Great Minds Don't Think Alike.

I recently read a BBC report in which Prof. Stephen Hawking calls for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020.

"Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity," he said.

How can one criticise the opinions of such a distinguished thinker?  Well, I think that another renowned thinker called Karl Marx had a better idea for changing the future of humanity. A moneyless society, where the means of production would be owned and used to everyone's benefit.

I was watching a programme about work going on at the South Pole. All the equipment and housing and machinery had to be moved to a safer area because of a great crack in the ice were threatening the whole project. All the people were removed back home because of a perceived danger as winter approached again.   You can be sure that no buying and selling of food took place between the workers while on the South Pole.

On the Moon dangers arriving so far away would not be so easy to avoid. The question of money being used between exchanges of necessities unthinkable  

The problem for the vast amount of people is they work for wages or a salary and projects such as this require money. The capitalist class may spend money on Moon projects should they perceive a profit in doing so, however, I think we should take the road Marx declared. "Abolish the Wages system."

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Let's change the world for the better

 The world is experiencing negative political changes. “The uncomfortable truth,” Istvan Meszaros argued 15 years ago, “is that if there is no future for a radical mass movement in our time, there can be no future for humanity itself.” 

Class determines everything from where one lives to one’s likely life expectancy, to the food one eats. How bad must it get before we put an end to the insanity of it all? It has got to end; we can no longer continue to live like this. But new trends are developing below the surface. 

Political parties alternate holding office but the rule of capital always remains. Capitalists believe that the magic of the market will solve all the planet's problems. You don’t have to be a socialist to know that the political order is a corporate and financial plutocracy. Examining data in the United States from more than 1,800 different policy initiatives in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, reseachers Gilens and Page found that wealthy and well-connected elites consistently steer the direction of the country, regardless of and against the will of the U.S. majority and irrespective of which major party holds the White House and/or Congress.  “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” Gilens and Page wrote, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” As Gilens previously explained, “ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States.”

To be successful in capitalism a capitalist must have a supply of disposable people. The greed and selfishness that the capitalist economy inspires seem to impact every area of social interaction. In the USA, nearly two-thirds of all working-age poor are actually working, but unable to earn a living wage, forcing them to rely on food stamps, which only provide about $5 a day per person for meals.  We live in a world where working people are denied access to the wealth that they help to create. As a consequence, the vulnerable working class have entered a more precarious state than ever. 

The Socialist Party calls for the end of exploitation and an end to the domination of the few privileged over the majority.  We view our fellow-workers as the revolutionary force that could overthrow the tyranny of the capitalist system, freeing people and breaking their chains of wage-slavery. Sadly, organised labour is at a low level since the Great Depression with the unemployed and the underemployed desperate. The “gig economy” is pauperising a growing segment of the labour force.  

Socialism is the answer to a great many of our problems and needs to be placed at the heart of a new approach to living, locally, nationally, and globally. It is a unifying sharing principle that will encourage cooperation, which, unlike competition, brings people together and builds social solidarity.

 We hold that as the Labour Party is committed to the policy of trying to reform capitalism, instead of the policy of abolishing capitalism. We counsel our fellow-workers to ignore with contempt such a treacherous party. Have nothing to do with them.  The Socialist Party is not opposed to the Parliamentary system. We hold that the only important thing that is wrong about Parliament, from our point of view, is that it is controlled by the wrong people and for the wrong purpose. Its M.P.s at present have been sent there by electors who want capitalism to be retained. When a majority of the electors have become socialists they will send their delegates to Parliament with the mandate to establish socialism. In the words of our Declaration of Principles, the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, will be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation. We have never been beguiled by various opposing views that have had their long or short periods of popularity. The Socialist Party never went in for theories of armed revolt or general strikes, or "taking and holding" the factories by industrial organisations. Nor did we ever give support to the idea of soviets or dictatorship.

The Future Is Yours To Mould (1945)

From the January 1945 issue of the Socialist

Standard

The Allied Powers have again asserted their supremacy and are ruthlessly stamping out the opposing forces. It has now become certain that victory is for the Allies on the Continent. As the conflict nears an end, the press, the pulpit and the radio prepare the minds of the people for things to come.

