ourselves, their needs as ours.

In an age where the internet provides us with unlimited access to the direct sources, there appear to be no limits to the misunderstanding and distortion of Marx. In books and articles, there is a continuous reference to Marx, attacking him from all sides for claims that he never made. How can it be that the ideas of Marx can be so completely misunderstood and distorted? One reason is that Lenin and the Bolsheviks appropriated Marx's theory and tried to convince the world that their practice and theory follow his ideas that instead of the role of the worker being abolished, it is extended to all men. Selectively quoted and out of context parts of Marx serve as the official ideology of the regime. Also, the reformist social democrats believed they were the enemies of capitalism but for them, socialism is not a society fundamentally different from capitalism, but rather, just a form of capitalism in which the working class has achieved a higher status. iI is, as Engels described it, "the present-day society without its defects."  They genuinely do believe in a better world – but they believe it can be achieved by a kinder, gentler capitalism and that profits can be used to promote environmental, anti-poverty, and certain other noble causes. But they don’t dare to ask – or to admit – where these very profits come from: the unpaid labor of the entire working class. The compassionate capitalists believe that applying market principles to philanthropy, charity, and the government will help lift the world out of poverty, cure all famine and disease. However, they fail to recognise that the exploitation at the core of capitalism is what engenders the very poverty, famine, and disease that their philanthropic and charitable efforts are attempting to relieve. They think that those who are “privileged” to enjoy great wealth should take up the responsibility of sharing a tiny slice of it with poor people – and don’t recognise that the wealth/poverty divide was created by capitalism itself. Marx and Engels explain in the Communist Manifesto:

 "The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best… [It requires] in reality that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie… It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class."
There is no greater misrepresentation of Marx than that which is to be found in the thought of the state-capitalists, the reformists, and the avowedly capitalist opponents of socialism alike, all of whom assume that Marx wanted only the economic improvement of the working class and that he wanted to abolish private property so that the worker would own what the capitalist now has. The truth is that for Marx the situation of a worker in a Russian "socialist" factory, a British state-owned factory, or an American factory such as General Motors, would appear essentially the same. Marx's concept of socialism is not a society of regimented, automatized individuals, regardless of whether there is equality of income or not, and regardless of whether they are well fed and well clad. It is not a society in which the individual is subordinated to the state, to the machine, to the bureaucracy. Even if the state as an "abstract capitalist" were the employer, even if "the entire social capital were united in the hands either of a single capitalist or a single capitalist corporation," this would not be socialism. Socialism, for Marx, is a society which serves the needs of man. Socialism for Marx meant neither the mere abolition of poverty nor the abstract idea of fairness which he rejected so scathingly in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Least of all did Marx see socialism in which “representative” power and authority replaced individual power and authority over men. 
It should be clear the popular idea of the nature of historical materialism is erroneous. Marx's "materialistic" or "economic" interpretation of history has nothing whatsoever to do with an alleged "materialistic" or "economic" striving as the most fundamental drive in mankind. Marx has been criticised for presenting politics, culture, religion, etc. as simple effects of a one-way economic cause.  The popular view assumes that in Marx's opinion the strongest psychological motive in man is to gain money and to have more material comfort; if this is the main force within man, so continues this "interpretation" of historical materialism, the key to the understanding of history is the material desires of men; hence, the key to the explanation of history is man's belly and his greed for material satisfaction. It is the understanding of history based on the fact that men are "the authors and actors of their history." Marx saw that political force cannot produce anything for which there has been no preparation in the social and political process. Hence that force, if at all necessary, can give, so to speak, only the last push to a development which has virtually already taken place, but it can never produce anything truly new. "Force," he said, "is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one." 
Marx did not believe that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. Nor was Marx ever tempted to assume that "human nature" was identical with that particular expression of human nature prevalent in his own society. For Marx the aim of socialism was the emancipation of man, and the emancipation of man was the same as his self-realisation and development of the individual personality. 
Capitalism has obviously changed in the hundred years since Marx and Engels wrote yet in the basic relations and structures which distinguish capitalism from feudalism and socialism, however, it has changed very little, and these are the main features of capitalism addressed in Marx's theories. The workers' relationship to their labour, products and capitalists are basically unchanged from Marx's day. Workers, for example, may earn more money now than they did in the last century, but so do the capitalists. Consequently, the wealth and income gaps between the two classes is as great or greater than ever. 
Marx wrote no “Utopia” of the kind that earlier writers had produced – writings based only on the general idea of a society from which the more obvious evils of the society in which they lived had been removed. But from the general laws of social development Marx was able to outline the features of the new society and the way in which it would develop.
The capitalist class would love for class struggle to just be considered an old-fashioned notion from the past but the class struggle -- the conflict between the capitalists and the workers -- is at the very heart of the capitalist system. The majority of people would love to live in a world free of poverty, unemployment, racism and war. This kind of world is only possible under socialism. Most workers today would readily agree that this is the kind of world they would want for themselves and future generations. But they think it’s a pipedream yet it is the task of the working class to turn this vision into a reality. By learning the lessons of the class struggles that went before us and by applying our power workers develop revolutionary class consciousness. Our socialist perspective in no way means that we do not defend against the immediate attacks today. On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary, and socialists make good fighters for today’s struggle. But in order to fight most effectively, workers also have to understand that there can be no lasting concessions from the capitalist system. To achieve abundance for all, the working class will have to organise and build a genuine socialist revolution.

