The Socialist Party Agenda

The Socialist Party argues that democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order. What do socialists do in the meantime, until the majority become convinced of their case? Will the Socialist Party win over the majority of people to their case by fighting to improve their lives under capitalism or by spending all their energies in educating the workers to the necessity of eliminating capitalism and establishing socialism?

 We, as socialists, are not opposed to workers going after reforms. We do not set ourselves up as discouraging these attempts of the workers to improve their conditions under capitalism. We simply know the limitations of these attempts. Our fellow workers have yet to learn them. The members of the Socialist Party do not spurn the day to day struggle. By the very nature of the fact that they are workers, they participate in the fight for better wages and improved working conditions. But with two qualifications, which qualifications arise from the fact that they are socialists first and foremost.

First, socialists understand that this economic struggle against the capitalists is merely a defensive struggle, to keep capital from beating the working class living standards down. For this reason they couple their struggle on the economic front with political education of the workers. They point out the limitations of industrial struggle.

Second, socialists do not advocate regulation and legislation to reform capitalism. To do so would put the socialists in a position of misleading workers into believing that the capitalist state can function in their interests when it is the agency by which the capitalist class maintains its domination over the working class.

It is one thing to say that socialists should not oppose the non-socialists fighting for reforms, and quite another to state that socialists should place themselves in a position of trying to make capitalism work in the interests of the workers, when all along they know it cannot. It is inconsistent, in our opinion, for socialists to seek to solve problems for the workers under a system which we claim cannot solve these problems. Such an approach would never bring about socialism which is our goal.

Suppose for argument's sake that the Socialist Party were to campaign for better housing, hospitals, roads, and so forth. Perhaps we would get a more people joining our party but on what basis would they Join? The same basis on which we appealed to them, a platform of reforms. We would, in the end, have an organization consisting of workers who were seeking continual improvement under capitalist methods of production and distribution, under a price, profit, and exchange economy. What would happen if such an organisation is voted into political power? It merely uses the power of the State to carry on capitalism under different forms public-ownership, various models of nationalisation. It cannot use the control of the State to abolish capitalism, because those members who joined to gain reforms, would be in opposition to it. The Party would have to carry out amelioration measures of capitalism or lose its members to another party which advocated remedial policies.

We have witnessed examples where a party calling itself “socialist,” pledging immediate demands now and promising socialism in the future came into political office, and instead of abolishing exploitation, merely altered the outward appearance of it. The Labour Party has made no attempt to establish socialism. History proved more than once that the means sought social reforms – were identical with the ends sought – a state capitalist society.

 The Socialist Party, on the contrary, appeal for members on the one and only demand of obtaining political power for the purpose of abolishing capitalism. If elected to office, we would not oppose social reforms in the interest of our fellow-workers, but at the same time, we would not be advocating them as solutions or even partial palliatives. By presenting a manifesto of superficial changes to capitalism that did not challenge its fundamental structure, we would not be educating any workers to the necessity for socialism. We would instead be educating on the need to get all they can under the capitalist system. This latter type of education has never produced socialists from among the workers. Those who started out with the idea of “reforms today, socialism tomorrow,” originally viewing reforms as a means to an end, found that the reforms became ends in themselves.

A socialist is involved in the economic struggle by the mere fact that he is a member of the working class which is required to resist the encroachments of capital. But this is not the same thing as suggesting that The Socialist Party engages in activity for improvements in living standards. This is not the function of a socialist party. Its task is to fight for socialism, and the method it employs is education of the majority. A socialist party should not concerned with reforms under capitalism. This is the concern of the trade unions and other social activists, who seek to get all they can out of the present system. Reforms are also the concern of the ruling class which uses reforms to bribe off the working class, to both stem discontent. Were the workers' movements to vanish from the earth, the capitalist, by the very class nature of the system, would still grant reforms to forestall the development of revolutionary thought among the workers. They also implement various social reforms to increase the productivity of their workers so to extract more profit.

 The Socialist Party view those who postpone socialism to the unlimited generations ahead who describe themselves as pragmatists and call The Socialist Party utopian, are in truth unrealistic themselves in believing they can gain the good things of life under capitalism. It is the profit system which prevents workers from obtaining decent homes, clothes, education. Modern technology has reached the point where people can receive what they need for themselves and their children – today.

 If someone believes in socialism, but because it is so far in the future, he or she thinks it best to expend their energy in campaigning for reforms then imagine thousands upon thousands who have thought, and do think; in the same way. Had all these people spent one-tenth of the time for socialism that they spent in fighting for reforms, the socialist movement today would indeed be a large one, and the bigger the socialist organisation gets, the closer we are to socialism. Only if people see the need for socialism, and work actively for it, will we ever obtain socialism? If everyone who reaches a socialist understanding comes to the conclusion that socialism will never come about in his or her lifetime, this is a guarantee that we will never see socialism. Indeed, workers who admit they believe in socialism and then fight for reforms under the excuse the workers are not ready for socialism, really mean that they themselves are not ready for socialism.

We urge upon our fellow-workers to learn well the lesson of class hatred taught them by the masters; let the workers steep themselves in a knowledge of the class war, and act always with that as their guide. No compromise; No quarter, politically and economically. The poverty and the misery the working class suffer and endure is due to robbery and the remedy is to stop the robbers by ousting them, first from political, and then from economic power.

