Common Ownership?

An estimated 562,230 acres (227,526ha) of land in Scotland is in community ownership, according to a new report.

492 parcels of land are managed by 403 community groups across Scotland.

The estimated 562,230 acres represents 2.9% of the total land area of Scotland.

Sleep-walking in the Park

 'Sleep in the Park' taking place in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens with prominent media personalities participating aims to raise money to combat homelessness and catalyse a movement to end homelessness in Scotland within a five-year period. A noble act, indeed, but will it succeed. Experience tells not. We recall how Big Issue was started back in 1991 to help the homeless by allowing them to help themselves. Hostels, supported housing and other homeless projects may help some people to progress, but they can’t solve the problem of homelessness itself.

It is easy to accuse the beggars on the street of not really being destitute and desperate. They are sly opportunists on the make, claiming to be homeless so to con the honest public. It says so in the Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail who insist that the beggars are undeserving. The pernicious tabloid rags tell lies about society's modern paupers, claiming that they are con-merchants.  These newspapers celebrate the family, but for thousands of youngsters, family life is a story of intense poverty and degrading abuse. The benefits system makes it grimmer still.  No money, no shelter, no hope. Capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, of winners and losers. Homeless people are at the unlucky end of the social scale. Many other people are only one wage packet away from being drawn towards homelessness. So, to accept that homelessness is just a part of life is to accept the capitalist system which traps us all.

Homelessness is a complex issue. For every homeless person, there is a raft of interrelated reasons why they may be in that situation. Some are simple: loss of housing through relationship breakdowns, inability to pay for housing, drink, drugs, mental health issues, abuse and domestic violence. For some, all they really need is a house or flat. For others, more complex social help is required from specialists perhaps in drink and drug rehabilitation, or social workers to support individuals through crises.  Many of the issues homeless people face are centred around their ability to pay for their accommodation and to maintain those payments. Loss of a job, reduction in working hours or wages can have a devastating impact and can often result in homelessness.  However, as a general rule, in times of economic downturn, the number of homeless persons increases exponentially. No amount of charity or campaigning will alter the root cause of the problem and the profit-driven nature of housing.

 When society is driven by economic forces, rather than what people want and need, then some people inevitably suffer. Increased funding, new services, or reformed procedures may help a few people in the short-term, but they can’t address the causes of the problem. If we want to end the conditions we exist under we will not do so by misguidedly placing faith in politicians nor through subscribing to charities. No doubt on an individual basis “Sleep in the Park' will help some to be able to better their own situations, but in the bigger picture it, like so many other homeless charities, is unable to achieve anything of real and lasting value. There was a huge homeless problem 20 years ago in the UK and there is still one now. Unless capitalism is swept away, there will still be one in 20 years time. What is required is class consciousness and democratic political action. Under capitalism, housing, like everything else, is a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. For those unable to afford it, homelessness is the only option unless bailed out by the limited council and state help or charitable donations. These are not solving the problem, merely at best reducing some of its ill effects. Business has no interest in solving social problems, contrary to the hopes of Social Bite. Its goal, always, is profit. If housing was fairly distributed according to need rather than via a market, then the problem of homelessness would disappear and there would be no need for such social entrepreneurship as lauded by Josh Littlejohn and similar well-meaning people. 

WE HAVE A VISION

Socialism is a common-sense path to a fairer, more prosperous world. The Socialist Party understands socialism as a fundamental change that is an outgrowth of capitalism. The working class consciously organizes itself to achieve the transition from private to common ownership of the means of producing within the economy. The working class as a whole are the overwhelming majority of society. The working class creates everything that the world’s people need to survive and thrive – from food, housing, healthcare, energy, education to transportation, music, and art. Because working people make society run, they are also uniquely positioned to change the society. Workers, when united and working together have the power to change the world.  We are a party of working class internationalism. Capitalism is a global system of exploitation and oppression. What is done to workers in other countries profoundly affects workers here and vice versa; their triumphs are also our triumphs.

The capitalist economic system is based on the continual expansion of production. So capitalism will reproduce environmental problems as long as it is in existence. We can’t have a healthy humanity without a healthy natural world. The capitalist economic system often presents workers, their families, and communities with an impossible choice: either work in destructive industries, or face unemployment, hunger, and deprivation.

