Everything Dandy? Well We Have Our Doubts

In "Women and the Vote," by Jad Adams, Oxford University Press, 2014, the author analyses women's struggle for the vote all over the world. The one common trend, which permeates the book, is the main reason they got the vote was that they proved their loyalty to their country; really meaning the local capitalist class. Pretty sickening isn't it? 

We in the S.P.C stand for a society where nobody has to campaign for equality as it will be a given.

Too many people view politicians as stupid, corrupt or both. Though in the SPC, we realise some are, we don't dwell on it too much, as it would be tantamount to saying, "if they weren't a bunch of jerks, everything under capitalism would be peachy-dandy."

 Well, we have our doubts about that.

Our Social Revolution

 Political revolution to describe a change in the class which controls the State, social revolution to mean a change in the basis of society and socialist revolution to describe the particular change of society from capitalism to socialism. We cannot deny that the word revolution has often been used to mean “violent overthrow” and in fact most of the political and social revolutions of the past have been violent. We deny, however, that there is any necessary connexion between revolution and violence. This is an important point, and one we have always made ourselves. In our view the distinction between revolution and reform is not between violent overthrow (insurrection) and peaceful change (using elections and Parliament), but between those who want to replace capitalism by Socialism and those who seek merely to re-form capitalism in one way or another. We claim to be revolutionaries because we stand for a fundamental and rapid change in the basis of society following the capture of political power by the working class, even though we hold that the working class can capture political power peacefully through elections and Parliament. On the other hand, there are many who believe in the violent capture of political power but who would use it merely to re-form capitalism (generally into State capitalism). We deny they are revolutionaries, irrespective of their commitment to insurrectionary tactics.

 The change we desperately need now is a change in the structure of society itself. A change which will give us freedom from their domination and exploitation. So that we shall have control of the technology and science we develop. Control of the production and distribution we need to live on. Control of change itself. Only we can make this sort of change. We are in the immense majority all over the world. We produce and manage everything already. The capitalist class and their power structure contribute nothing. But they consume over half the wealth we produce. This sort of change cannot be gradual.

The e people who own all the industries in the country are few in number—about 10 per cent of the population— and for that reason is very rich. It’s not strictly true that members of this privileged class must have necessarily worked to own all they do. A great deal of their wealth is inherited. But in any case, let’s ask us how these fortunes are made in the first place. After all, they’re so huge it seems unlikely that they are made simply by living a frugal life. These fortunes are made out of you and me. n any industry, the workers produce more in terms of wealth than they receive as wages—because they are not paid for what they produce, but just enough for them to live at a certain standard of living. This is then used up and then back we go to work again the following week. In other words, it’s because wages, on an average, only provide us with enough to keep alive and healthy—plus enough to reproduce sufficient offspring to carry on the job of piling up more wealth than we ever see—that we have to perpetuate the agony in the way described. And it is the difference between this amount and the amount actually produced by workers which accounts for the profits of the owners. So we also perpetuate our compulsory generosity at the same time. The present system, and the way it is run. depends entirely on the effort of people like us, who have to work. We run the whole show from, lop to bottom. For that reason, if all of us united together, it would be in our power to set up a system where there would not be the rat-race that exists at present. We suggest that we set up a system where we all co-operate to make necessary work as pleasant as possible and our conditions of life the best possible, too. This, in turn, we suggest, can be done by establishing a society where all wealth is owned in common.

 The Socialist Party can’t do a thing on its own. What is needed is a majority of people like us to do something. Members of the Socialist Party realise that their interests are identical with the interests of 90 per cent of people in society; and that all of us can only achieve an appreciable improvement in our position by political action. This doesn’t mean going into Parliament and forming a government. Rather it means going into Parliament to end the need for a Parliament at all!  It is from Parliament, you see, that the system of private ownership is ultimately run. The government of the day deals with affairs which affect the owners of industry as a class rather than as individuals. Hence all the time spent on finance, influence and control over whole industries, and so on. All this will go when private ownership goes. This is a task for which the Socialist Party can be used. It doesn’t run for office, as all the other political parties do. It exists as a vehicle which the population can use for ending property society, if it decides to, by sending the party’s delegates to Parliament for that purpose. This is the reason, and the only reason, the Socialist Party contests elections. We always lose, but that doesn’t mean to say we’re wasting our time. We expect to lose elections until enough people have accepted the arguments for the radical change I’ve been talking about. And by contesting elections we help to propagate these ideas. So at this stage we are mainly a propaganda organisation.