WHAT WE MEAN BY SOCIALISM

 The Socialist Party maintains that it is a revolutionary party, committed to class struggle as the means of achieving its ends. That does not mean, however, that we intend to take to the barricades and launch a civil war. The Socialist Party maintains that the only way socialism will come about is for a majority of people, on a worldwide basis, to believe in the benefits of the socialist system of society system. We favour achieving this objective through the use of elections, although in the current situation our main function is as a propaganda group to try to raise consciousness. We HOLD that it is possible to make the transition from capitalism to the complete abolition of the state immediately that the majority decides to do it.

Three points are vital to an understanding of what The Socialist Party mean by socialism.

We reject the idea that socialism has been tried in countries sometimes referred to as socialist.
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, but by thinking men and women . There can be no socialism without socialists.
Socialism means for the Socialist Parties a global system of social organisation based on:
Common Ownership: All the productive wealth of the world will belong to all the people of the world. No more transnational corporations or small businesses and therefore nobody will own the world. It will be possessed by all of its inhabitants.
Democratic Control By All: Who will run socialist society? We all will. There will be no more government and governed. People will make decisions freely in their communities, in regions and globally. With the existing means of information technology and mass communication this is all possible.
Production For Use: Instead of producing goods and services for sale and profit, the sole reason for production will be to satisfy needs and desires.
Free Access: A society in which everyone owns everything, decides everything and only produces anything because it is useful will be one in which all will have free access to what is produced. Money will cease to have any function. People will not work for wages or salaries, but to give what they can and take what they need.



If you work for wages, it is not socialism.
If goods and services are sold in the market place with a view to profit, it is not socialism.
If the world is divided into nations, it is not socialism.
If there is any kind of government over people, it is not socialism.
Unless each man, woman, or child in the world has free access to all the goods and services, it is not socialism.

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

• A society without classes and class property
  
• Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution
  
• Production to meet human need
  
• Free access for every man, woman and child, each determining their own needs
  
• No classes: all persons stand equally in relation to the means of wealth production
  
• Participants fit enough to work volunteer services as preferred and needed
  
• No buying, selling or exchange
  
• No wasteful activities to support capitalism
  
• Emphasis on democratic co-operation
  
• Elections as required to choose representatives or delegates
  
• Administration of things
  
• No nation states, wars, armed forces
  
• Education and health care for all
  
• No property crime, any residual crime dealt with humanely
  
• No environmental problems caused by profit seeking
  

The Socialist Party is completely against capitalism. Capitalism is a relation of production whereby past labour i.e., dead labour sucks living labour like a vampire. It works objectively through its law of value. Thus capital is essentially a capitalist. Just as a wage worker is a slave of wage, so also a capitalist (no matter what its form – individual, joint-stock or state) is a slave of profit; capital coerces both to get accomplished its sole objective of expanded reproduction – self-expansion, self-motivated accumulation. As world socialists our one single objective is to end capital; we are against capital. We reject a false view of some pseudo-Marxists that we need capital and not capitalists. Actually, the capitalist ceases to exist when capital ceases to exist. So capitalism is the problem. Its motive force is profit; Capitalism is production for profit. Even if, for argument's sake, the same system is managed by compassionate and conscientious people profit is a must, hence exploitation of the working class is a must since the desired goal of the system is to maximize profit. Capitalism is all about profit. Capital is accumulated and animated profit. Its nature remains the same no matter how it is managed and who manages it. Without profit, there is no capital. Whereas the working class‟s desired goal is emancipation from exploitation which, however, is the sole source of capital. How can it be achieved if capitalism exists?

The Socialist Party is genuinely holding on to a whole new path to global peace and prosperity. Global peace and prosperity are at stake under capitalist relations of production. Today capitalism is the cause of war, terrorism and destruction. An exploitative and oppressive system cannot be peaceful – slavery hadn't been peaceful, serfdom and feudalism weren't peaceful, and capitalism isn't peaceful. You cannot put a square peg into a round hole. You cannot make a tiger eat grass. World capitalism and world peace are opposed to each other. There will be no peace until we achieve equality that is socialism.

Capitalists are the parasites of society. They consume from the surplus value produced and handed over to them by the working class. Workers consume just a part portion – a historically diminishing portion (relative wage i.e., a share of the collective working class in comparison to that of the collective capitalist class in the total global production) of what they themselves have produced. Actually, all workers cannot buy all that you have listed; the majority of them are forced to live in poverty, temporary and permanent unemployment and misery, in spite of the global abundance (both real and potential) they have already created. It is the working class who produces, stocks, preserves and protects everything capitalism needs; they run and defend all the affairs of the system. On the other hand, the capitalists do nothing but consume what they haven't produced but appropriated from the working class.

For us, abundance for all – that is socialism. 

Global capitalist rakes it in

One well known scrounger member of the parasitic capitalist class who owns a golf course and hotel in Scotland has had a windfall thanks to  a measure supposed to help struggling businesses. Donald Trump’s luxury hotel in Turnberry has been handed a £110,000 tax rebate by Scottish ministers as part of an emergency bailout intended to help struggling small businesses.

Figures reveal that the Trump Turnberry hotel on the coast of Ayrshire, where suites cost up to £815 a night, had its property tax cut by £109,530 as a result of the measure. That led to a 13.5% reduction in its normal annual business rates bill of £811,850.

The Scottish rebate was announced in February after hoteliers and restaurant owners complained about a rise in property taxes of up to 400% that came into force this year. The complaints were most intense in north-east Scotland, a region hit hard by a slump in oil prices.