 There are no models or blueprints for building socialism. Nor is there a blueprint for the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. It will be the product of a complex process. Our fellow-workers will collectively orchestrate that process.   The Socialist Party does not hold the view that a socialist revolution is can only be brought on a collapse of the economy or by a general strike.  We don’t agree that it is necessarily violent or a cataclysmic event. The electoral process will be part of that process. It will be a deeply democratic process, one that unleashes the creative energy of millions of people in motion. The Socialist Party recognises that social change can only be accomplished through the united action of mass social movements which express the majority will of the people. Peaceful methods of change are not only the right thing to do, they are the most effective way to unite and mobilise the greatest majorities.  The defence of democracy is central to defence of the interests of working people and will be based on the working class principle of “an injury to one is an injury to all.”. Our party believes that it is possible to make fundamental transformations using the electoral process. The Socialist Party does run candidates for elected office, however, we don’t yet run candidates in many places. This is due to several factors: our small size, the financial and resource demands of campaigns and the high costs of advertising.  Only through democracy can we advance to socialism. We go further than calling for political revolution. We fight to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism.

In a socialist system, the ownership and control of the means of production would be in the hands of those who do the work. As a result, those of us who produce would make these important decisions together. This would correspond to the way we produce the wealth together. With the people in the driver’s seat, and with profits no longer an aim, the things the people think are most important would come first. Enough resources would be available to do many things. Fellow-workers can have the confidence that together we can build a political and economic system of the people, by the people, and for the people.  The Socialist Party is a political party of the working class, for the working class.

The future is socialism

A better world is possible.  People around the world have always sought a future without war, exploitation, inequality, and poverty. They have sought a system in which they control their own lives and determine their own destinies.  The Socialist Party is dedicated to the establishment of socialism. Only socialism has the solutions to the problems of capitalism that we all face. The working class confronts a vicious and amoral enemy: the capitalist class and we are misled as to our real interests, blinded by the propaganda of fear and the politics of scapegoating. Every movement for progress is challenged by the power of the ruling class and their paid hacks in the media. Our world is threatened by the ravages of capital expansion and accumulation. All this is normal to the functioning of the capitalist system. We can’t and won’t let this continue. We need real solutions, real democracy, and real unity and not the empty promises of the bosses and their politicians. We, the workers, need to take political power from the hands of the wealthy few.  We need socialism.

The capitalist class owns the factories, the banks, and transportation, the means of production and distribution. Workers sell their ability to work in order to acquire the necessities of life. Capitalists buy the workers ability to labour, but pay them only a portion of the wealth they create. Because the capitalists own the means of production, they are able to keep the surplus wealth created by workers above and beyond the cost of paying workers wages and other costs of production — unpaid labor that the capitalists appropriate and use to achieve ever-greater profits. This surplus is the source of profit. These profits are turned into capital which capitalists use to further exploit the sources of all wealth — nature and the working class.

Capitalists are compelled by competition to seek to maximise profits. The capitalist class as a whole can do that only by extracting a greater surplus from the unpaid labour of workers, by increasing exploitation what capitalists often call increasing productivity. Under capitalism, economic development happens only if it is profitable to the individual capitalists, not for any social need or good. The profit drive is inherent in capitalism, and underlies or exacerbates all major social ills of our times. With the rapid advance of technology and productivity, new forms of capitalist ownership have developed to maximise profit and exploit new markets.

Capitalism's vested interests use the most potent weapon to divide workers – racism, nationalism, religion, and sexism – poisoned ideologies. The capitalists use this power to ensure the continued economic and political dominance of their class. It is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic. Spreading division within the working class weakens all movements and struggles. 

Workers always seek to solve the chronic ills they face. The working class is compelled to resist increased exploitation. The class struggle starts with the fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms of fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing and strike action. When workers struggle against the capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives, it is part of the class struggle. This class struggle takes place in the work-place where commodities are produced and distributed. This is the economic side of the class struggle. The class struggle also has a political side. It exists in the realm of ideology, that is, between social and political ideas that justify the political and economic policies of the contending classes. There is no limit to the range of issues that are part of the class struggle. The class struggle reaches full class and socialist consciousness only when the mass political party is built under working-class leadership in order to win power and construct socialism. The class struggle in an immediate sense pits workers against a particular company at the point of production and against the capitalist class as a whole in broader social and economic struggles. The aim of the class struggle is the winning of power in order to construct socialism.

