Time is Running Out

Haven't we all had enough of this capitalist system? Aren't we all sick to the teeth with the meaningless toil, the boredom and being bullied by our bosses. The employing class literally hold working people in bondage. We see where capitalism leads: to a permanent never-ceasing struggle for survival. Workers have increased productivity ten-fold with few increases in wages. Many are also working longer hours under worsening job conditions. When we are forced to compete in a rat-race against each other this breeds a mindset of dehumanisation so is it a surprise that we begin to behave like rats to one another. Capitalism doesn’t care if harm is done as long as profit is achieved. It is fundamentally an amoral system.  Most crimes are simply extensions of capitalism, the forces of competition involved in satisfying the market. Global warming, pollution, and devastating wars are the results.  The need to create profit commodifies people and businesses understand that and it why they have large departments described as “human resources”.

It’s important to discuss socialism, the alternative to capitalism. Socialism is just a few basic ideas to help us escape capitalism. Socialism is not the redistribution of resources and the wealth but the fundamental transformation of the process of production itself. We don’t want to manage a ‘better’ capitalism. We want to collectively plan production and distribution for all. For a better world, the working class requires to take over society, otherwise, it is merely treating the symptoms and not the disease itself.   Socialists understand that an injury to one is an injury to all, and under capitalism, it means protecting the environment and humanity alike. The only democracy possible is an economic democracy.  Socialism means the abolition of the existing order.

The world’s farming and food systems are not currently fit for purpose. Around 800 million people go to bed hungry each night and even more – about one in three of the planet’s six billion population – suffer some form of malnutrition, lacking crucial nutrients in their diets. These numbers will only get worse. The world’s population is forecast to exceed nine billion people by 2050, even as climate change shrinks production capacity each year.

The Socialist Party because we reject all leadership restricts our membership to socialists alone that we can afford to be uncompromisingly democratic. Some of those who in the past have sneered at our “impossibilism” is perhaps now starting to realise that what we have succeeded in building up is the nucleus of the type of mass party which the working class can use to liberate itself. We certainly do not have any of the glamour which makes other organisations so attractive to their romantic revolutionary elements, but to those interested in the serious work of achieving socialism, we do represent a party where they will be welcomed as comrades and equals. The aim of the Socialist Party is to unite the working class against the capitalist class. Alone, workers have no power, but together, we have all the power in the world. That means that we must expose the myths of religion, ethnicity, race, or gender. Isolated one-issue campaigns might bring in some new members for a while yet inviting workers to join on that basis is dishonest. It is no substitute and can’t adequately address the broader political problems of capitalist exploitation. The purpose of political organization is to amplify and concentrate the resources of the members so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This doesn’t mean that other struggles and activities are unimportant but a tool is most effective when it is tailored to a particular use and the Socialist Party is designed for political action to change society, not to advocate reforms or to defend what limited liberties we may now possess.

 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 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 judgement 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 nor Left has any intention of tackling and dealing with the core of our troubles: the system of employment, known traditionally as wage labour, 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.

The Socialist Party holds that the social system needs to be changed fundamentally and 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 the widespread understanding of what needs to be done. 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 Socialist Party seek a world without poverty, war, sexism, racism, nationalism, and other forms of hatred; without environmental devastation.

Socialism is for anybody who thinks the world would be a better place if we had no bosses and politicians telling everyone else what to do. Democracy means more than an election every few years. Freedom means real freedom, and respect, for everybody; People cooperating to satisfy human needs. Socialism is for anybody who wants real solutions, not repeated failures. The Left 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.

A Grouse about Grouse Moors

Grouse moors for the privileged rich are to blame for persecuting endangered birds of prey in the Scottish Highlands and Uplands, according to, Ian Thomson, the head of investigations at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland. He said data from 77 birds of prey that had been satellite-tagged showed a direct correlation between dead and disappeared birds and grouse moors. It showed hotspots in the Angus glens near Dundee, the Highlands in Perthshire, the Monadhliath mountains and Speyside south of Inverness, around the Black Isle north of Inverness, and in the Southern Uplands. Thomson said: “It is clear from this map that, like golden eagles, the distribution of illegally killed or suspiciously disappeared satellite-tagged red kites and hen harriers is far from random, and shows clear clusters in some upland areas. “As with the hotspots for eagles, these clusters are almost entirely coincident with land dominated by driven grouse shooting management.”