Only available to firms in the hospitality sector, the rebate was put into effect Scotland-wide, and included companies making profits or those unaffected by the economic downturn.
Never one to be bashful the US president boasted earlier this year that Turnberry and its championship golf courses were doing “unbelievably” well because the value of sterling had fallen since the Brexit vote in June 2016.
The resort’s general manager, Ralph Porciani, told newspapers in January he was expecting bumper profits for 2016 and 2017, with revenues likely to be up to 20% higher than the £16m Turnberry earned in 2007. Turnberry increased its golf club membership fees by 38%, to £2,500 a year, after its courses were upgraded.
“From the business we have on the books so far, the pace is telling me the Trump Turnberry will have its best year of revenue in 100 years,” Porciani said. Previously the resort had been closed for refurbishment.

Brief Introduction to Marxian Economics

Marx and Engels wrote a great deal, on a wide variety of subjects and over a long period of time.  Some of their writing was in response to political issues of the day which are long forgotten, some was concerned to criticise opponents who held views now rarely encountered, while some was of a very abstract and philosophical nature.  So it can be very difficult for someone with no previous acquaintance with their work to know where to begin.  And diving in at some unsuitable place (Capital, vol. 1, ch. 1, for instance) may discourage further exploration.  Their writings on economics, on history and on politics were for Marx and Engels closely interrelated. 

Under capitalism, wealth takes the form of an immense accumulation of commodities, so Marx begins Capital by an analysis of the commodity, which leads to the distinction of use-value, value and exchange-value. The value of a commodity is the amount of labour-time socially necessary for its production. The air has use-value but no value, as its usefulness does not result from labour. Different forms of value are discussed before Marx turns to the fetishism of commodities, whereby commodities seem to take on a life of their own, rather than being seen as products of human labour. Then comes a discussion of money, the universal measure of value and means of exchange. A general rise in the price of commodities may result from a fall in the value of money (inflation). The exchange of commodities follows the circuit Commodity-Money-Commodity (C-M-C). The total of such circuits is the circulation of commodities and the starting-point of capital. Alongside the C-M-C circuit is that of M-C-M (i.e. buying in order to sell), and money which circulates in this way is potentially capital.  Money which begets money (M-C-M’) is the general formula of capital.

 Marx shows that the creation of surplus-value and conversion of money into capital cannot come about by commodities being sold above their value or being bought below it – it is not circulation that creates value. Instead, there is a commodity the consumption of which (uniquely) creates value, viz. a person’s mental and physical capabilities for work, or labour power.  Only under certain circumstances, however, is labour power offered for sale as a commodity.  When it is, the value of labour power is determined by the quantity of means of subsistence necessary for the worker’s maintenance.  Capitalists buy labour power, workers sell it in return for wages.

Besides human activity, the work process needs a subject for people to work on .  Some subjects of labour are spontaneously provided by nature (e.g. fish in the sea or ore in the ground), but most – called raw materials – have been previously worked on by labour (e.g. ore extracted from the ground and ready for washing).  Also needed are instruments of labour (tools etc.).  Together, instruments and subjects of labour make up the means of production.

But back to labour power, which is a source of more value than it has itself.  The capitalist, having bought the labour power, can oblige the worker to work for longer than is required to produce the value of that labour power, and so surplus value is produced.  Capital can be seen as being of two types.  Constant capital, represented by means of production, undergoes no alteration of value in the process of production; but variable capital, represented by labour power, produces an excess or surplus-value.  Since the value of constant capital merely reappears in the product, the rate of surplus-value is to be measured by comparing the surplus-value with just the variable capital, not the whole capital.

The time that the worker spends on producing surplus value is surplus labour-time, and the work done during this time is surplus labour.  The rate of surplus-value can also be measured, equivalently, by comparing necessary to surplus labour.  The aim of capitalist production is the production of surplus value.

We should stress that Capital is not just a book about economics, as it contains a mass of historical material as well.  For instance, it deals with working conditions in the early capitalist factories, covers the historical origins of capitalism, including how the agricultural population was moved off the land in the Highland Clearances while  Ch. 32 is a short description of the historical tendency of capitalist production, with a reference to the expropriators being expropriated. 

To get a proper understanding of economic recessions you have to look back to Karl Marx. who developed a real comprehension of how the capitalist system operates and why it constantly fails to live up to the hopes of the politicians who preside over it. Marx argued that “capitalist production moves through certain periodical cycles. It moves through a state of quiescence, growing animation, prosperity, over trade, crisis and stagnation” (Value, Price and Profit, chapter XIII). He showed that capitalism’s drive towards expansion is not a straight upward line but proceeded through cycles. Though there is a general upward trend in terms of total production, this is necessarily punctuated by periods in which production falls and unemployment grows. This analysis is, of course, in line with capitalist reality. Throughout its history capitalism has developed in this way. No-one has prevented slumps from happening or be able to ensure permanent boom conditions. That much is self-evident.

The actual explanation of crises and depressions put forward by Marx, particularly in Vol II of Capital recognizes that capitalist crises are simultaneously problems of production and of the realisation of surplus value on the market. The explanation of slumps suggested by Marx does not simply rely on a long-term tendency which may or may not be operating at any given time nor on the entirely mistaken view that capitalist production will always tend to outstrip total market demand.

The explanation suggested by Marx goes to the root nature of the capitalist mode of production itself. Capitalism differs from other modes of production such as feudalism or chattel slavery in that under these previous forms of class society, most production was carried on for use. Capitalism, having separated the producers from the means of production and only allowing them access to them via the exploitative wages system, promotes productive activity only when goods can be sold on a market with the expectation of profit.