There can only be a radical change in the way we conduct our lives if there is a corresponding radical change in society. This must be done ultimately by a majority of the population bringing about the kind of change we've indicated. The task may seem almost hopeless. But there is a slim chance, and the only organisation which gives voice to these ideas is the Socialist Party.

Violence Sells The Product

In, Lemmings don't Leap, by Edwin Moore, Chambers, 2006, the author demolishes popular myths, one of which is the Wild West, which wasn't very wild. Sure there were shoot outs on Main Street but not to the extent we've been told.

In Dodge City's worse year for killing, only 5 were shot, Tombstone also had 5, and Deadwood 4.

Quiet a difference from movies that show the dead littering the street, but, and this is a sad reflection on capitalism – its violence that sells product. 

John Ayers.

Spread The Light Of Socialism

'I'm not the angry racist they see': Alt-Righter became viral face of hate in Virginia — and now regrets it – rawstory.com

Right! All the Nazi officers said they regretted their past actions during the trials. If you ask me, if a person can commit such grave atrocity towards their fellow humans, even once, regret does not absolve them of their crime. Yet the issue is not with individual acts, but the deep current of racist build up in today's society's veins. Until we clear it, it will keep poisoning new minds.

And that is why we are here in SPC. Trying hard to spread the light of socialism as an inclusive and sustainable future for all human kind. 

John Ayers

No War Between Nations, No Peace Between Classes!

Capitalism has us heading towards catastrophe. Today, future prospects certainly appear dire on many fronts. The Socialist Party argues that the idea of the global socialist revolution must become stronger than the idea of the nation, that the nation-state must be dismembered, if the working class wishes to be victorious. Between capitalism and the social revolution there can be no compromise of any sort, only class struggle until resolution. It must be clearly decided what is understood as socialism and what is not. 

Marx and Engels took a pragmatic view of nationalism. Hungarian and Polish nationalism in 1848 was good because these potential new nations would form a bulwark against Tsarist despotism, but on the other hand, Czech and Croat nationalism was bad as it would facilitate Russian reactionaryism. Marx and Engels supported many of the nationalist struggles of their day because they viewed capitalism as a historic advance over feudalism.  They understood that capitalism could develop the productive capacities of human society to levels unimaginable under feudalism. They understood further that capitalism brought into existence a class of producers--the proletariat, the modern working class--that for the fir›t time in history was truly collective. This class thereby embodied the potential for democratic self-rule. In the eyes of Marx and Engels, every victory for capitalism over feudalism propelled humanity further toward the goal of freedom from material want and political subjugation.

Later socialist such as Luxemburg, on the other hand, believed that the right of nations’ to self-determination had become pure utopianism and national independence was no longer something worthy to strive for. Times had changed and history had moved on from the situation Marx and Engels faced. The truth of what Marx and Engels had written that " The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got." had been proven. Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion of the world? Workers have the world to win, not nations to fight for. National liberation revolutions were not proletarian movements that led to socialism of any kind.  We cannot separate abolishing capitalism from abolishing nation-states, which is not accomplished by national-liberation revolutions or socialism-in-one-country. We aim for the worldwide cooperative commonwealth, where all of the world’s people are able to fully flourish as individuals. National sovereignty is something socialists don’t actually want because our aim is not national independence but planetary cooperation.

Every Socialist recognises the complete futility of individual or mob violence as a working-class weapon, in face of the overwhelming power of the State. The fact that the “propaganda of the deed,” so dear to the anarchists or direct-action advocates, has always played into the hands of reaction is a commonplace. The labour movement in all lands passes through despairing stages of such activity, and it is only as its futility becomes thoroughly realised, and the true nature of the problem which faces the worker is understood, that the worship of mere disorder or violence is outgrown. Its very hopelessness shows it to be a gesture of despair. It is the expression of economic and political weakness, disorganisation, and ignorant passion.