In May an expert report from Scottish Natural Heritage on golden eagles said there was a direct correlation between grouse moors and the deaths and disappearances of tagged eagles, and the areas where eagles were failing to breed or prosper. SNH found a third of 131 young eagles tagged over a 12-year period had disappeared in suspicious circumstances or been killed, chiefly in the Highlands.

Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland’s environment secretary, explained,  “The findings of this research are deeply concerning and will give rise to legitimate concerns that high numbers of golden eagles, and other birds of prey, continue to be killed in Scotland each year."

French Revolution

Book Reviews from the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

History of the French Revolution by Jules Michelet (edited by Gordon Wright) University of Chicago Press. 32s

The Crowd in the French Revolution by George F. Rudé OUP Paperback 8s. 6d.

At some stage in the year 1789—the precise moment is debatable—there occurred in France a great social and political upheaval. This French Revolution gave rise, in embryonic form, to important concepts such as the class struggle, revolutionary dictatorship and, in the later stages, “elitist egalitarianism" in the form of Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals.

Those, however, who see the revolution as a popular, egalitarian movement have failed to understand its true character. The French Revolution was a successful attempt by the bourgeoisie to destroy the feudalism which shackled their economic enterprise with old-fashioned regulations and which denied them the political rights they felt were their due. Throughout the, revolution’s course it was the bourgeoisie which controlled the various legislatures and executives, and its results were trade and commerce emancipated from feudalism, a law banning any trade unions (le loi Le Chapelier) and a system of indirect election benefitting the well-to-do. This was, of course, before Napoleon imposed upon the revolution the dynastic ambitions of the Buonaparte family.

There are, indeed, those who have protested that the first National Assembly, far from being a body composed of strictly bourgeois elements, was in fact packed with lawyers and other members of the liberal professions. But lawyers have always represented the interests of trade, commerce and industry—activities which are essential to their prosperity. The doctors, journalists and other professional people who sat as legislators were all notably in sympathy with liberal economic doctrines, and they were always shown to be afraid of popular uprisings such as that in Paris in July 1789. Thus the professions had effectively allied themselves with merchants, industrialists, bankers and agriculturalists, and could be relied upon to serve their interest.

These two books represent, in widely differing form, attempts to understand the role of the common people in the revolution. Michelet’s History first appeared in seventeen volumes in the 1840’s (of which this edition is a continuous selection). As such it is a good example of, and a grand monument to its age. Michelet is as much French Romaniticism’s representative historian as Victor Hugo is its representative literary figure. With a vigorous style, full of life, Michelet gives us his impassioned, apocalyptic and panoramic view of the revolution as the climax of the spiritual battle between the Catholic Order and the “principle of Justice”.

Unfortunately, in his eagerness to present the revolution as the victory of a united force—“the people”—Michelet overlooks important points of detail and produces certain inaccuracies. So insistent is he, for instance, in asserting that the revolution was a spontaneous outbreak of “Justice” and “the People” against a misery and oppression which he paints very eloquently, that he overlooks important differences in the interests of the bourgeoisie and “the people”, the main one being the contradictory demands of free trade and controlled bread prices.

Michelet’s book, however, has certain valuable aspects. It contains a brilliantly eloquent denunciation of Christian theology and extremely shrewd assessments of the true character of the so-called Absolute Monarchy and the mediaeval church in France.

Totally different in character and outlook is George Rudé The Crowd in the French Revolution. Originally published in 1959 and now available in paperback, it was described by one historian as “a significant book which opened up some entirely new sources and showed how statistical precision can be brought to the study of riots”. It is indeed a close study of the behaviour and composition of the Parisian crowd. Rudé, writing from the Marxist viewpoint, is concerned with breaking away from the tradition which until recent times treated the crowd, as he says, “as a disembodied abstraction and the personification of good or evil”, and with examining the crowd in a more scientific spirit. (The book is amply supplied with tables showing the composition, geographically and class-wise, of the crowd and the prices of various commodities at different stages of the revolution).