Decisions about production – from what is to be produced, to how much of it should be produced and where – are not taken with the satisfaction of human needs in mind. Decisions about production are decisions to produce those goods that appear the most likely to procure a profit when sold on the market, at any given moment.

This drive to procure a monetary profit is not essentially a product of the desire of the capitalists to have a luxurious lifestyle. If a capitalist or group of capitalists are to stay in business they must accumulate capital to expand and survive against their competitors. It is this process of re-investment that uses up much of the profits made by the capitalist class.

It is in this way – through the exploitation of workers, the profitable sale of commodities, and the accumulation of capital – that capitalism is able to expand and develop the means of production. But this expansion is not planned expansion. The operation of capitalism is not planned at the level of the whole economy. Decisions about investment and production are made by thousands of competing enterprises operating independently of social control or regulation.

The unplanned nature of production, or the anarchy of production as Marx called it, is at the heart of Marx’s explanation of why capitalism is periodically beset by crises and depressions. Because production is not socially regulated, some enterprises will eventually invest and expand production to such an extent that not all of the commodities produced can be sold on the market at a profit. In the drive to accumulate capital as rapidly as possible, they over-anticipate market demand and expand their productive capacity beyond that which the market can absorb. Unsold goods begin to pile up. Expected profits are not realised, and production has to be curtailed. This, of course, will have a knock-on effect. The enterprises’ suppliers will be faced with reduced demand and will no longer be able to sell all their products either, and this, in turn, will affect their suppliers’ suppliers and so on.

The size and nature of the enterprises or industries which over-invest and over-expand their productive capacity in this manner will, of course, affect the nature of the crisis. A small number of peripheral enterprises over-expanding and perhaps going bankrupt will not have nearly the impact of one or more key industries over-expanding. Indeed it is one or more key industries over-expanding for the market that is the usual cause of a capitalist crisis and subsequent slump.

In his own elaboration of this view, Marx divided capitalist production into two main sectors (see Capital Vol II, chapters 20 and 21):

DEPT I, producing means of production or what are sometimes called “capital goods”, and

DEPT II, producing means of consumption, or “consumer goods”.

Marx’s explanation of crisis was complicated enough, but the actual division of capitalist industry is, of course, much more complicated than this simple two-sector model. Marx’s aim, though, was to show that for capitalist accumulation and growth to be achieved steadily, then there would have to be a balanced growth between these two departments of production. Put simply, if say the consumer goods sector expands disproportionately more than the capital goods sector, then at some point the enterprises in that sector will not be able to sell all their products and will have to cut back on production and orders of capital goods causing a general crisis to break out.

Where this two-sector model is rather a simplification is that, if capitalist growth is to be smooth, all sectors or sub-sectors of the economy must expand in a balanced and proportionate manner. But because of the general anarchy of production in the capitalist system, there will inevitably be a disproportionate investment and a disproportionate growth between the various sectors of the economy. When capitalists invest to expand production, they do not objectively consider the needs of the other sectors of the economy; they are interested in the rate of return they can get on their own investments and it is not therefore surprising that over-investment and over-expansion take place in key sectors of the economy. It occurred in key industries in the consumer goods sector before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and it has recently occurred in a number of those enterprises and industries that expanded at a fast pace in the 1980s, particularly micro-electronics, computing, information technology and so on.

Let us now look now at what happens once the crisis has occurred and the slump phase of the economic cycle has been entered. One of the most important factors to consider when capitalism is moving from one stage of its trade cycle to another is the rate of profit – or, to be more precise, short to medium term fluctuations in the rate of profit (as opposed to the long-term tendency discussed in a previous section for the average rate of profit to fall due to the replacement of variable capital with constant capital).

During a crisis and at the onset of a slump the rate of profit on investments will fall dramatically as firms are unable to sell all that has been produced and so are unable to realise surplus value embodied in them. But this decline in the rate of profit is not permanent; it is part of the economic cycle, and during a slump conditions eventually, begin to emerge which point towards an increase in the rate of profit and renewed investment. No slump is ever permanent. This is because during a slump three basic things happen.

The first is that a number of enterprises will go bankrupt and their assets will be bought cheaply by their rivals. The result of this is a depreciation of the capital invested in them leading to a halt, and eventual reversal, in the decline of the rate of profit. An important factor in this is the decline in the value of the stocks that have built up towards the end of the boom, during the crisis and in the early stages of the slump.

The second thing to happen in a slump is that there is the re-appearance of a large reserve army of labour which makes an increase in the rate of exploitation possible. There will probably be a halt in the growth of real wages and perhaps even a cut, which will serve to increase the rate of profit without, at this stage of the economic cycle, damaging the prospects for realisation of surplus value on the markets, because capital depreciation and destruction of stocks will have been taking place and the supply of commodities will have been curtailed.

The third factor is interest rates. As the slump develops, interest rates will tend to fall naturally as the demand for money capital falls away. This will have a beneficial impact on the rate of industrial profit and, in conjunction with the other two factors, will improve the prospects for investment and expansion.

Because of these three factors – capital depreciation, an increase in the rate of exploitation, and naturally falling interest rates in a slump – enterprises will start expanding production again as investment picks up and as demand for products grows, with more workers being employed again. This will lift the economy out of the slump phase of the cycle, and industry will be in the state of growing animation referred to by Marx that occurs before a boom. The cycle will then have come full circle.