 This is not to say that the question of force has not an important part to play in the struggle for socialism; for when the need and time arrive the workers cannot hesitate to use force against force. It does mean, however, that the force to be used must be the organised might of the whole working class, rooted in economic needs, and based on knowledge rather than on blind hate, and used because essential to complete the task of emancipation. In essence, though, the success of a revolution depends, not upon mere force, but upon economic necessity. The role of force is secondary to this. And it is only because the economic necessities of the capitalist system pave the way for the working class advance to power, that Socialists are enabled to use legality in their educational and organising work; it is only because they are the expression of economic needs and forces that the workers have the opportunity of advancing from strength to strength until their power is sufficient to finally wrest from their masters the major force of the State.

Marx and Engels say in the Communist Manifesto:

“The First Step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of a ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. The Proletariat will use its political supremacy, to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the Slate, i.e., of the proletariat organised as a ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.”

The measures necessary when the workers have won their class battle can, indeed, only be definitely decided upon when that moment arrives. The only possible program for a Socialist party is Socialism; and its only “immediate aim” is the straight fight for the conquest of the State in order to begin the transformation of capitalist society into Socialism. As the founders of scientific Socialism state in the Manifesto itself, their “immediate aim" is the “formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” Any party, indeed, whose immediate aim is less than this, is, by that same token, not a Socialist party.

The point of socialist activity is their effect on consciousness by highlighting the forces of capitalism responsible for damage and death to the exploited and the oppressed, and to show people that there are still creative and daring ways to resist the powers-that-be despite repression. The world despite all the tragedies remains rich with possibilities and holds a sense that we can and must do better. It necessitates the overthrow of the ruling class as being in the interests of the vast majority of humanity, and that goal becomes increasingly imaginable. We put the interests and aspirations of the vast majority, in the forefront and need a massive social revolution. We must reach to the root of things. We require to study, learn, organize and talk the language of radical change. Knowing that things are unjust or terrible is never quite enough. Socialism's motivating ideal is the liberation of all humanity from all forms of alienation.  We always need a vision and a palpable sense of the world we're fighting for.  A socialist vision is essential for sustained motivation, at both the individual and the organisational levels. The Socialist Party wants to embrace a better world.  We point to the world we want to live in and invite solidarity to build unity. Let's begin by linking arms and raising up clenched fists.

And they call it charity...

At least 400 children are thought to be buried are believed to be buried in a mass grave in a section of St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, Lanarkshire, southern Scotland, according to an investigation by BBC News.

The children were all residents of a care home run by Catholic nuns, The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

Frank Docherty and Jim Kane discovered an overgrown, unmarked section of St Mary's Cemetery during their efforts to reveal physical abuse which they said many former residents had suffered.

The death records indicate that most of the children died of natural causes, from diseases common at the time such as TB, pneumonia and pleurisy. Analysis of the records show that a third of those who died were aged five or under. Very few of those who died, 24 in total, were aged over 15, and most of the deaths occurred between 1870 and 1930.

Socialist Courier are minded of the fact that these same nuns are proponents of the right to life - no contraception or abortion - yet have a total disregard for the dignity of death. Dead children discarded in an unmarked grave. 

Lives Don't Matter As Much.

The recent movie, "Dunkirk" certainly qualifies to be included in the obscene and heard department. Its directing is taut, the acting is good, but nevertheless, it is sickening to see boys being murdered for attempting to further the interests of capitalism. Sickening also to read the comments of the reviewer in the Toronto Star July 29 "…best treatment of a dive bomber attack circa, 1940 that I have ever seen."

Well, whoopee-de-doo, let's all go on a 3-week bender to celebrate. The most telling comment is when an army officer asks a naval one, why the navy won't come and help evacuate 340,000 soldiers stranded on the beach and receives an honest reply. "They" need the ships to fight other battles.

The translation being, "the capitalist class don't give a crap about the lives of thousands of people." As it was, private individuals using pleasure craft got them off.

John Ayers.

You Get What Is Cheaper.

Now how can one keep the Toronto Transit Commission out of the news? 

The latest is that the T.T.C.'s para-transit service wheel-trans are now hiring taxis to carry the disabled. "But," you may cry, "taxis don't have the equipment."