The crowd, or sans-culottes—called thus because they could not afford breeches—was a heterogeneous body, composed not only of the working class but of small shopkeepers and independent craftsmen as well. Rudé paints a picture of a working class still in transition between feudal and capitalist societies, and not truly distinct from other sans-cullote elements.

However, although the wage-earners in Paris had as yet developed little class solidarity, they did have a vague idea of their cohesion as a class. The breakup of the guild system had accentuated the gulf between masters and journeymen, and there had been a strike as early as 1724. Disputes over wages and conditions continued up till 1789. However, the large demands which food made upon a man’s wages produced a situation where the crowd was concerned more with keeping down prices than with raising wages.

Rudé points out that a variety of motives existed for the crowd’s revolutionary actions, among them dismay at high prices and uncertain food supplies, a belief at first in the king as its champion against the aristocracy and the church, and then in a republic. The crowd was not a totally inarticulate mob merely seeking immediate economic gains. Although economic factors may have influenced them, strongly and often, these went hand in hand with beliefs, however unsophisticated, in political principles.

In this context, Rudé well notes that the bourgeoisie, even at that early stage, were determined to prevent the wage earners gaining any influence, and that, although “whenever it (the crowd) advanced . . .  the aims of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, it has been represented as the embodiment of all popular and Republican virtues”, the bourgeoisie were unwilling to share power with this “virtuous” body. Property qualifications were required from would-be representatives. Rudé also points out “the ferocity with which the bourgeois . . .  of the National Guard dispersed the Champs de Mars demonstration” (a protest at Louis XVI’s flight from France).

Rudé’s book is an informative and extremely readable study of the popular aspect of the French Revolution.

Amit Pandya

Sinclair's Musings

This month we take a bit of a foray into the world of fiction commenting on wage-slavery in the "land of the free" from over a hundred years ago.

It's a handy parable how capitalism swindles profits from wage slaves while wages go up, and we wonder if anything much has changed in a hundred and eleven years since it was written. We hardly think so! Seems nothing is new under the sun when it comes to capitalists duping workers to produce faster while they lose – slaves running to stand still.

"All day long this man would toil thus, his whole being centred upon the purpose of making twenty-three instead of twenty-two and a half cents an hour; and then his product would be reckoned up by the census taker, and jubilant captains of industry would boast of it in their banquet halls, telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy." The Jungle, 1906. Upton Sinclair.

For socialism,
 Steve, Mehmet and John

Human Race Is Endangered Too.

Scientists at Stanford University, recently issued a report, claiming that significant animal population decline and possible mass extinction of species, all over the world, may be imminent, and that both have been underestimated by other scientists.

The study, published on July 10, by the National Academy of Scientists, said the reduction of species have been, and are still, being caused by destruction of the habitat, carbon pollution and climate change.

Most people are aware this was occurring, but weren't aware it was so rapid. One thing the scientists didn't say, was that we, the human race, is an endangered species too. John and Steve.

Basically Things Don't Change

A report on North Korean workers in Russia, issued by the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights, and organization in Seoul, said the Workers Party of Korea seizes 80 per cent of the wages earned by them. More money is taken to cover living expenses, mandatory contributions to a so called loyalty fund, and other donations.

In other words they work for close to nothing, which is like it was in the major industrialized countries just after the industrial revolution.

So things, basically, don't change much under capitalism, which is one of many reasons it should be abolished. 

John and Steve.

Towards a free and equal world

Trade unions co-operate in the exploitation of their members by accepting the premise that the international capitalist class has the unquestioned and legally enforceable ‘right’ to exploit the working class. Of vital importance is the mental conceptions of revolutionary change held by workers and without a change in what people think about the prospects for change there can be no alternative other than a continuance of some form of capitalism. Socilists claim, that there is a way to reconcile our conflict with our masters, and it is to build on our economic and social power and organise collectively and politically to end the dangerous madness of the market system once and for all, rather than trying to beat the capitalists at their own game.  Any gains made in the class struggle for better pay and conditions are still open to being eroded by the inevitable capitalist counter-attack, and without a socialist understanding, the workers will not be able to climb out of the rut of capitalism. So the cycle would continue, with workers making some gains, but then the capitalist class launches a counter offensive by either attacking the gain itself or attacking from some other direction. 