Let us cast our minds back to the “dark days,” when Britain stood alone with her “back to the wall." The capitalist class suddenly discovered there seemed to be some sort of inequality existing among the people of this fair isle (a startling discovery), and began to voice opinions such us, "Why should rich men's sons go to public schools and poor men's not? Why shouldn’t working men and women have a decent standard of living? As a matter of fact, why should there be any unemployed? By gad, sir, something must be done about it! But for this war being in the way, we might get on with the job immediately. Drat those Nazis! Let us all throw our weight on the oars and pull together until such time as we have rid ourselves of this menace."

So the workers fell in and pulled on the oars of the good ship “Kidology," sailing towards the ever-receding mirage of security and plenty.

The time for the pay-off is coining near, but there seems to be a change in the attitude of our saviours; their voices are weak, we can't hear them any more. The opinions of our masters and their henchmen have changed. Now it is, “We will have to work hard for the peace or else we can have no new order." No, your eyes have not deceived you; you did read in a newspaper that unless we find a foreign market for goods there will not be any employment for the working class. Yes, you also read that British shipping would be in a very bad position after the war. “What is this all about? Why, didn't someone say something about this before?"

Someone did tell you about it. The Socialist Party of Great Britain told you, as we told your fathers during and after the last war, that war solved no problems for the working class; that conditions after the war would be the same as before—nay, even worse. War is a product of this system of society, as unemployment is, and all the other miseries the working class are subjected to. No one is going to “save" the workers. No one is going to lead them into paradise. Your fathers fell for that tale after the last war. They left things to leaders, then sat back and waited. Whilst they waited in poverty, the rotten conditions got some of them and they drank themselves to death: others just died the natural death of a worker, in the workhouse.

You are young, fellow-worker—the future is yours to mould. Are you going to go on in the same old way as your fathers did, or are you going to make an effort to understand the world in which you live? Until you do, you are doomed. You are going to feel the cold, clammy hand of poverty in its worst form. You are going to know what means test investigation is: what it means to stand in a dole queue and wish to Christ you had never been born; see your children grow up and then be snatched from you, to go out and kill or be killed in a war where the bombs will be “better and more beautiful.” War is as sure to come under capitalism as day follows night.

It is quite simple to understand the fundamentals of Socialism. One doesn’t require an awful lot of study to realise there are two classes in society. You, fellow-worker, belong to the working class, the useful section of society— makes all the wealth. You build the palaces, the mansions whose labour, when applied to nature-given material, and the liners. You also build the rotten bug-walks you live in.

The other section—only a small fraction of the population—own and control all the means of living. Only when this section can find a market for their goods is the machinery of production set in motion. Only when this section can find a market for their goods do the working class find employment. When goods are piled high and no market is to be found, the workers are unemployed and go hungry. Goods are produced for profit, not for use.

War results from different sections of the international master class searching for places to dump goods, sources of raw material or trade routes. Whether the country of their birth has a large empire or none at all makes no difference to the working class. They have nothing to sell but their labour-power, which they sell to the highest bidder, the amount received in return is only enough to replace the workers’ energies and reproduce the species, that there may be someone to slave when they are thrown on the scrap-heap, incapable of acting their part as work beasts.

There is only one way by which the workers can escape the hell which they are subjected to, and that is to realise the only solution is Socialism—the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people. Socialism will only be possible when the majority of the people understand and consciously organise to capture the powers of government, including the armed forces.

Fellow-worker, you have a duty to perform to your children. Your job is to seek knowledge and organise for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. In years to come, when your children ask you, "What did you do after the last war. Daddy?” don’t let it be said you hung your head in shame and said, "Nothing, Son.” Rather let it be said. "I fought along with my comrades to establish Socialism.” The world is yours to mould.

Bert Vallar

Solidarity-Based Economics

Why do so many members of the working class find it difficult to understand the socialist case? Certainly not because of its complications. On the contrary, it must be because of its simplicity. So accustomed are they to having placed before them the complicated plans, programmes and policies of other political organisations that the simplicity of the socialist proposition makes them suspect that there must be a flaw somewhere.