Quite true, but they cost the T.T.C. $20.00 a trip compared to 50% for a wheel-trans bus. Hey! We live under capitalism pal. 

Steve and John.

The Socialist Party and Peace

 The Socialist Party does not deny the sincerity of many anti-war peace campaigners. The courage of many of those involved in peace movements cannot fail to impress. The energy and ingenuity they display in tackling a job they consider important provides further proof that once working men and women get on the right track capitalism’s days are numbered.

All sorts of appeals are made to the Socialist Party to join forces with these anti-war organisations, but it declines any alliance. Not because we do not yearn for the cessation of the war. By no means so. Members of the Socialist Party above all others understand the horror of war. But we cannot associate with the various "Peace" and "Stop the War" movements.

Firstly, because we stand for socialism and they do not. Because we refuse to associate with those who support the capitalist class during "peace" time and who fight for the subjection of the working class. Therefore we cannot ally ourselves with these capitalists and clergymen and politicians. We refuse to lower the socialist red flag to march alongside our class enemies.

The second reason we cannot unite with the stop the war movement is that they simply cannot succeed and are impotent so it would be foolish to join in futile campaigns. Appeals to governments are the general methods yet they leave in power the makers of wars, the capitalist class. They intend to let the profit-making system which itself produces commercial rivalry and inevitably international warfare to continue. Supposing that nuclear weapons could be banned. If two nations, possessing the necessary technical knowledge and possessing the components, should quarrel seriously enough over the things wars are really fought for— markets, sources of raw materials, strategic Bases, etc—and even supposing they commenced fighting with “conventional,” “moral” weapons, would not the losing side set its scientists to producing nuclear weapons in order to stave off defeat? If history is anything to go by, the side which was winning would use the nukes and justify this by claiming it had brought hostilities to a speedier conclusion

Surely it is no longer doubted that wars are born of the fight for spoil between capitalists. Under capitalism, even in times of peace, states are always in competition with each other over markets, sources of raw materials, investment outlets, trade route and other economic and strategic questions. When it comes to negotiating over these differences the existence of a powerful armed force in the background is an important factor in the relationship of forces which decides the outcome. So each state is obliged to try to obtain the most modern and most effective (destructive) arms that it can afford, irrespective of whether or not it is actually involved in a conflict at home or abroad.

The level of a state’s armament is part of its negotiating strength and general credibility. This is why there is always a vast international market for arms of all sorts which no capitalist country which has an arms-producing capacity is going to refuse to supply for “moral” reasons. This is especially so in the current period of economic crisis when every little export helps. 

The Socialist Party fights for the removal of a system of society which works out to the detriment of the many. The crusaders for peace are out for an alteration in the method of government whereby the wars between capitalist countries can be reduced or abolished. Socialism declares in favour of a new system wherein capital and capitalist governments cease to be. Peace propagandists by no means unite in condemning capitalist society, and they are mostly opposed to a change in the system altogether. What is the Socialist Party's attitude to war? It is that war as we know it is produced in the main by the conflict between the interests of capitalists of various nations. It is born of the rivalry between sellers of goods for profit, and it can only die when selling for profit is abolished. In other words, the socialist theory holds and capitalist practice proves that only by ending the entire capitalist system can war with all its attendant horrors cease. If you wish to stop all wars you must stop all capitalist competition and to do this you must work for socialism.

Capitalism generates wars because it is organised in such a way that its wealth can only be produced and distributed by a process of competition. The industries of capitalism are the private property of a small class of persons, and wealth is produced primarily for sale with a view to profit. A capitalist enterprise requires markets, trade routes, supplies of wage labour, raw materials, places to invest capital, and the power of a state to protect these interests. The foreign policy of a capitalist state attempts to acquire these needs in its relations with other countries. The rub is that there are several capitalist states in the world competing intensively for the same needs, and the size of the planet is limited. They must necessarily come into conflict with one another; and if the conflict cannot be settled or negotiated to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, they go to war. In competing for their essential business needs, capitalist countries seek control over territories in which they can sell goods, and from which they can extract profit and raw materials.