The working class is the only force capable of the struggle for full social progress and socialism. Capitalism's dependence on the working class to create all wealth gives it a strategic role in the production process and great potential power. The Communist Manifesto declared: Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. From the smallest of class struggles to the largest, unity is the key to victory. This is the guiding principle of all unions and workers' movements: in unity is strength. Class-conscious organisation is the weapon of the working class.

Socialism is an economic system where the economy commonly owned and democraatically controlled, where the destructive competition of capitalism is replaced by its planned administration. Socialism doesn't mean nationalisation. Socialism will eliminate the waste of the capitalist system and the private/state appropriation of profit. Capitalism uses technological improvements to further exploit the working class; socialism uses technological improvements to increase productivity, to shorten working hours and to improve working conditions. Our planet has vast natural resources and productive industrial plants, extremely advanced technology and science, a huge reservoir of skilled workers with a tradition of initiative, innovation, and creativity. In a socialist society, the millions of people now unemployed, homeless, and under-employed could create more wealth for all to share to improve the lives of the majority.

 We see socialist society as a commonwealth of all working people, and where national and racial enmity and prejudice will be things of the past. A society where the essentials of life will be plentiful and readily available to all and the repressive apparatus of government will wither away leaving purely administrative functions. Social production and distribution of wealth would be according to the principles of the motto, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” We shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. 

Scots in Fuel Poverty

More than a quarter of Scottish homes are stuck in fuel poverty despite a ­government pledge to have eradicated the problem.

The number of households which spend too much on heating (where 10 per cent or more of the household income goes on heating) in 2016, is 649,000, about 26.5 per cent of all homes in Scotland.

Rural areas of Scotland fare worse with fuel poverty rates of 37 per cent, the figures show, while in social housing the rate remained at 32 per cent.

People and planet and not profits

For most of the world's workers, sustainability is about how to survive the gap between spending your last dollar, and the arrival of the next pay packet. When humanity as a species is blamed for environmental destruction, the specific social causes are forgotten. The few who make the decisions are lumped with the powerless majority. Famines are seen as nature's revenge against overpopulation, natural checks that must be allowed to run their course -- as if there was anything natural about the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which force Third World countries to cultivate products for export rather than food for local consumption. The point is not to blame even the CEOs of those corporations - they too are caught in a grow-or-die system that impels them to make such decisions - but to abolish the economic structure that continually produces such irresistible pressures. The Socialist Party exists to encourage our fellow workers to acquire an appetite for something more than the crumbs from the cake which we, as a class, have baked. 

The wealth of society is produced by the class of men and women who neither own nor control the means of wealth production and distribution: this is the great social contradiction of capitalism. Labour is the source of value, but those who labour are destined to relative degrees of poverty, while those in positions of ownership enjoy lives of privilege and luxury and are not compelled to produce anything. To state that capitalism is a system of class exploitation is not to moralise about it but to define it scientifically. Wage labour and capital must always be in conflict; the class struggle is inevitable in a society where two classes have directly opposing interests.

Capitalism is a system of society in which the means of production take the form of “capital” or wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit. It is a system where wealth is produced to be sold profitably on a market. For capitalism to have come into existence (and to continue to exist) certain conditions have to be met, in particular, the separation of the producers from the means of production. The producers must have been reduced to the status of a propertyless proletariat compelled to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary to the minority who monopolise (own and control) the means of production. The essential features of capitalism are then: production for profit, buying and selling, wage labour, class monopoly of the means of production and distribution.Capitalism differs from other systems of society by the fact that under it production is not carried on for use. Even under another class system like feudalism, most production was for use; the peasants produced their own subsistence needs, the rest going in kind to maintain the barons, the church, and other exploiters. It was the same in ancient slave society. Capitalism is different in that goods are no longer produced to be directly used but to be sold on a market with a view to profit. Decisions about production — what to produce, how it is produced, where it is produced, and soon — are no longer simple decisions to produce what is needed, either by the producers or by their exploiters. Decisions about production become decisions to produce those goods which, at any moment, appear most likely to procure a profit when they are sold. In other words, production is governed by the search for profits, by the impersonal forces of the market which express themselves in the minds of the individual capitalists (or of their hired managers) as the "profit motive”. The economic laws of capitalism demand that workers must be legally robbed of the fruits of their labour in order for the system to run profitably. 