The detailed plans of reformist left-wing parties, their hotch-potch of incomprehensible “immediate demands”, and the populist's cunningly conceived schemes of currency reform cranks gives them the idea that politics is most complex. Then to be told that all their problems have a common origin in the capitalist system of society and that the solutions lie in the abolition of capitalism, leaves them somewhat bewildered and suspicious. The socialist declares that the workers have it in their power to build a society wherein the wealth produced shall be freely available to everyone without the need to buy, sell or exchange everything that is required. To imagine themselves having access to the goods that they have worked to produce without having to ask “How much?” or "Can I afford it?” makes many workers smile and shake their heads. They recognise everything as the property of some person or persons. They accept without question the fact that goods are only available to them when they can afford to buy. The proposal that there can be a condition of things where the institution of buying and selling does not exist, makes them look for a flaw.

The socialist recognises that the present system of producing things in order that they may be sold, and that someone may make a profit out of the process, is the cause of all working class problems. From this root cause arises the poverty of the workers with its attendant problems of housing, malnutrition, overwork and unemployment, economic insecurity, crime, etc. Also from the same source comes the greatest of all catastrophes, War. To eliminate these evils It is necessary to remove the cause.

So what must we do? If the cause is private ownership with its production for sale, what stands in the way of abolishing this condition? Private ownership. Only things that are owned by someone can be sold or exchanged. When goods are produced they are not made available to the producers. They remain in the hands of those who own the tools and machinery which are used to make them. By virtue of their ownership these people have the right to say what shall be produced, how much shall be produced and how the goods and services shall be distributed. The whole of the structure of present day society is directed towards maintaining this order of things. The majority of the workers accept this system, governments administer it, police, judges and jailers enforce it, soldiers, sailors and airmen fight for it, and the owners of the land, mines, factories, transport systems, workshops, etc., thrive on it. Only the socialist challenges it. Socialism being the conversion of private property into common property replacing competition with co-operation will restore society from one of wanton waste into one of plenty, where human beings will take from society according to their need, freed from the necessity of having to live for others but where man can finally live for himself but in cooperation with others. We of The Socialist Party have cherished no fond delusions concerning the Labour Party. From our inception we have consistently opposed it.

We must aim for a world in which men and women are truly free and can move over the earth as they like without meeting economic hardship or racial prejudice and violence. Until that happens, the reformist tinkerings will continue to blunt themselves against an insoluble problem. Whilst capitalism lasts, the hardships of the working class will follow them all over the world. That is the lesson they must learn. There is no hiding place down here. The basic fallacy of all nationalism is in seeking national solutions to world problems. The working class is a world-wide class. A change of state would not help solve working class problems any more than a change of government. For their cause lay not in the form or type of political set-up but in the economic system. Workers of all lands should unite to change this system from one based on the class ownership of the means of life to one based on common ownership and democratic control with production for use, not profit.

We address you not as citizens of one country to citizens of another but as world socialists to fellow members of the world working class. We reject frontiers as artificial barriers put up by governments. All men are brothers and the world should be theirs. All men should be social equals with free access to the plenty that could be if only the means of living belonged to a socialist world community. We oppose governments everywhere, all nationalism, racism and religion, all censorship, all wars and preparations for war.

Fellow-workers, we share your distaste for the indignities and hypocrisies of the present order. We share your wish for a new society with no exploitation of man by man. But do not underestimate what a task it will be to change society. It will be a hundred times more difficult than changing the government. A democratic world community, based on common ownership with production for use not profit, can only be set up when people want it and are ready to take the steps needed to get it up and keep it going. Democratic political action is the only way to Socialism. There are no short cuts. We must have a majority actively on our side.  Political power is always in the hands of those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces. Do not be misled by those who say that universal suffrage is a fraud. Learn from your masters. You too must organise to win political power if you want a new society. Do not let cunning politicians assume office on your backs. Ignore those who would be your leaders. Rely on your own understanding and organisation. Turn universal suffrage into an instrument of emancipation.