The Socialist Party would point out that the war is part of a whole related pattern of social problems generated by capitalism; and because it is part of a related pattern, the war cannot be attacked in isolation from the rest of the pattern or from its roots in the needs of capitalist society; the only way this problem, and others like it, can be permanently solved is to establish a system of society in which the means of production are owned and democratically controlled by the whole people, and goods are produced for use and not for competitive exchange and profit.

The whole point of modern war is that it comes from the capitalist social system. The only way to prevent war is to establish socialism. If capitalism is to be overthrown women and men have to work together for socialism. Common ownership will foster new kinds of relationships between human beings. Women and men will, at last, be free to live life as they choose, to cooperate with each other in building a future in which we will no longer be exploited for profit. 

The Best Gift

 Father denounces 'twisted worldview' of son who attended neo-Nazi riots in US – standard.co.uk

Reading this article reminded me how my father used to talk about racism and people's self-determination. From the earliest ages, I remember him saying "People are your brothers and sisters regardless of their birthplace, their colour, their faith and their social status." And he always lived according to principles of socialism at home and outside as far as I could observe. I think the best gift any socialist father can leave to their children is a profound love of humanity so that the new generation gets a chance to save themselves from the mistakes of the past generations. 

A good step towards One world, one people! 

Steve and John

What is the importance of Gramsci's cultural hegemony?

Gramsci is said, in the Prison Notebooks, to have developed a new and original kind of Marxist sociology, which, over the last half century or so, has engendered a vast range of debate, interpretation and controversy by academics and others – the so-called ‘Gramsci industry’. One of the key matters debated has been his concept of ‘hegemony’ (‘egemonia’).

This was the term Gramsci used to describe what he saw as the prerequisite for a successful revolution: the building of an ideological consensus throughout all the institutions of society spread by intellectuals who saw the need for revolution and used their ability to persuade and proselytise workers to carry through that revolution. Only when that process was sufficiently widespread, would successful revolutionary action be possible. So hegemony was what might be called the social penetration of revolutionary ideas.

This outlook is very different from the fervour with which in earlier years Gramsci had greeted the Russian revolution and advocated similar uprisings in other countries. By the second half of the 1920s, with Italy ruled by a Fascist dictatorship and opposition leaders exiled or imprisoned, Gramsci came to see revolution as a longer-term prospect which would depend on the conditions existing in individual countries.

And it is this ‘long-term’ idea of revolutionary change that has been interpreted in very many different ways according to the standpoint or political position of the individual commentator. One way it could be read would seem to tie in closely with the World Socialist Movement's view that only through widespread political consciousness on the part of workers and majority consent for social revolution can a society based on the satisfaction of human needs rather than on the profit imperative be established.

In this light, Gramsci’s hegemony could be seen to have the profoundly democratic implications of insisting on a widespread and well-informed desire among the majority of workers for socialist revolution before such a revolution can come about. Indeed it is clear that Gramsci was not unaware of Marx’s ‘majoritarian’ view of socialism (or communism – they were interchangeable for Marx) as a stateless, leaderless world where the wages system is abolished and a system of ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’ operates.

In an article written in 1920, for example, Gramsci refers to ‘communist society’ as ‘the International of nations without states’, and later from prison, he writes about ‘the disappearance of the state, the absorption of political society into civil society’. However, though he referred to himself as using ‘the Marxist method’, such reflections on the nature of the society he wished to see established are few and far between and cannot reasonably be said to characterise the mainstream of his thought.

Leninist
 When looked at closely in fact, Gramsci’s thought is overwhelmingly marked by what may be called the coercive element of his Leninist political background. So, while undoubtedly in his later writings he came to see the Soviet model as inapplicable to other Western societies, he nevertheless continued to conceive of revolution as the taking of power via the leadership of a minority group, even if in different circumstances from those experienced by Lenin in Russia.

The most important pointer to this lies in Gramsci’s view of the state. Hardly ever does he view socialism other than as a form of state. The overwhelming thrust of his analysis and his recommendations for political action point not to doing away with states and the class divisions that go with them but to establishing new kinds of states.

In 1919, enthused by the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, Gramsci wrote: ‘Society cannot live without a state: the state is the concrete act of will which guards against the will of the individual, faction, disorder and individual indiscipline ....communism is not against the state, in fact, it is implacably opposed to the enemies of the state.’