A fundamental Marxian position is that class struggle is the motor that drives change. Built into capitalism is a class struggle between those who own the means of wealth production and those who don't and who are therefore forced by economic necessity to sell their ability to work to those who do. The class war, between the owners of the means of production (the capitalists) and those compelled by threat of poverty to sell their capacity to work (the workers) is an essential and continual feature of capitalist society. The class struggle is the irrefutable antagonism of interests in present society between the class that owns and profits from the means of production, and the class that creates the wealth but does not possess any means of producing wealth of their own. Those who yearn for change are aware of some form of injustice or antagonism inherent in present-day society. This class struggle is not just over the price and conditions of sale of the commodity workers are selling. Ultimately, it's about control over the means of production. The strength of the argument is that it puts the power and potential for change back where it belongs and where it in fact really lies: in our own hands. The problem we have to face is that, in the class struggle, the odds are nearly always against us, and that to build a socialist future, we need a mass organisation of people who know what it is they want and are prepared to work to achieve it. As Engels put it, “The period for sudden onslaughts, of revolutions carried out by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where the question involves the complete transformation of the social organisation, there the masses must be consulted, must themselves have already grasped what the struggle is about, and what they stand for.” 

Groups pursuing the tactic of trying to reform capitalism by concentrating on adjusting it is a wasted effort, since the entire system is based on a minority exploiting a majority. To expend all energy in demands for a more "friendly" capitalism is not what socialists should aim for, as, even in the event of success, the primary evils of capitalism would still remain i.e. production for profit and extraction of surplus value. The main effort of socialists should be aiming for socialism itself. Socialists should get involved in industrial struggles but without illusions, in particular the illusion that they can have a revolutionary outcome. The socialist revolution may start from some strike over wages spreading to the whole of the working class and certainly workers can learn from the experience of industrial struggles against employers that socialism is the only way out so, in this sense, strikes can contribute to a growth of socialist consciousness. But so can the many other experiences of the way capitalism works againt the interests of workers (bad housing, poor health care, pollution, wars, etc).

Which leads to the importance of who controls the state. At the moment, this is in the hands of people favourable to the continuation of capitalism, itself a reflection of the fact that most workers too don't see any alternative to capitalism. The state, therefore, upholds legal private property rights. The end of capitalism can only come as a result of a consciously socialist political movement winning control of political power with a view to abolishing all capitalist property rights and ushering in the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. The preconditions for ending capitalism are a majority socialist consciousness and workers democratically self-organised in a large-scale socialist party. Neither of which, unfortunately, exist. There is no way that an anti-capitalist social order can be constructed without seizing state power, radically transforming it the constitutional and institutional framework that currently supports private property. To ignore the state is a ridiculous and dangerous idea for any anti-capitalist movement to accept.

Questioning the future of capitalism ought to be in the forefront of current debate. Socialist ideas have to be communicated to other workers, but not from outside the working class as a whole. They have to be communicated by other workers who, from their own experience and/or from absorbing the past experience of the working class, have come to a socialist understanding. It is not a question of enlightened outsiders bringing socialist ideas to the benighted workers but of socialist-minded workers spreading socialist ideas amongst their fellow workers.  Our mission is to show clearly both how we are robbed and exploited by the system ruled by capital and how we can untap the wealth of our collective productive power by taking control of the means of production directly. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle against the capitalist class, and rejoice in every victory for the workers to assert their economic power. Both raising and defending of workers' wages affects the amount of time and resources at the disposal of workers for control of their own lives. Romantic notions of class struggle – of battles on the barricades – concentrate on the exceptional forms, rather than the dull reality of the class struggle of every day life. Workers do have to engage with the issues of pay and work conditions and pensions, but the main issue is the overthrow of capitalism, not picking away at it and then having our gains eroded sooner or later. In thinking of the class war as an actual war, the drive for a socialist understanding in the working class and the creation of a socialist society should be the main front, demanding the most effort, while everyday issues of pay and conditions and defending the gains that have been made would be a secondary front. We should never lose track of the actual aim of the socialist movement, the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a democratic association of peoples.