Socialist Standard July 2017

• Editorial: Burning Injustice
• Pathfinders: Farron, Fossils and Fire Ice
• Road-map to Socialism
• Russia 1917: As We Saw It
• Cooking the Books: The Magic Money Tree
• Greasy Pole: Theresa - Strong And Stable
• Material World: One Thing the Romans Did For Us
• Corbyn: What He Did Achieve and What He Could Not Have
• Terrorism: What is the Truth?
• The Civil War in Yemen: Britain Supports Our Bastards
• Ups and Downs in China
• After the Show has Passed
• Cooking the Books: Back to Basic
• Proper Gander: Maid In America
• Book Reviews: 'Why the Dalai Lama Is a Socialist', & 'The People's Marx. Abridged Popular Edition of the Three Volumes of Capital'
• Exhibition Review: The Peace Museum, Bradford
• 50 Year Ago: Middle East War – the Aftermath
• Don't Read This Unless You Believe That Our World is in Need of Urgent Change
• Cartoon: Free Lunch
• Rear View

Reclaiming Socialism

ABOLISHING WAGE SLAVERY

Capitalism is now being increasingly challenged.  Yet socialism has lost its position as the goal. The “socialist” parties now support capitalism but with a human face. The word "socialism" lacks a clear, concrete definition.  To enrich and strengthen anti-capitalism by giving it such a definitive objective, we need to envision a socialism that can inspire and motivate.

The ability to find paid work is rooted within supply and demand. If there is a demand for your labour, and few can supply it in the same way you do, you will do well. If many can supply it just like you, you may not do so well, but you may also manage to just get by if you’re lucky.  Without paid work, you suffer deprivation and misery. we cannot guarantee that everyone can always find jobs for the fulfilment of their basic needs. The Socialist Party proposes that can stop requiring the exchange of money for basic needs, making things like food, water, and shelter entirely free.  This would end the price system and make the requirement for money redundant. Work will be motivated not by money but by a planned economy for goods and services. Money itself loses meaning. The result is something more like an economy based on resources instead of money, where what is possible is measured by if we can physically achieve it instead of if we can “afford” it. Some may call this post-capitalist common ownership. Others may call it a Star Trek economy. Still, others may call it a resource-based economy. But it doesn’t really matter what we call it. Our critics argue that this would, in turn, destroy the ability to calculate just what to produce, how much of it produce, and where it’s needed. We say, that is not so and we can rationally determine planning by calculation-in-kind

No one person can claim 100% ownership of their wealth. It’s all fractions of the whole. As the saying goes, no one person can make a pencil. As simple a creation as that seems, it is the collective work of humanity. The wood comes from somewhere. The graphite comes from somewhere else. The eraser and what comprises it comes from elsewhere. Shipping networks transport raw materials that are made into component parts that are manufactured into a finished product that is shipped all over the world. More than that, no one alive thought of the pencil. That person is long dead. We all prosper because of knowledge from the past, passed down to us. This is our collective “something for nothing” we all enjoy on the one hand while deriding the idea of something for nothing on the other. Civilization itself is something for nothing. It is the result of billions of interdependent parts working together as part of a social system known as humanity.

Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. This was how Marx and Engels defined socialism. The task of socialists, therefore, is to help and guide the transfer of power from capitalists to working people.  To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism. Nationalisation is simply state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Nor is the “welfare state” socialist.  “Welfare” in capitalism is to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but a form of state capitalism. It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. As capitalist crisis develops the “welfare state” also inevitably turns into the “means test state”.

Socialism is a type of society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must own and control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, not as today where 1% of the population owns more than half the wealth of the world, there can be no question of the collective control of the conditions of life.

Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. When they sell similar goods, their competition is obvious. Even when they sell altogether different goods, like TV sets and houses, they still compete for the limited wage-packet of the worker. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. To become big the Capitalist must first squeeze out his weaker competitors and add their capital to his – centralisation of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital.

Never underestimate the unwillingness of someone to see the reality, if their lives depend on seeing a fantasy.

Thieving Banks

Nine out of 10 easy access savings accounts pay interest of less than 1%. Moneyfacts found that a third of easy access accounts failed to even pay a rate matching the current base rate of 0.25%. The cost of living is rising at 2.9% a year, so many savings rates are failing to keep pace. Moneyfacts said people faced a "never-ending battle" for decent returns.

The Bank of England pointed to the potential dangers from the "benign" economic conditions, highlighting growing levels of consumer borrowing on credit cards and car finance. The same conditions have led to the paltry rates of return for savers, with the Bank of England base rate having been at a record lows for years.

 Government lending initiatives and consecutive cuts to bank base rate have resulted in savings rates plummeting," said Rachel Springall, of Moneyfacts. "To add insult to injury, the governor of the Bank of England's view is that there will not be a rise to interest rates in the foreseeable future. There is a fundamental flaw in the savings market, with a distinct lack of competition among the biggest banks for savers' cash."