Our declared Object is establishing a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. Socialism is the spark of hope to inspire compassion and empathy at a time when fear, xenophobia, and hate speech threatens the globe. The earth can no longer be owned; it must be shared. While capitalism reigns on Earth, the chance exists that the profit mongers will simply keep on fiddling as the world burns. Join the Socialist Party before it is too late and the fight for a future under a democratic socialist economy capable of halting and eventually reversing the damage done to the planet and all its inhabitants by the voracious capitalist system. We are for changing the culture of competition and consumerism to a society of cooperation, a revolution in the way that we think about the effects each of us can have on a new consciousness in a world society. A self-managed society will naturally implement most present-day ecological demands, essential for the very survival of humanity. Only when workers realise they have no country to owe allegiance to, and that the reliance on leaders leads them nowhere but down a blind alley, will we start to make progress.

The purpose of a socialist party

Out of the darkness of the past will rise the new dawn of the future. As long as there is capitalism there will be socialism, watered by tears of the exploited but fertilised by agitation of class struggle, unfurling its red banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.  Socialist Party activity will be kept up as far as conditions and means permit. Fellow workers, so long as a small class possesses the means of life, you will toil in poverty for them; and reforms will do nothing to lift the burden. Socialism alone will do that. Organise for the common ownership of the earth 

Present-day society involves the enslavement of the working-class and, consequently, a struggle between that class and its masters. Given that capitalism is a dynamic system of production, it can subsist indefinitely if it can muster enough of a majority in favour of prolonging its lifespan. Where previous social systems had their maximum limit, owing to their relatively static character, as a dynamic system capitalism has no such limit. Consequently, unless the decision is reached, consciously and deliberately (that is, politically), to put an end to it as such, capital will just go on being accumulated.

The workers must free themselves by converting the means of life into common property and that they must take political power for that purpose.  Every political party seeks the support of the workers only one party can represent their interests. That party is the Socialist Party. No other party can use the political machinery except as an instrument of oppression. Parties which stand for capitalism in any shape or form, no matter what superficial changes they propose, can only maintain the system against the workers. A socialist party can only exist by denying the existence of any and all parties of capitalism.  The Socialist Party, standing as it does for a social revolution, can only achieve its object by means of a political revolution.

There is no inherent contradiction between having a policy of abolition of the wages system (based on the materialist conception of history) and encouraging workers to resist the encroachments of capital. The contradiction enters in only where the more class-conscious socialist party links its policy to demands arising out of the less class-conscious economic class struggle. Such an emphasis exercises a retarding influence on the Party's development as an organisation representing the interests of the vast majority, causing it to retreat from its objective of common ownership even without formally abandoning it. 

The legislative, and administrative powers must be grasped from the hands of the agents of the master-class by the working-class consciously organised in a political party for the purpose. Only then can the means of life become the property of all.  There can be no compromise between the robbers and the robbed, the rulers and the oppressed. The antidote to the blind trust in leaders is to arm yourself with the necessary knowledge that will acquaint you with the road you must travel to achieve your freedom from wage slavery. Once you have grasped the fundamentals of your position in society you will lay down the policy to be carried out and you will not require ‘‘leaders” or vanguard. In the class struggle, it is not only what you are against but what you are for that counts. Workers who advocate capital accumulation and production for profit are in the end just as welcome to the capitalist class as members of the élite itself, provided they realize on which side their bread is buttered. That the working-class movement should have poured so much of their energy into securing approval from the master class to administer its system only testifies to general obtuseness on the part of the workers themselves in regard to their own material interests. Workers whose organisations do not act in accordance with a conscious and deliberate interpretation of these interests are in the end no better than spineless lackeys; they are not really free individuals. Having made their peace with profit, they cannot thereafter produce any organisations uniquely their own - even though there is not a recognisable capitalist to be found in their ranks.