Marx the anarchist?

The SPGB does have a clear definition of what they would describe socialism to be and it is not to be unexpected that we will not describe those with certain ideas as socialist if it conflicts.

The SPGB point is that we do have something in common with the Kropotkinists and other communist anarchists Alexander Berkman, Murray Bookchin ( although he is now considered by many not to be an anarchist) ie those anarchists that stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society based on common ownership, but not with the Proudhon, (or Tucker, Warren) , those who stand for the self-management of a market economy. The problem that aggrieves many members of the SPGB as one article stated is that the anarcho-communists such as pro-Kropotkists seem to feel they have more in common with the Proudhonists than with us when after all we both agree on the ends (albeit differ occasionally on the means to attain the end and as such is of secondary importance at this point of time in history and what matters far more is what we have in common ) !

The SPGB argument is that capitalism (or property/class based societies in general) necessitates a state. Hence to bring about a stateless society which is what is meant by anarchism you need to get rid of capitalism ( and that logically entails getting rid of the need for money and the market as well , very much echoing Engels to Cuno in 1872 “And since the state is the chief evil [for Bakunin], the state above all must be abolished; then capital will go to hell of itself. We, on the contrary, say: Abolish capital, the appropriation of all the means of production by the few, and the state will fall of itself. The difference is an essential one: the abolition of the state is nonsense without a social revolution beforehand; the abolition of capital is the social revolution and involves a change in the whole mode of production.”)

Proudhon was an opponent of government and wanted a society without one. But being in favour of features of capitalism and wanting to retain the money-prices-wages-profit system (what Marx called "commodity production") well , you know in the eyes of the SPGB (and many anarchists ) that would not make him a socialist . He was against ground rent and interest but not against profit. In fact he was a bit of a currency crank with his ideas of credit bank and stood for a society of small-scale producers trading with each other without the interference of the state. His famous catchword "property is theft" was aimed not at small-scale property but essentially at landed property. He defended individual property against common ownership.
Proudhon was also against workers organising it trade unions, was against workers going on strike for higher wages.

Some would call him the first anarcho-capitalist rather than the mutualist that he was and the reformist he could also be accused of being . Proudhon possessed a popular programme which in essence involved a society of artisans. Proudhon was very concerned at the tendency of employers to exploit employees, and thought that if society was made up of artisans then no such exploitation would take place, each worker would own their own means of production, and would sell their products at the market rate, since the market is an unbiased process of checks and counters, this would tend to balance incomes and prices and provide an equitable system of commodity production and sale, but without the massive problems of class division and exploitation. There are people today who still believe this, Marx's efforts to debunk it notwithstanding.

As for definitions, the SPGB has theirs but the definition of "socialist", basically what it generally meant in the 1840s was anyone who wanted to reform society, in whatever way, so as to benefit Labour. That was indeed how it was used them and was, of course, one of the reasons why Marx and Engels called the manifesto they wrote for the Communist League of Germany in 1848 the "Communist Manifesto" and not the "Socialist Manifesto". Basically, it was much too broad a definition that included too many contradictory views I suppose the more appropriate world (then as much as today) would be "social reformers". It is only on that basis that supporters of private property and the market such as Proudhon could be called "socialist".

We should be more demanding on labels we ascribe to people. The very words "socialism" and "communism" are connected with the idea that the means of production should be owned by society as a whole (or socially, hence "socialism") or by the whole community (or communally, hence "communism", ). And it is far better that people who are opposed to it are not called "socialists" or “communists".

The difference between socialists and anarchists is not over the aim of abolishing the State as I have stated earlier but over how to do this. Anarchists say that the first objective of the workers' revolution against capitalism should be to abolish the State. Socialists say that, to abolish the State, the Socialist working class majority must first win control of it and, if necessary, retain it (in a suitably very modified form) but for a very short while just in case any pro-capitalist recalcitrant minority should try to resist the establishment of socialism. Once socialism, as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole people, has been established (which the SPGB has always claimed can be done almost immediately ), the State is dismantled, dissolved completely We are not talking years or decades or generations here , but as a continuation of the immediate revolutionary phase of the over throw of capitalism .

But to end with the Anarcho-Marxist case, some quotes from Marx about the abolition of the State.

In 1844 Marx wrote that :
"the existence of the state and the existence of slavery are inseparable" - "The King of Prussia and Social Reform"

Again, as Engels wrote in a letter to Bebel in March 1875:
 "Marx's book against Proudhon and later the Communist Manifesto directly declare that with the introduction of the socialist order of society the state will dissolve itself and disappear".

Then, in a circular against the Bakunin prepared for the First International in 1875, Marx wrote: 
"To all socialists anarchy means this: the aim of the proletarian movement--that is to say the abolition of social classes--once achieved, the power of the state, which now serves only to keep the vast majority of producers under the yoke of a small minority of exploiters, will vanish, and the functions of government become purely administrative"