We Need Your Voice

If we do not resist, we languish. Although these are trying times, we cannot afford to withdraw into despair. We must discover once more the solidarity to stand together firm. We must fight the fear that grips us. This time around, let’s fight for socialism from the start. Revolution cannot be an abstract idea or distant-goal. It must be a living, breathing social movement that brings hope. Revolution will not be a single spectacular event, but instead it is a process. The important part is to come together and build power from below that does not rest in the hands of any leader or party in any way. The Socialist Party strategy relies on the unity at the ballot box, a strategy which begins with us, the exploited workers. We must push for greater unity of working-class movements. We need to reach out to our fellow-workers.

Let’s build structures that ensure workers keep control. Let us not hand over political power to a State that can institute tyranny all over again. Exploitation blossoms so the rich feast delicacies while the poor starve. Change is on its way. We seek socialist organisation, bottom-up administration, and democratic decision-making. Our only chance is to build a movement that relies on the power of the people. Together we hold the solution to the problems of capitalism. Our organizing begins by taking control and creating their own democratic mass movements, based on our collective power against the State and capital. We need to build the people’s power from below. Knowledge of what is wrong with a social system and knowledge of how to change the system for the better are two completely different things.

 Democracy is vitally important to the working class and, as we see it, this process is enhanced by the degree of democracy which workers have won for themselves. Regardless of how radical the reforms which new Left leaders promise, they will never be anything approaching common ownership of the mines, factories and other means of producing wealth. The initiative for this social revolution will have to come from the working class. Socialists do not take sides in struggles between sections of the ruling class. Socialists will have to form their own party, hostile to “all sections of the master class.” Capitalism is leading the world towards catastrophe. We are sure this is the time to learn and help build the new world.

Democratic control of industry will not work while production is still to be geared to the market (look at co-ops). The market and money must go. Socialism can be built only when the working class has taken political power from the capitalist class: that is, when there has been a revolution. Only a socialist party with a clear understanding of the nature of capitalism and committed to its overthrow can help to effect such changes. The Labour Party is not such a party, nor can it ever become one.  A Labour government pursues capitalist policies not because it is in the hands of any right wing, but because the Labour Party is itself a capitalist party whose role is to keep the present system in existence. All illusions about easy shortcuts to socialism must be exposed. The basic arguments for a non-exploitative socialist society should be presented. It is no use trying to produce ‘sensible’ and 'practical' reforms. Socialism is the rule of the workers and not for or over them. 

Socialism is the system under which classes and exploitation are abolished for good and the differences between town and country and between manual and mental labour no longer exist. People are not forced to obey the division of labour as slaves. 

Scottish Nationalism (1968)