Capitalism is dependent upon the exploitation of workers—and an awareness of this is gestating in the minds of workers just like a developing foetus. As workers class consciousness rises as they realise they are expendable wage slaves it leads to resistance. The politicians represent the capitalists' interests and are complicit in perpetuating an elaborate hoax on America’s working class and her poor.  When the truth is revealed, revolution comes closer. The power of the privileged elite is built upon lies and delusion. Their power appears formidable and insurmountable but in reality, a thinking man or woman causes them to quake. A thoughtful vote is all that is required to up-root the system. And it is why the ruling class loathe democracy and socialism. The fundamental conflicts inherent in capitalism remain unresolvable.   When men and women grow socially and politically astute, class consciousness will develop, and it will hasten the ripening of the conditions for revolt. We will see things as they really are, and we will be able to connect the dots in order to discern the bigger picture and comprehend the economic and political motivation behind events. We will identify all things in their appropriate relation to other facts and interpret them in their proper historical context. A class conscientious worker is not easily deceived. Parties with principles cannot be dissuaded or distracted. Socialists will never compromise or make concessions to avoid conflict. We embrace class struggle because we know it is the only way to social justice.

 Nationalism, reverence for the flag and the national anthem and loyalty to the Royal Family and the military is commonly called patriotism, and are capitalist ideologies. Their purpose is to promote obedience and respect for the authority of the State. Patriotism is a tool of oppression that is used to prevent dissent. It serves the interests of the oppressor, not the oppressed. Organised religion serves a similar purpose: to keep the rabble in line and to preserve the power and privilege of the capitalist elite. 

Politics 'R' Us

The gulf between the propertied and the propertyless is further widened by crises that are grounded in the nature of the capitalist mode of production, crises that are becoming more extensive and more devastating. The Socialist Party does not fight for new class privileges and class rights, but for the abolition of class rule and of classes themselves, for equal rights without distinction of sex or nationality. We oppose not only the exploitation and oppression of wage earners in society today, but every manner of exploitation and oppression. Human ingenuity and Nature are wasted by this system, which makes “profit” the only object in business. Ignorance and misery, with all concomitant evils, are perpetuated by this capitalist system, which makes humanity an object to be bought and sold on the open market, and places no real value on human life. Science and technology are diverted from humane purposes and made instruments for the enslavement and suffering of men, women, and children

Reformism is the illusion that a gradual dismantling of the power of capitalism is possible. Marxism is the rejection of gradualist illusions.  Reforms on rare occasions can weaken capitalist power. They cannot abolish it.  The American socialist Daniel De Leon, called the reformists the “labour lieutenants of Capital” because they come from the working class and the organisations of the workers’ movement and they manage the “system”. The reformist wants an increased “share of the cake”, which implies some sacrifices on the part of the wealthy who certainly appreciate the relative stability which the reformists promise to bring to the bourgeois order, but they often hesitant and divided to what extent is the price that is to be paid. Sometimes the cost is justified because of the reforms corresponded to their own material interests. The conviction that it was useful and possible to fight for reforms spread among the working class and throughout the entire workers’ movement. Demands for women's rights, for solidarity with the struggles of the minorities, and campaigns to protect the environment emerged. A phenomenon of clientelism, of organisations who are assisted and depend on subsidies and allowances from the State and are therefore predisposed to moderate their demands to be acceptable to the ruling class. Reform campaigns were “de-ideologised”, in other words, depoliticised. Advertising agencies “launched” social issues as one launches a brand of detergent, and increasingly came to dominate the election campaigns. This has been described as the emergence of a “democracy of the opinion polls”. Personalities who were more or less charismatic emerged as leaders.