Later too, in his prison writings, arguing now for a ‘long-term strategy’, he continued to declare the need for states and state organisation, for leaders and led, for governors and governed in the conduct of human affairs – underlined by his frequent use of three terms in particular: ‘direzione’ (leadership), ‘disciplina’ (discipline) and ‘coercizione’ (coercion).

So, despite what Gramsci himself recognised as changed times and circumstances compared with Russia in 1917, he continued to be profoundly influenced by Lenin’s view that ‘if socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least 500 years’ – in other words that genuine majority social consciousness was unachievable.

And in line with this, when looked at closely his ‘hegemony’, far from eschewing the idea of a revolutionary vanguard, sees an intellectual leadership taking the masses with them. In other words the ‘consent’ that his hegemony, his long-term penetration of ideas, proposes is not the informed consent of a convinced socialist majority but an awakening of what, at one point he refers to as ‘popular passions’, a spontaneous spilling over of revolutionary enthusiasm which enables the leadership to take the masses with them and then govern in the way they think best.

Human nature
 Underpinning this lack of confidence by Gramsci in the ability of a majority to self-organise is a factor little commented on but particularly significant – and that is his view of what may be called ‘human nature’. In writing explicitly about human nature, which Gramsci does on a number of occasions, he expresses agreement with Marx’s view that human nature is not something innate, fixed and unchanging, not something homogeneous for all people in all times but something that changes historically and is inseparable from ideas in society at a given time.

This view of humanity is in fact described by Gramsci as ‘the great innovation of Marxism’ and he contrasts it favourably with other widely-held early 20th century views such as the Catholic dogma of original sin and the ‘idealist’ position that human nature was identical at all times and undeveloping.

But despite Gramsci’s stated ‘theoretical’ view on this topic, scrutiny of his writings in places where ‘human nature’ is not raised explicitly but is rather present in an implicit way points his thought in a different, more pessimistic direction.

When he writes about education, for example, his pronouncements about the need for ‘coercion’ indicate little confidence in the ability of human beings to behave fundamentally differently or to adaptably change their ‘nature’ in a different social environment.

In corresponding with his wife about the education of their children, in response to her view that, if children are left to interact with the environment and the environment is non-oppressive, they will develop co-operative forms of behaviour, he states ‘I think that man is a historical formation but one obtained through coercion’ and implies that without coercion undesirable behaviour will result.

Then, in the Prison Notebooks, on a similar topic, he writes: ‘Education is a struggle against the instincts which are tied to our elementary biological functions, it is a struggle against nature itself.’ What surfaces here as in other places, even if not stated explicitly, is a view of human nature not as the exclusive product of history but as characterised by some kind of inherent propensity towards anti-social forms of behaviour which needs to be coerced and tamed.

Viewed in this light, Gramsci’s vision of post-revolutionary society as a place where human beings will continue to need leadership and coercion should not be seen either as being in contradiction with his theory of ideological penetration (‘hegemony’) or as inconsistent with the views that emerge about human nature when his writings do not explicitly focus on that subject.

So we should not be surprised that Gramsci’s vision for the future is not a society of free access and democratic control where people organise themselves freely and collectively as a majority but rather a change from one form of minority authority to another – a change from a system of the few manifestly governing in their own interests to the few claiming to govern in the interests of the majority.

The evidence of Gramsci’s writings, therefore, suggests that the revolution he envisages is not one in which democracy in the sense of each participating with equal understanding and equal authority prevails. Crucially, the leadership function is not abolished.

The hegemonisers will essentially be in charge since they will be the ones with the necessary understanding to run the society they have conceived. What this society might be like he does not go on to say in any detail.

But it would clearly not be a socialist world of free access and democratic control that rejects authority from above together with its political expression, the state.

For Gramsci, any such considerations were at best peripheral to the thrust of his thought and his social vision. And though he did have a revolutionary project, it is not a socialist one in the terms that socialism is correctly understood.