From the May 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard In the Scottish National Party, they must feel that somebody up there likes them. Right now they are on top of the world and everywhere the signs are apparent. The Party badge— a hipped-up thistle—sprouts as thickly as the weed itself. Membership has rocketed to over ninety thousand, and all the frenzied electoral activity has resulted in the election of a Nationalist M.P. Undoubtedly, independence is the current big issue and the Nationalists claim they will have it by the early ’seventies. How have the SNP been transformed from the old image of a bunch of Tartan-clad cranks into a considerable political force? The Party is still the expression of some “Professional” and small-business people who see their advancement in breaking with England, but they now enjoy what they never had before—widespread working class support, although how constant this remains to be seen. This support was a long time coming, but the breakthrough was helped by Labour’s long absence from power during the ’fifties. This resulted in some of Labour’s traditional support, particularly among the lower paid, switching to the Nationalists. Another factor was disillusionment with the performance of Labour controlled Town Councils. Thus, the Nationalists got what they needed above all—a foot in the electoral door. What are the forces behind the Nationalist upsurge? Of course, the movement’s “intellectuals” see it as a revolt by a people yearning to return to a Golden Age which existed before the Act of Union of 1707, when a united populace shared a “Scottish Culture” which was the envy of Europe. The idea is absurd. The culture of the untamed, Celtic Highlander was completely different from that of the settled, English-speaking Lowlander. Indeed, Dr. J. M. Beale makes this very point in the Book, Common Errors in Scottish History. Today, in the populous industrial belt, the average inhabitant will sneer at the sight of the Kilt and a significant proportion owes their loyalties to Ireland rather than Scotland. Even so, Nationalist feeling certainly exists and is implanted at an early age. This is very important in any country’s educational system. Also important is regional pride within a country. Ruling groups find this useful, particularly in a time of war—how many Scotsmen have died proving that they were the bravest in the land? So Scottish children have their heads filled with the deeds of national heroes like Wallace and Bruce while the feats of Scots in civil life—Carnegie, Watt, Stevenson—also receive much attention. In sport, especially soccer, the press give the full treatment to encounters with “The Auld Enemy”, with every victory a “Bannockburn” and every defeat a “Flodden”. All this, against a background of Scotland’s historical subjugation by England, has provided a breeding ground for national illusion and resentment. But why is the revolt happening now rather than ten or twenty years ago? First, there is the decline of the long-established industries with the accompanying hardship and insecurity. Engineering, Shipbuilding, and Mining were what Scotland depended on and their cut-back has meant a chronic high unemployment rate. Secondly, the main Parties have been tried over and over and found wanting: they cannot produce the goods, so where else to go? In England many people faced with this dilemma have turned to the Liberals. In Scotland, in the same circumstances, it can only be the SNP. In short, the Nationalist upsurge is really a revolt against a depressed standard of living, and this is where the SNP makes its biggest impact. Every example of lower wages, higher prices, more emigration and less amenities than south of the border is seized upon and skilfully used. The most interesting point about the demand for independence is that, basically, it is in line with the growing idea that the problems of modem society—Capitalism—lie in its sheer size. Thus, we see the Liberals arguing for smaller administrative units through more Regional Government; the Anarchists and some leftists for smaller productive units through worker-owned factories, and the Scots and Welsh Nationalists for smaller political units as exemplified by the Scandinavian countries. Sweden, with its allegedly high living standards and full employment, is quoted as an example of how smallness plus independence equals prosperity. These theories are false. Capitalism's problems are the result of non-social ownership of the means of life in the field of social production: more diversity of government or of ownership cannot alter this fact. Nor can the national identity or location of the legislature have much effect on our standard of living. This is influenced by such as the degree of technical and natural resources and, more especially, the state of the world market—what can be sold profitably—and any serious change in this will affect Sweden just as it did in the ’thirties. Anyway, Sweden’s full employment is due to acute labour shortage, and those Irish workers who had a spell in Swedish Shipyards soon returned home, unimpressed by the living standards. Another Nationalist argument is that there is a deliberate “trend” towards more numerous and smaller Nations and point to the seventy-odd newcomers which have sprung-up over the last twenty years. These have emerged owing to the disintegration of the European colonial Empires. The Nationalists ignore the fact that in the developed world the trend is the opposite way. Nor do these new Nations choose to be small; in fact they are as large as they can get and often squabble with one another over disputed territory and resources. What it all boils down to, is that the SNP just don’t understand the world around them. Although they claim to be against exploitation they support the production for profit system. Arthur Donaldson, the Party’s chief spokesman, even invites capital to take advantage of "cheap” and "tame” Scottish workers (Scots Independent, 11/2/67). It is time to reject the notion that there are "Scottish problems” which apply exclusively to Scottish workers and which can be solved by a "Parliament of their own”. Instead of turning their eyes to Scandinavia, those of them who thronged "prosperous” London recently on the occasion of the seating of the Nationalist MP should have looked across the Thames to Southwark, Battersea and Brixton. They would have seen plenty of hardship there, despite the proximity of Parliament. And did it not occur to those who saw the TV epic of the homeless, Cathy Come Home, that the action took place in an English City? Above all else, independence will not mean their release from wage-slavery, and, as everywhere, access to the means of life will be governed by whether the owners find it profitable or not. Socialists echo the Poet’s desire for the day 'That man to man the world o’er shall brothers be for a' that”. This will be a fact when the world's wealth, owned in common, can be utilised for the satisfaction of all mankind. Capitalism, with its attendant national boundaries and prejudices, makes this just another Poet’s dream. Vic Vanni (Glasgow)

What Over-population Problem?

Scotland’s birth rate is falling.

Births are more than a third less than needed to maintain our working age population. All the while, the number of deaths registered exceeds births as our population shrinks.