The important thing about all this is that the crisis and depression phases of the economic cycle do not occur because something has “gone wrong” with the operation of the capitalist economy. On the contrary; they are in fact an entirely necessary feature of the development of capitalism, serving to rid the system of its more inefficient enterprises where returns on investments are low, and thereby promoting investment and expansion in those enterprises fit enough to survive. Far from being an instance of capitalism “going wrong” in some way, slumps show that capitalism is working normally and in accordance with its own economic laws and mechanisms of development.

NOT FOR THE RICH Weekly Poem

NOT FOR THE RICH

The Daily Telegraph's highlighted the fact that tax paid by the rich

has increased in the last decade by 3% -- conveniently forgetting

that their share of wealth's increased by a far greater percentage.

Not for the rich a divvy freeze,

And no sign of austerity,

And not for them a ten-year squeeze,

When they've been down upon their knees;

But unabashed prosperity.

And not for them or all their brood,

Of whether they will have to choose,

Between themselves and kids for food,

Or some choice equally as crude;

Which one of them will have to lose.

And not for them to have to bitch,

And stay and pay the bedroom-tax,

For Corporations and the rich,

Acquiring wealth's reached fever-pitch;

As tax enforcement seems quite lax.

And not for them what seems a cheek,

Of borrowing to pay the rent,

And reaching the end of the week,

Where the outlook is still as bleak;

Without a single lousy cent.

And not for them the awful plight,

Of having men cut off the gas,

Or cutting down on heat and light,

To darken more their hopeless blight;

Or something equally as crass.

No, for the rich what brings a frown,

As it's their main priority,

Is stopping wealth from trickling down,

To the less gentle parts of town;

And the brainwashed majority!

© Richard Layton

Why the Socialist Party

Any effort to increase workers awareness for a new society - a socialist cooperative commonwealth - has to to be viewed favourably. We need to know where we are going if we set out on a journey, otherwise, we all risk ending up in different places. Agreeing a consensus on the route and the mode of transport is desirable. We all must learn from our own particular exploitation but it is also necessary to go further and recognise the commonality of how we are controlled and conditioned. Then we seek common cause and action. We cannot create an hierarchy of degree of individual exploitation. 

In order to fit themselves for this task, the working class must acquire the consciousness which alone can enable them to do so. This consciousness must comprise, first of all, a knowledge of their class position. They must realise that, while they produce all wealth, their share of it will not, under the present system, be more than sufficient to enable them to reproduce their efficiency as wealth producers. They must realize that also, under the system they will remain subject to all the misery of unemployment, the anxiety of the threat of unemployment, and the cares of poverty. They must understand next the implications of their position – that the only hope of any real betterment lies in abolishing the social system which reduces them to mere sellers of their labour power, exploited by the capitalists. They will see then, since this involves dispossessing the master class of the means through which alone the exploitation of labour power can be achieved, there must necessarily be a struggle between the two classes – the one to maintain the present system of private (or class) ownership of the means of living and the other to wrest such ownership from them and make these things the property of society as a whole. This is the struggle of a dominant class to maintain its position of exploitation, on the one hand, and of an enslaved and exploited class to obtain its emancipation, on the other. It is a class struggle.
A class which understands all this is class-conscious. It has only to find the means and the method by which to proceed, in order to become the fit instrument of the revolution. What is the role of a revolutionary organisation except to bring under its umbrella all the struggles of the working class into a mass movement? To unify towards one goal. The abolition of capitalism.

With or without revolutionary organisations, workers and oppressed peoples will and do resist and they discover for themselves the best means of that struggle. Unlike the Leninist/Trotskyist parties, the Socialist Party has no programme of assuming leadership of such struggles and its only advice is simple - such movements have to be democratic, and adding the caveat, that such victories which are achieved will never fully satisfy aspirations and may indeed be only transitory and require constant defending.

So, therefore, understanding that the working class (and, of course, it is accepted that we are a heterogeneous class - with conflicting interests at times and in certain places) do engage in the class struggle and require no declaration of class war from any political group, what then is the role of a revolutionary party but to advocate and educate, until itself is in a position of being a mass movement that can go on to organise as the expression of the class.

And what is it we advocate and educate for? A new society that is an alternative to the existing one. And if that is considered as abstract propaganda-ism, so be it, we plead guilty. The real crime, though, is to forget what we struggle for. We understand the limitations of a revolutionary organisation in our present time and make no grandiose claims of our own organisation's importance to the workers' actual battles in the class struggle, that they can and do conduct without the intervention of a revolutionary political party. 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to persuade others to become socialist and act for themselves, organising democratically and without leaders, to bring about a new socialist society. We are solely concerned with building a movement for socialism. We are not a reformist party with a program of policies to patch up capitalism. The Socialist Party seeks to deepen and better articulate our understanding of the world, Publishing and stating our case wherever and however possible while supporting our fellow-workers in the trade unions (and other movements of the working class), supporting their strikes and actions. The Socialist Party consistently advocates a fully democratic society based upon cooperation and production for use. The more who join the Socialist Party, the more we will be able to get our ideas across. The more experiences we will be able to draw on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement for socialism. The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers. 