Severe Severence For Some.

In June, SEARS Canada said it planned to close 59 stores and cut 2900 jobs without severance pay under the companies creditors arrangement act.

What makes the whole situation so weird is SEARS plan to pay $9.2 million in retention bonuses to those who are not being laid off, many of whom, but not all, are in management. But then whoever said capitalism and sense go hand in hand?

 John and Steve.

A Disappointment If What He Wants Is Over $1,000,000

 Boxer, Floyd Mayweather, has 2 haircuts each week, and occasionally 3, each of which cost $1,000 US. Furthermore everywhere he goes he carries a briefcase with $1,000,000 in it, because, "I may see something I want to buy."

When one considers millions of folk have to live on less than a buck a day, doesn't it suggest there is something seriously wrong in the society we live in?

John and Steve.

A socialist planet for all

Fellow-workers, we are out to end this man-made hell on earth. We can show you that the greatest of our social evils are directly traceable to the fundamental wrong of stealing from you the product of your work. We ask you to unite with us for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the socialist cooperative commonwealth.

A careful reading of our Declaration of Principles will at once clearly and unmistakably show both the strength and the simplicity of the socialist position. Not one of the principles on which that position stands has been, or can be, refuted.

The Labour Party and their left-wing hangers-on have never taught anything but the pseudo-socialism of the reformist school. The idea that anyone could possibly obtain the most elementary knowledge of socialism from these parties is manifestly absurd. The schools of reformist thought may very well be good training-grounds for budding bureaucrats, Labour decoys and prospective  Cabinet Ministers but, except altogether in a negative manner, they are unthinkable as doing anything in the way of making Socialists. As a matter of fact, the confusion and mental decrepitude engendered by their teachings have done more to retard the progress of Socialism than all the efforts of the orthodox political parties.

One of the tragedies of misplaced enthusiasm and wasted effort by our fellow-workers has been the campaign for nationalisation. The idea gthat nationalisation would be good for the workers and a good vote-catcher for Labour Party candidates and the idea that nationalisation is socialism and would solve all problems is prevalent among the Left. It was supposed by Corbynites to be based on the principle of “public service” not profit. We have seen in the past the nationalised undertakings in operation under laws passed by the Labour Government. We see them being run on methods hardly distinguishable from those of any large private company. Disappointed about this, some workers have thought that the trouble is due to having the wrong people in control of the nationalised industries, not recognising that whoever is in control face the same obligation to make a profit.

No other method is possible under capitalism: the assumed alternative of running the industry at continuous heavy losses would merely lead to a demand either for reorganisation, so that profit would be made or a demand for selling back to private companies. Going in for nationalisation, in the belief that it would be a step to Socialism, was a false move. It has not achieved anything. Nationalisation, which was once the great plank of the Labour Party, is now a heap of sawdust which was quietly swept away. It never had the support of the Socialist Party. 

When we, as socialists, examine the records of government by all the parties, separately and in coalitions, we are reinforced in our conviction that the only solution is the one sneered at and rejected the “dream of a society altogether free from conflict and friction”—a socialist world. Socialism alone can foster the harmonious and brotherly behaviour of mankind which lies dormant in all of us, awaiting the freedom of expression and fulfillment that will accrue once the revolution has been accomplished. We call on our fellow members of the working class to stop voting for the continuity of capitalism, even though we acknowledge fully It is a hard task to educate workers away from support of capitalism and reform of capitalism, over to an understanding of socialism. When they can be got to consider the question they all will see that nationalisation leads nowhere and that socialism alone offers them the means to use the land and industry, without financial hindrance, to supply the needs of the human race, and at the same time enable them to enjoy, along with everyone else, all the amenities social production in field and factory can provide.

“DOCTOR, WHO CARES?” (A Fantasy, Part 1) - weekly poem

“DOCTOR, WHO CARES?” (A Fantasy, Part 1)

Some Feminists are rejoicing that the 13^th 'Dr Who'

will be a woman as, with their limited perspective,

they view this trifle as a revolutionary breakthrough.