There’s been negligible overall growth since the 1961 census. Our 2011 survey gave Scotland just 100,000 more people. All of those were pensioners.

In the first five months of this year, Registers of Scotland has recorded only 21,742 births. Last year, births were 664 higher during those same months. Ten years ago there were 3,275 more births.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion/readers-letters/455532/scotland-needs-urgent-population-boost/

The world under new ownership

“He who owns the means whereby I live, owns me” - Shakespeare 

Ownership and control of the means of production are inseparable. The State, in the hands of the capitalists, is used as a terrific weapon of class warfare.  Some people confuse the term State with Society and regard them as synonymous. Actually, the State arose with the institution of private property and became the authority of propertied interests over society in the name of society. The State was obliged to intervene in industrial disputes partly as conciliator and regulator though always as the custodian of property interests. It governs society in the interests of property and can do no other.  The State does not rush to the rescue of the working class. The questions of ownership and control became principal questions. The demand for the nationalisation of this and that industry became popular. The machine of State becomes larger, its powers of repression grows enormously and wage-slavery remains. Class-war continues. Capitalist production is for the purpose of securing profit through the exploitation, ruination and enslavement of the working people. Ownership is what gives the capitalist class power of life or death over the working class and over society as a whole. 

The questions of ownership and control become principal questions. For the workers the old order has to go. Socialism is a class-free society based upon common ownership. In socialist society the means of production have ceased to be capital, that is, to be a means of exploitation. In socialist society there are no longer an employing class or a State with a monopoly of property in the means of production and the majority deprived of property in the means of production.  Socialist ownership of the means of production gives rise to mutual relations between people engaged in the production process which are quite different from those obtaining under capitalism. Private property in the means of production inevitably divides people, gives rise to relations of domination and subordination and to the exploitation of some people by others, evokes antagonism of interests, class struggle and competition. On the other hand, social ownership of the means of production unites people, ensures a genuine community of interests and comradely co-operation. The social ownership of production means that socialist production is freed from the contradiction, inherent in capitalism, between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriating its fruits.

The original role of money was to serve as a medium, a standard that made easier the exchange of one commodity for another. But under capitalism, this medium of exchange has taken off with a life of its own. For the capitalist, the aim of production is to produce goods to exchange and not to use, but instead it is a compulsory drive to accumulate capital through exploitation–simply put, to make more money. Once money becomes the aim of production, labour power has to become a commodity. In other words, a worker’s labour power can be bought and sold. Besides the fact that people must be legally free–that is, not slaves owned by others or serfs tied to the land–the labourer must have lost all means of production and thus all ability to produce either for consumption or exchange for himself. An example of this is peasants being driven off the land. Labour power as a commodity is the necessary complement of the private ownership of the means of production by the capitalists. Only by buying the worker’s labour power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labour for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and is ripped off by the capitalists.

We have in capitalism a colossal concentration of wealth on the one side and poverty on the other side. We have in a world of stupendous riches unknown in all history: no abundance, no peace, no security, no full employment anywhere on the planet. These social evils are not bred in the heart of man; they are bred by capitalism, and by nothing else. To live, you, the worker, must not only work for the owners of the means of production and exchange – you must guarantee them a profit. Working for them is not enough; a profit is absolutely required for you to get your job; and that profit can be obtained in no other wise except by exploiting that which is your only real possession – namely your physical or mental capacity to work. That is all the workingman or woman has.  The capitalist must accumulate in order to exist. To accumulate, he must be assured profit. To profit, he must exploit labour. There is no other way. Capitalists always seek to intensify exploitation; labour always and necessarily seeks to resist exploitation. Capitalism seeks what is rightfully its own, from its point of view: the maximum that it can get out of the worker. Labour seeks what is rightfully its own: that’s why it forms class organisations, labour unions.

Socialism demands not only the collective ownership of the means of production but the control of the working class. Anything less than that may be anything you want; it is not and never will be socialism.