The Scottish Workers' Congress: Curious Stuff from Glasgow (1944)

From the June 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

An organisation calling itself the "Scottish Workers' Congress" called a preliminary meeting at Central Halls, Glasgow, on May 21st. What took place at the meeting we do not know at the time of going to press, but, judging from the explanatory leaflet issued beforehand, it is a curious re-hash of reformism, Scottish nationalism and anti-political activity. The 10-point programme contains some of the stock demands of the reformist parties, such as a minimum wage of 3s. an hour, a 30-hour week, double income-tax allowances on all incomes under £600 a year, immediate provision of sufficient decent houses "by prefabrication and other means in Scotland" (our italics), “democratic workers' control of Scottish industry," and “equal pay for the job for both men and women."

Although the leaflet appeals to "all workers to speak and act directly for themselves" (our italics), the 10 points are directed to Scotland and Scotland only, and among them are such points as "an end to the closing down and shifting south of our industry " (our italics).

On its political attitude the leaflet says only that “the Committee is non-sectarian and non-party," and its task "cannot be undertaken by any of the existing organisations. They exist for other purposes."

How it proposes to achieve its aims is not very clearly indicated, though as it apparently rejects political action, and as point 5 wants the factory committee to "take over the workshop where closing down is threatened," we may assume that the Committee intends that the workers shall take "direct action," thus reviving once more the old delusion that working-class political action is unnecessary.

As the 10 points imply the retention of the wages system and minor modifications of the income tax, it is obvious that the Committee does not aim at the abolition of capitalism and the institution of Socialism; which is, of course, made unmistakeable by the narrow nationalist point of view that stands out in all the 10 points.

How thorough-going is the Committee's acceptance of capitalism can be seen from the points relating to minimum wages and to the income tax. It seeks to raise “the standard of living”—but not too much; for not only does the point about income tax envisage some people having more than £600 a year and some having less, but the minimum wage of 3s. an hour for a 30-hour week only means a minimum wage of £4 10s., or £235 a year.

We await further details of this curious organisation.

Editorial Committee.

Our Future Activity

The only logical position in the political world that a genuinely socialist party can take up is that of opposition to all other parties.  We must be in opposition to all other political parties and be distinct from other “Labour" or "Socialist" bodies. For any party that claims the support of the working- class is acting as their enemy if it does so on any other ground than that of a clear recognition of the class war that is being waged. There must be the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of private ownership of the means of life, with its method of production for profit, a goal attained by the capture of political power by class-conscious workers, so that by its control they can substitute co-operative production for use for production for profit. By this change in the basis of society, the workers will have ended the power by which they are kept in their present condition of wage-slavery. Any party that deludes our fellow-workers into believing that anything short of the establishment of the socialist commonwealth will be effectively assisting to perpetuate the capitalist system, with all its infamies. The only principle on which a working-class party can progress is on the lines of the class war, and strenuous opposition to any party not based on those lines. Thus The Socialist Party of Great Britain resolutely opposes Tory, Labour, LibDems, and nationalist as well as all those professing to be “socialists”, who, directly or indirectly, support capitalist politics. The Socialist Party call upon those of the working-class who desire emancipation to enrol themselves in our organisation, to prosecute the class war and the social revolution to a successful resolution.

For many on the Left, the Socialist Party's conception of revolution lacks credibility and that they claim to possess a theory of revolution that does not expect people to wait for the majority necessary to “enact” socialism before doing something about their immediate problems. Some perceive a problem that they can't see how workers who have become socialists can be expected to sit back and wait for a majority to join them before being able to do something constructive. But no-one's asking them to do this. There will be a whole series of "practical" actions, apart from socialist propaganda activity, that will become possible when once there is a substantial minority of socialists (as opposed to the tiny minority we are today). Our pamphlet "Socialist Principles Explained" says:

 "The organisation and day-to-day running of socialist society will be a completely separate issue. It will have been discussed and planned at great length by everybody before the actual take-over of power takes place. "

and:

 "As the old regime is abolished, the new, really democratic, social order, discussed and planned for so long beforehand, will come into operation".
For instance, there will be involved in:-
* the challenges of the practice of democracy within the socialist political party, and the broader socialist movement generally.
* the task within the trade unions to prosecute the class struggle on the economic front in a more class-conscious and democratic way as well as drawing up plans for keeping production going during the period of social revolution while the political action is being taken to end the monopoly exercised by the capitalist class over the means of production.
*participation within the numerous associations, clubs and mutual aid groups that will flourish at this time, to discuss and prepare the implementation of plans in such fields as town planning, education and culture both after and to a certain extent even before the establishment of socialism.
The growing socialist movement would be preparing for the change-over to socialism and drawing up of plans to reorganise decision-making on a fully democratic basis and to reorient production towards the satisfaction of needs once class ownership and the operation of capitalism's economic laws have been ended. People working in organisations like the WHO and the FAO and the host of other NGOs and charities would be dusting off plans to eliminate world hunger and unnecessary disease. Socialist educational and media ventures would be coming into existence.
We in the SPGB can picture a socialist party and movement growing in the future along with many working class organisational forms including trade unions, councils, the old Industrial Workers of the World idea of One Big Union but not without certain caveats. Workers' councils have, in the past, been a very independent body of workers created at the workplace itself (Russia 1905, 1917, Germany 1919, Hungary 1919, the British General Strike, Council movements in Ireland and Scotland in the same period, in Italy, Hungary 1956, Poland 1970). They usually arise in situations of economic and political crises. They also often rise in opposition to the established trade unions. They are very much spontaneous organisations that do not have any clearly defined political goal (in our case, socialism). Their existence can challenge the State, but not necessarily so. Their inherent problem is that they can be political organisations (again not necessarily so) but tied to the prevailing economic structure of capitalism. And because they arise in response to whatever crisis, their coordination is difficult, and the political consciousness of the workers not necessarily socialist in the end. In past revolutions, the councils have swayed back and forth between political parties and movements and there is no "conscious" action other than a responsive one.