The new Dr Who is a woman!

Or in sexist parlance, 'a gal';

He's now been transgendered,

His cojones dismembered,

He is, chaps, no longer a male!

The trend could have repercussions,

Will actors adopt the new creed?

A musical play,

About Mrs May,

Could star Brian May in the lead! (1)

A brand new production on Hitler,

That's filmed at his Berlin retreat;

Might feature Miss Rudd, (2)

As the failed Nazi dud,

Bunkering down in defeat.

Could Ann Widdecombe play a Dalek?

Or a male space-monster instead?

And could Catholics cope,

If she plays the Pope,

With nun Tony Blair in 'theys' bed?! (3)

These follies are feasible if,

Non-binary gender holds sway; (4)

With some men in drag,

Wayne Rooney a WAG,

And Prince Charles, the Queen of the May!

This is the most faux revolution,

Since Tsarism's Petrograd fell;

But for minds that ain't small,

It's a load of old ball,

And a load of old 'ballcocks' as well!

(1) Queen guitarist.

(2) Amber Rudd, home secretary.

(3) The latest Feminist fad is for woman to self-identify as being

of 'non-binary gender', i.e. something other than a man or

woman who insist others refer to them as 'they' rather than 'she'.

(4) If, according to Feminists, gender is ‘non-binary’ then

it is a spectrum applicable to the entire human species.

© Richard Layton

Hiding Things Under The Shelve.

A massive iceberg - double the volume of Lake Erie - broke off from the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica during the first week in July. Scientists said it was a natural phenomenon unrelated to global change.

Of course, it was; 1 trillion tonne icebergs split off from ice shelves all the time.

 John and Steve.

No Wage Raise, Other Prices OK

The Bank of Canada raised its interest rate from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent, on July 12. This was its first increase in nearly seven years. The hike was caused by expectations of stronger economic growth in 2017. It will raise the cost of mortgages, lines of credit and other loans linked to the prime rates of Canadian banks. 

What it will not raise are wages and salaries. 

John and Steve.

Class Struggle

The 2007/2008 crash drove capitalist states and capitalist companies towards some desperate measures to try and stabilise the system and restore and where possible increase real profit levels. But this is not to assume that particular capitalist governments or companies are stuck with only one set of inflexible policies.

The problem is that isolated struggles by workers in the context of intense capitalist competition will give the capitalists more ability to offload any gains made by one sector onto other workers The generalisation of struggle will make that harder for them to achieve this and can potentially push back the austerity measures across a wider front at least on a temporary basis.

Alexander Berkman, the author of the anarchist ABC, put it, "capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just". Until people see through it capitalism will continue to stagger on from economic crisis to war to ecological crisis. To simply denounce finance capitalism as the main enemy is to side with industrial capital in the struggle between the two over how much each is to receive of the wealth produced by the worker class. When we challenge capitalism, we challenge it all or we do not challenge it at all.

 For decades self-proclaimed "Marxists" (especially Trotskyists) fetishise the word "crisis", and describe every economic downturn and political turn of events as the "crisis of capitalism" or even prophesising the "inevitable" (Manifesto) end of capitalism. Its proposed that in a crisis, the closer we are to revolution. The worse conditions become - the more politicised and inclined to take direct action the populace become. Some communists welcome the economic crisis of capitalism and claim there is no perspective of revolution without it. Some of those "Marxists" say "bring on the crisis" because for the working class things will not be able to continue as before. It is argued that without some form of crisis there's no reason at all for the proletariat to revolt. As long as capitalism can offer us palliatives (or at least the illusions of them) to soothe our exploitation, the system will survive It is argued that crises open up the possibility of revolution, even if it doesn't guarantee it. But without a crisis there is no possibility whatsoever. There, unfortunately, won't be a perspective of revolution with it, either. Genuine socialists prefer that working class living standards aren't severely cut. How do we agitate workers around this issue? "Cheers for the crisis"!! Most of the vanguard Left seems to be basing all of its activity around either recruiting workers into their particular party or upon the vague hope that the working class will engage in some kind of spontaneous communist revolution. Wishing the massive impacts of a massive economic crisis/recession upon people's lives just in the hope that their fringe ideas will get picked up and perhaps adhered to by a handful of additional people, the contempt that it shows for humanity is disdainful. It also lays bare the complete and utter impotence of said movements in the first place. This overly optimistic wish fulfilment mixed with its crude utopian determinism does no justice to Marx.