Our Revolution

At times we have an inability to see what is in front of our own eyes. Imagine a world run along truly democratic lines. There would be no politicians. People can show incredible acts of kindness to and sacrifice for others, even strangers. Some will even give up their own lives for strangers.  Human life is a product of the evolution of life on earth. Human life is not independent and separate from the planet but a part of it. The relationship of human species with nature and all life forms is that of interdependence. We must not embrace the despair of a bleak future that capitalism is creating. We must acknowledge acts of resistance, even if it appears futile, as small victories. Our character and dignity will be measured by our ability to resist the malignant forces that seem to hold us in a death grip. Our technology and science will not save us. The future of humanity is now in our own hands. At best, we can mitigate the misery. We cannot avoid it. We are fighting for our survival and we must build militant social movements of sustained rebellion. It is a lot to demand. But if we do not succeed, the human race will disappear. We have the technology to build alternative energy and food systems, but the capitalist industry has blocked all meaningful attempts to curb fossil fuel extraction and reduce energy consumption. And meat, dairy and egg producers, responding to consumer demand, are responsible for the emission of more greenhouse gases than the entire global transportation sector. Livestock generates enormous amounts of methane, which is 86 times more destructive than CO2. Livestock also produces 65 percent of nitrous oxide resulting from human activity, a gas that has 296 times the “Global Warming Potential” of carbon dioxide. The massive animal agriculture industry, like the fossil fuel industry, receives billions of dollars in subsidies. And pliant politicians do the bidding of these industries receive millions in return from lobbyists in legalized bribery. And it won’t stop until this political system is destroyed. Governments, if they were instruments of the common good, would free themselves from being held captive by corporations and end the profit system which takes precedence over human health and even human survival.

Critics of socialism are wedded to a strawman notion of socialism as some kind of cornucopian society of absolute super-abundance - all the more easy to knock it down. But this is not what is being proposed. What is being proposed is something rather more modest and reasonable - that we can today adequately meet our human needs (which are not infinite but finite) but increasingly capitalism gets in the way of this happening. The technological capacity to satisfy the basic needs of everyone on this planet for food, shelter, sanitation and so on exists today. However, it is capitalism that is increasingly thwarting this potential. Mostly, the productive possibilities at our disposal are not being realised because of the huge and ever-growing proportion of work undertaken today that is entirely socially useless but is nevertheless indispensable to the operation of the capitalist system itself. Thus, a vast and steadily growing proportion of the work carried out today does not in any meaningful sense enhance human wellbeing and welfare but merely exists to serve the functional needs of the system itself.

Free access entails - amongst other things, a self-regulating system of stock control which of its very nature is capable of responding very rapidly to shifts in demand. If people come to reduce their demand for a particular product this will manifest itself in a build-up of surpluses, prompting distribution points to cut back their orders from suppliers who, in turn, will reduce their inputs for said good from their own suppliers and so on the further back along the production chain. The opposite would happen if people increased their demand for a good. This would automatically trigger a signal for more of such a good and hence the inputs for such a good. The point is all this is perfectly possible today and more so now with the development of computerised system of stock control. A self-regulating system of stock control which responds directly and promptly to changes in the pattern of demand from both production units and consumers provides the necessary data we need relating to stocks of inputs. It then becomes a matter of economising most on what is scarcest. The "relative scarcity" of any input is a function of the demand for the end product of which it is a component and of the technical ratio of input to output (or the product itself). In this way, it is quite possible to rank the relevant inputs in terms of their relative scarcity. So selection of the least cost combination is entirely practicable in a communist society. Only the method of doing it is quite different to what happens with a common unit of accounting. It is what I call a "lateral" approach to cost accounting rather than a "vertical" approach. We select technical combinations of inputs that minimise as far as possible our reliance upon scarce inputs in favour of more abundant alternatives. This is not an exact science but it’s the orientation of decision-making that counts - the fact that we are operating within a systemic constraint that pushes us always in the direction of economising most on what is most scarce - which makes it an eminently sensible and reasonable principle to apply.

There’s no end to the maladies that ail workers these days and it is understandable that they will seek to alleviate their exploitation. Regularly on progressive websites and magazines, articles spring up promoting the empowerment of the working class by suggesting for what the authors believe to be radical new ways of organising the economy – making capitalism more people-friendly. How the authors dislike being reminded that they are regurgitating political ideas that have a proven track record of failure. The Socialist Party only hopes that our fellow-workers are not duped into believing that such proposals offer any fundamental improvements in their condition. Despite widespread anxiety and discontent the liberals and the left have been unable to respond or develop determined workers' movement in any meaningful sense so they resurrect past ideas, re-package them to sell once again.