Whereas, a socialist party has the advantage because its interest and actions do not revolve around this or that section of the working class, but of the working class as a whole. And it functions as the instrument to "take hold of the state machine", to seize the levers of government. Councils do not nor cannot do that. They can set themselves up as a dual power to the government or State, but the State still has the control of bureaucracy, army, police force, all forces of oppression. What has to be captured is the State itself to dismantle all this "bureaucratic-military machine". The State already exists as a class institution, the representative of the capitalist class. It exists as a creation that "administers" capitalism and thus a Socialist party must come to the fore which challenges the capitalist class in the political arena in order to seize this administration, "lop off its worst parts" and be provided with the institutions already in place to implement socialism. Now, this is where councils if they are established, could come into play.

The Socialist Party cannot control whether or not workers become socialists. What we can offer, and what we have continuously provided, is a theory of revolution which, if had been taken up by workers, would have prevented incalculable misery to millions. Over the years, the Party's theory has led to the formation of a body of knowledge which has been consistently capable of accurate political and economic predictions. For example, in 1917, the Bolsheviks were convinced that they were setting society in Russia on a course of change towards socialism. The Party argued that socialism was not being established in Russia. What followed was the horrendous misery of the Stalinist years. The Party put forward the same view of events in China in 1949. What is happening in Russia and China now? The rulers of these state capitalist regimes introduced free market capitalism. We warned against situations where groups or sections of workers try to stage the revolution or implement socialism when the rest of the working class is not prepared. They will only be prepared when they accept the need to capture political power and THEN the implementation of socialism based on majority support can begin. Otherwise, you may have a situation where a minority may push the majority into a situation it is not prepared for and the results could be disastrous. What comes to mind is the situation in Germany in 1919 when large groups of workers supported the Spartacus group while the majority of the working class still supported the Social Democratic Party. The uprising was put down brutally and the working class was divided. In regards to gradualism and reformism when in 1945 the Labour Party was elected with the objective of establishing a "socialist" Britain, the Party, again arguing from its theory, insisted that there would be no new social order. In fact, that Labour Government steered capitalism in Britain through the post-war crisis, enabling it to be massively expanded in the boom years of the 1950s. What is happening in the Labour Party now? Confused and directionless, it stands utterly bankrupt of ideas. The Labour Party even abandoned its adherence to Keynesian theories which the Party always insisted could never provide policies which would remove the anarchy of capitalism. Its ideas on the progressive introduction of socialism are now only a distant memory.

All theoretical mysteries find their rational solution in human practice and the comprehension of this practice. Hence the idea of choosing between "abstract propagandism" and "doing something now" is as false a choice as choosing between theory and practice. We must have some theory linking the capitalist present and the socialist future. Some theory yes, but not just any theory. This theory must be based both on the class struggle as the motor of social change and on an understanding of the economics of capitalism and the limits it places on what can be done within the framework of the capitalist system. As socialists we are engaged in a necessarily contradictory struggle: on the one hand, we propose the abolition of the wages system as an immediately practical alternative, but on the other, we recognise the need for workers to fight the wages struggle within capitalism. But, as socialists, our main energies must be directed towards the former objective. We could endeavour to remove this distinction between the trade union struggle within capitalism and the socialist struggle against capitalism by adopting the ideas propounded by DeLeon and the Socialist Labor Party, who at one time advocated that socialists should form their own "revolutionary unions" but their failure is a very important case study of the danger of imagining those capitalist institutions such as trade unions can be converted (or substituted) into socialist bodies. They demonstrate that capitalism cannot be transcended from within.
The advantage of a socialist party is that it acts in the interests of the whole class and does not, in the process, disenfranchise anyone. The working class needs a political organisation, not one segmented on the basis of how the industry is set up under capitalism. An organisation of socialists is needed. As it grows then the dynamic of the class struggle changes and goes off into new directions.

 

A letter to The National

MICHAEL Fry constantly criticises what he calls socialism. He compares private capitalism with state capitalism and has a preference for the private capital model. Both systems suffer periods of boom and bust. This happens in the private model of the US and UK, it also happens in the state model of China and Russia.

Socialism has never existed in the modern world as it requires an end to the money economy and competition between nations.

If Michael wishes to refer to socialism I suggest he keeps to examples such as the San people of the Kalahari or the St Kildans of the Western Isles.

Brian Davis, Tongue, Sutherland

http://www.thenational.scot/community/15449838.Letters_I__Our_women_footballers_restore_faith_in_game/

For a world of mutual aid and free association

The World Socialist Movement is the product of international co-operation between socialist organisations and individuals who agree with the Declarations of Principles. It is our intention is to build this movement into an organisation that is truly global. Capitalism today, more than ever, is organised as a global system. Socialism too needs to be world wide. Our task is winning people to socialist ideas, and convincing people who desire social change that the sort of approach outlined in our Declaration of Principles is the appropriate strategy to adopt. We endeavour to promote awareness that social revolution is possible and necessary. Socialism will be built through the class struggle between the vast majority of society (the working class) and the tiny minority 9the capitalists) that currently rule. A successful revolution will require that socialist ideas become the prevailing thought within the working class. This will not happen spontaneously. Our role is to communicate an understanding of socialism in a battle of ideas against the pro-capitalist apologists.