Economic crisis and increasing misery for the working class doesn't necessarily and inevitably lead to revolution. Relying on the effects of the crisis seems to be the lazy way to try and approach social change, scrap all the groundwork and hope the crisis does it for you. While it is argued that downturns make people angry and more susceptible to revolutionary ideas, the opposite may be true. It may be downturns just lead to despair, fatalism, acceptance of misery and cynicism to things getting better. Upturns in the economy make revolution more likely because it is the human condition never to be satisfied and when you've got the job, house, wages, car and all the mod cons then you want more - security, control over your own life which can only be got by workers ownership and control of our own work, residents ownership of their own homes and individuals control over our lives, all of which can only be got by socialism, by way of social revolution. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That is our basic function: to develop alternatives, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. The best we can hope for is to use this as an opportunity to re-group, in order to get the working class in a stronger position to start from when the boom returns. All we can do is to try to negotiate the best terms possible and try to resist as effectively as we can the increased downward pressures on wages and working conditions (for which we need collective organisation and action, even within the existing trade unions).

As to what the Socialist Party can do, at the moment being so small a minority, we can't do much more than keep on arguing that the only way-out is to replace capitalism by a system based on common ownership (instead of class ownership) and production solely for use (instead of production for profit) and to keep on urging workers to self-organise themselves democratically to bring this social revolution about.

The liberation of our class will only come about when we, the class ourselves, for ourselves, do the hard work of organising, which needs that we class conscious workers doing the equally hard work of convincing our fellow workers. At the end of the day , as pro-revolutionaries, it is not in our interest to try and save capitalism but rather to destroy it and to encourage current struggles to develop on an independent, self-organised, class basis and extend across national boundaries which may well give rise to an escalation of the social crisis and starts to challenge capitalism as a whole from a position of some class strength. Only the self-organisation of the proletariat contains the potential to defend its own interests both in the short-term economic and the longer term political. A working class that can't defend itself is also a working class that is incapable of making a revolution.

Marx wrote "Philosophers have only tried to understand the world. The point is to change it." 
The Industrial Workers of the World sang "Don't moan, Organise!"

We in the Socialist Party say “Join us.”

Drug Dealing Not Being Delt With

In 27th June issue of 24 Hours, the Toronto news sheet, the investigative reporter, Phil Gillies, commented on the drug scene in buildings "controlled" by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

According to Gillies, dealers could walk the hallways as freely as walking down the street. Security cameras had their wires cut and their lenses spray painted. Drug dealers came and went every five minutes.

Under Ontario Law, if a person is admitted by a tenant, they are not trespassing; they are guests. Eviction procedures are lengthy and often ineffective. It can take years to remove a drug dealer from social housing. the Toronto Community Housing Corporation lacks the resources to present a solid case to the Landlord and Tenant Board.

There is, though, one sure way to deal with the problem, which is to establish a society where no one will wish to use narcotics.

 John and Steve.

Moralising And Capitalism's Reality.

In its June 27 issue of 24 Hours, the Toronto newssheet, columnist Sabrina Maddeaux, bitched up a storm about manufacturers going gangbusters to cash in on Canada's 150th birthday. To quote, "Some of the more, shall we say 'unique,' items honouring the big anniversary include potato chips, caskets, condoms, $500 hair dryers, bars of soap, artisanal gummy candies and bottles of vodka. The opportunities to slap a maple leaf and a little bit of red and white on products seem endless."

Our girl ain't finished yet; she also complained that many of these products weren't made in Canada and that some were made in Bangladesh, "where workers are severely underpaid and mistreated."

It's time for Ms. Maddeaux to get real. The profit motive is the driving force of capitalism, therefore instances like the above will always happen.

If one doesn't like it; and what is there to like? one "can" do something about it. 

 John and Steve.