From an article in the Socialist Standard by Howard Moss

Matthew Culbert

The properytless produce all

The capitalist system has resulted in benefits such as an increase in production of food availability, increased availability of health care and medicines, increased availability of modern technologies which can substantially reduce human drudgery. Capitalism did bring substantial improvements in lifespan, health and education. But its profit-driven production is restricting access to these basic services. The new technologies of future can have a potential solution to deprivation but an economic system driven by the profit motive will not make it available and accessible to the masses.

Some conceive of socialism as nothing more than the welfare state or the nationalised ownership of the economy. But socialism to be worthy of a movement to fight for must offer something much more and very different from a larger role for the State and government in society's affairs. Indeed, the State under capitalism already plays a massive role in the running of the status quo. To be worthy of description socialist, it must offer a fundamental change from capitalism. State control leaves intact the power of capital in the factories, offices, distribution systems and other economic institutions. This means the capitalists or their functionaries maintain control over society's most important domain, production and the workplace Socialism, however, is based on the mass democratic participation of working people in managing the day-to-day affairs of the economy and society. The socialist struggle is to transform the economy and society. Socialism must be "the self-emancipation of the working class" -- the mass participation of the majority of society in organising to take economic and political power away from the wealthy elite and to construct a revolutionary post-capitalist society that extends into every nook and cranny of social life. Class struggle is to build the power of the working class to run society in its own interests and requires workers world-wide to overthrow the employing owning class.

Capitalism has made it possible to meet all of the world's needs, but control over capitalism's output remains in the hands of a tiny minority. By placing the means of production under the democratic control of the workers who make the gears turn, socialism offers a way to use society's resources to meet human need. The art of capitalist politics is to enable the wealthy to convince the poor to use their votes to keep the wealthy in power so to continue the enslavement of the poor.

One of the most powerful tools we have in the socialist movement today is the ability and opportunity to help people to share their histories. That’s the only way we’re going to win the debate on issues such as immigration. There are people that are anti-immigrant because they don’t know the stories of their fellow-workers. Some people get stereotyped while others are manipulated. All of this division is being driven by fear. Those who perpetrate hatred are often victims themselves. Understanding one another's history has power. Social change doesn’t need to be complicated. The basis of social change is human connection and communication, engaging with one another and exchanging each other's hopes.

The working class are wage workers. That is, they depend for their livelihood entirely upon the money they receive from the sale of their labour power. It must not be supposed that a wage-worker class has existed through all time. People are so accustomed nowadays to the wages idea that a great many of them have considerable difficulty in realising that any form or degree of civilisation could have existed without wages. They are so used to the idea that without wages they can get nothing; they are so accustomed to the hard experience that when wages cease to come in they starve; they are impressed and saturated with the concrete knowledge that the orbit of their lives are inexorably prescribed by the magnitude of the magic wage: they are so inured to the aspect presented by these circumstances of their environment, that the admission that under Socialism there will be neither paying nor receiving of wages is sufficient to cause them to reject the Socialist proposition with the remark: "Can't be done!" But the wages system and the wage-worker, as we understand them to-day, are quite modern social characteristics—newer, say, than St. Paul's Cathedral.

When we speak of the wages system and the wage-worker, however, we have in mind a very definite social feature, and it will be as well to explain here exactly what is meant by the terms, for the benefit of those who are new to the study of social science.

If the wage-worker is new, wages, of course, are not. "The labourer is worthy of his hire" was written many generations before the hired labourer was a wage-worker in the modern sense of the term, just as the reference to Joseph's "coat of many colours" was penned ages before the world knew a tailor. Wages are older than the wages system, just as coats are older than the tailoring trade.

The wages system is that system whereupon the whole of the wealth of the community is produced by wage-labour. The wage-worker is one whose sole means of subsistence are the proceeds of the sale of his or her labour power—wages.

Now the wages system, as here described, obviously could not exist save in conjunction with a certain form of property ownership. It is not that this ownership must be private ownership. Property was privately owned centuries before the wages system grew up. The social system which immediately preceded the present one was based on private property, yet very little of the community's wealth was produced by wage labour then.

The particular form of private ownership which is essential for the development of the wages system is that form which provides a propertyless class - that form which takes away from a section every shred of the means of living except their labour power. In other words, the whole of the means of production must belong to a section of the people.