Capitalism is the social system under which we live and is primarily an economic system of competitive capital accumulation out of the surplus value produced by wage labour. As a system, it must continually accumulate or go into crisis. Consequently, human needs and the needs of our natural environment take second place to this imperative. Capitalism is an ever-expanding economy of capital accumulation. In other words, most of the profits are capitalised, i.e. reinvested in production, so that production, the stock of means of production, and the amount of capital, all tend to increase over time ( in fits and starts). The economic circuit is thus money - commodities - more money - more commodities, even more, money. This is not the conscious choice of the owners of the means of production. It is something that is imposed on them as a condition for not losing their original investment. Competition with other capitalists forces them to re-invest as much of their profits as they can afford to in keeping their means and methods of production up to date. As a resul, there is continuous technological innovation. Defenders of capitalism see this as one of its merits and in the past it was insofar as this has led to the creation of the basis for a non-capitalist society in which the technologically-developed means of production can be now—and could have been any time in the last 100 years—consciously used to satisfy people’s wants and needs. Under capitalism this whole process of capital accumulation and technical innovation is a disorganised, impersonal process which causes all sorts of problems—particularly on a world-scale where it is leading to the destruction of the environment. The result is waste, pollution, environmental degradation and unmet needs on a global scale. If society is to be able to organise its production in an acceptable way, then it must abolish the capitalist economic mechanism of capital accumulation and gear production instead to the direct satisfaction of people's needs.

In socialist society, productive activity would take the form of freely chosen activity undertaken by human beings with a view to producing the things they needed to live and enjoy life. The necessary productive work of society would not be done by a class of hired wage workers but by all members of society, each according to their particular skills and abilities, cooperating to produce the things required to satisfy their needs both as individuals and as communities. All wealth would be produced on a strictly voluntary basis. Work in socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organ in a position to force people to work against their will. Socialism does not require us all to become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn't require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” personal belongings , and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house we live in, but this will be just that – our home and not a financial asset. Such “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of other more negative ones which capitalism encourages.

Goods and services would be provided directly for self determined needs and not for sale ; they would be made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. We may thus characterise such a society as being built around a system of generalised reciprocity. 

 The Socialist Party case in elections is that we don't want your vote IF you think socialism means nationalisation, higher taxation, welfare state, national liberation, legalising marijuana or whatever. In short, we don't want your vote if you think we need to keep and act within existing capitalism. The Socialist Party explains that we can't do anything for you. We don't promise you anything. We say that if you want socialism you've got to act for yourselves. We can't establish it for you.  We're not making any promises, if you vote for us, you're the one making the promise to work towards abolishing capitalism and the wages system.

The Socialist Party stands in elections to enable any and all who would join the struggle to abolish capitalism to be able to signal to their fellow-workers that that is what they want to do. We stand for the sole purpose of emancipating the working class, not soft-padding the shackles of capital with satin. We only want the votes of those who understand what socialism is, and actually want it and are prepared to do something about it. We're not leaders, we're not looking for followers, we're only standard bearers, so to speak. 

Democracy under capitalism is reduced to people voting for competing groups of professional politicians, to giving the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down to the governing or opposition party. Political analysts call this the “elite theory of democracy” because all that the people get to choose is which elite should exercise government power. This contrasts with the original theory of democracy, which envisages popular participation in the running of affairs and which political analysts call “participatory democracy”.

The most we will get under capitalism is the right to vote, under more or less fair conditions, for who shall control political power - a minimalist form of democracy, but one not to be so easily dismissed, since at least it provides a mechanism whereby a socialist majority could vote in socialist delegates instead of capitalist politicians.

Bourgeois democracy is the best we can hope for under capitalism, but it is not the ideal model possible for the revolutionary. Capitalist democracy is not a participatory democracy, which a genuine democracy has to be. In practice, the people generally elect professional politicians, who they merely vote for, and then let them get on with the job.

In other words, the electors abdicate their responsibility to keep an eye on their representatives, giving them a free hand to do what the operation of capitalism demands. But that’s as much the fault of the electors as their representatives - or rather it is a reflection of their low level of democratic consciousness. It cannot be blamed on the principle of representation as such. 

There is no reason in principle why, with a heightened democratic consciousness (such as would accompany the spread of socialist ideas), even representatives sent to state bodies could not be subject, while the state lasts, to democratic control by those who sent them there.

The Socialist Party has never held that a merely formal majority at the polls will give the workers power to achieve socialism. We have always emphasised that such a majority must be educated in the essentials of socialist principles. It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive. The institution of parliament is not at fault. It is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite.

What we in the SPGB propose, is that people should use the vote in the course of the social revolution from capitalism to socialism and vote capitalism out of office. To do this they will need to stand mandated delegates at elections, but these will just be ‘messenger boys and girls’, sent to formally take over and dismantle “the State”, not leaders or government minister wannabes.

The vote is merely the legitimate stamp that will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the state and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. This should not be understood as simply putting an X on a ballot paper and letting the Socialist Party and its MPs establish socialism for workers. There must also be that “conscious” and active socialist majority outside parliament, democratically organised both in a mass socialist political party and at work in various forms of ex-trade union type organisations ready to keep production going during and immediately after the winning of political control.

We are a political party that has a membership who doesn’t require a leadership to make its decisions, that has an executive council which doesn’t determine policies, that has a general secretary whose role is to administer and not to control. As a matter of political principle, our party holds no secret meetings, with all its meetings, including those of its executive committee, being open to the public. Thus reflecting the society it seeks to establish.