This particular form of private property did not exist till comparatively recent times. Prior to its establishment, the working class had free access to the land and consequently had not to depend upon the sale of their labour power for their livelihood. They did occasionally work for wages, just as they did occasionally sell part of the produce of their labour, in order to procure money to pay taxes, or to purchase the few things required that they did not produce for themselves. But they never became wage slaves while they had access to the sod, for the simple reason that they had at hand the means of producing all the essentials of life for themselves, without being driven to hire themselves to others.

Even the artisans and the handicraftsmen in the towns, where they did work for wages, had their portion of land, on which they produced many of their requirements, and had, besides, reasonable certainty that, when they had become proficient in their craft, the ownership of the implements of their trade would be within their easy reach, and present them with the opportunity of gaining freedom.

So it will be seen that the wages system is by no means an indispensable part of human life. Our ancestors got on very well without it. Indeed, they had neither use nor need for it until they had been stripped of everything they possessed except their labour-power.

Only when they had been driven from their homes and their fields and converted into propertyless outcasts did the working class resort to the labour market for their livelihood. Prior to that, they had produced wealth for their own consumption, and money had played but a small part in their life. Things have changed greatly since those days; People no longer produce the goods they require to satisfy their own needs and it is utterly impossible for us to go back to the state of things wherein each family produced all their own requirements.

To say that we cannot do without wages and the wages system is to say that which is absurd. Though it is true that wages are the means by which the workers live, it is equally true that wages are the means whereby the workers are robbed. The wage serves no other function than to render possible this robbery. It does not even record the fact that its possessor has performed his share of the world's work, for wages have a fleeting identity, and there is nothing to show how the coins they consist of are come by. With the abolition of private property, wages, and money, it will be very easy to assure that each person shall perform his or her share of the necessary labour of production, and the "problem" of distribution, then would be no problem at all.

No Further Comment Needed.

Our British comrades make some valid points in the August issue of Socialist Standard, regarding the fire at London's Grenfell tower.

'Why people wanted to know was there only one fire exit in a building of 120 flats; an exit frequently blocked by rubbish, including old mattresses, which the council did not remove." And how about this gem. "… tower blocks for rich people have multiple exit points, sprinkler systems and efficient fire proofing. A similar fire that swept through Dubai's plush Torch Tower in 2015, yielded no casualties at all."

No further comment needed.

Also in the same issue, when commenting on the war in the Yemen, we read, "…around 1,000 children die every week from preventable diseases like diarrhea and respiratory infections." And this is all because of the continuation of capitalism. How many better reasons can there be to abolish it? 

Steve and John.

Beyond the Grants Campaign (1973)

Party News from the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Union of Students is conducting a campaign to:

• Raise the Student Grant.
• Abolish Discretionary awards.
• Give married women students a full grant. 
• Abolish the parental means test.

Students, most of them members of the working class, should recognize that, like the rest of the workers, they cannot escape the limitations imposed on them by the capitalist system in which we live.

We understand their efforts to prevent a deterioration of their position. However, such action is only defensive. If students don’t look beyond the grants campaign they will find they will have been running fast only to stay on the same spot. As trade unionists have discovered, inflation soon undermines economic gains and the whole struggle has to be gone through again. Moreover, students should understand that education at present is primarily a means of training a labour force for the organization of commodity production in capitalist society. The dominating influence of examinations and the totally undemocratic hierarchical organisation of the university are expressions of this. Education should be a social amenity for the development of individuals’ talents, which it cannot be under capitalism.

So how do we get off the treadmill? 

Some people are advocating throwing the Tories out and electing a Labour government. But what did the last Labour government do? Allowed students’ living standards to decline drastically. Attacked workers’ living standards by means of wage freezes and inflation. 

Changing governments changes nothing.

The only way forward is a revolutionary change to a completely different society:

• World-wide common ownership of resources— not minority class ownership.
• Production to meet human needs — not for private profit.
• Free access to goods and services — not the rationing of a monetary system.
• A free, democratically-run, non-authoritarian, non-compulsory educational system giving equal opportunity for all.

This can only be achieved by the conscious action of the majority of the working class—and that includes most students.

We urge you to join us in the fight to establish world Socialism.

— from a leaflet issued by Socialist students at Aberdeen.