From time to time the value of political action to the socialist movement is called in question, and doubt is expressed as to whether some more speedy means or more effective method might not be adopted with advantage. On the one side are the debate are those who expect nothing, and who never expected anything, from parliamentary action, and on the other side are the people who expected everything from it. The former has always maintained that participation in Parliamentary action was a waste of time and effort, and they exulted over the failure of the Socialist Party in the disappointing results of its electoral activity. The truth is that workers can organise politically, to conquer and use that political power which their masters have found so effective, as well as engage in industrial organisation and economic struggles whenever circumstances justify such action. There is no antagonism between the two methods; the mistake is in attaching too much or too little importance to the one or the other. Thorough democratisation organisation, politically and in trade unions is the immediate task of our fellow-workers if both these means of action are to be made the best use of. The struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political struggle. 

Without political rights, the working class cannot carry on its economic struggles and develop its economic organization. It cannot bring about the transfer of the means of production into the possession of the community without first having obtained political power. It is the task of the Socialist Party to point out the inherent necessity of its goals. The interests of the working class are the same in all countries with a capitalist mode of production. With the globalisation of commerce and the world market, the position of the worker in every country becomes increasingly dependent on the position of workers in other countries. The emancipation of the working class is thus a task in which the workers of all countries are equally involved. 

Recognising this, the Socialist Party declares itself to be one with the class-conscious workers of all other countries. We therefore call upon all fellow-workers to unite under the banner of the social democracy, so that we may be ready to conquer capitalism by by taking possession of political power, so that we may put an end to the present barbarous struggle, by the abolition of capitalism, the restoration of the land, and of all the means of production, transportation, and distribution, to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the cooperative commonwealth for the present state of unplanned industrial production, war, and social disorder — a socialist commonwealth which, although it will not make every person equal physically or mentally, will give to every worker the free exercise and the full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilisation and inaugurate the universal brotherhood of man.

We want a revolution … Now!

No matter our passion for a single issue, we can’t move forward without challenging capitalism itself. There is still perhaps opportunities for reforms in the present social system, but this is of minor consequence compared to the crying need for social reorganisation.  Have there been reforms? In many cases, yes–even significant ones like large-scale social welfare programs. Has exploitation been ended, the enrichment of a few on the labour of the many? Hardly. Poverty? Inequality? The subjugation of peoples? None of these. Is the economy planned by and to benefit the people? Of course not. What is more, and this is crucial, all the reform organisation do not aspire to do these. They are content with class divisions, the dominance of the capitalists and do not challenge the existing structures.  Speculations as to the future of society need not of necessity prevent men and women working together for a common object, but when there is a complete divergence of view as to the steps to be taken to achieve our goal such co-operation is absolutely impossible, and thus it comes that there can be no place in a Socialist Party for reformers.

Capitalist-owned industry for individual profit is no longer compatible with social progress. The next great change in history must be the socialisation of the means of production and distribution.  Despite all the advances in invention and discovery, the monumental achievements in new technology, this world of ours still cannot feed itself.  There is no longer any excuse for a hungry person. All the resources and materials are at hand and easily available for the production of all things needed to provide food, clothing, and shelter for every man, woman and child, thus ending poverty and misery. But these tools and forces must be released from private ownership and control, socialised, democratised, and set into motion to operate for the common good of all instead of the private profit of the few. A privately owned world can never be a free world but will be a world is a world of strife and hate, of warring classes.

To stir the people to better themselves, to think for themselves, and to offer the ideal of mutual aid and good will, based upon common interests, is to render real service to the cause of humanity that the Socialist Party sets before itself. A socialist party should be a class party, which means it should be a mass party, a democratic people’s movement  to transform into common property all means of production — the means of transportation, the forests, the mines, the offices and shops, the machines, the factories, the farms – the Earth. Political action is to help to break down the domination of the master class and hasten the emancipation of fellow-workers. The Socialist Party's primary function is to organise a political party, independent, and class-conscious. The object of a Socialist Party is the realisation of socialism.

The Socialist Party remains steadfast committed to its Declaration of Principles but we do concede that the means to be adopted to give practical effect to those principles change with time, and place, and circumstances. The object aimed at, the end to be attained, remains ever the same; the policy to be followed to attain that end requires to be sometimes modified, as circumstances change. The members of the Socialist Party are agreed upon their object, that goal being social and economic freedom and equality for all, with the realisation of the highest individual development and liberty conceivable for all, through the common ownership and democratic control of all the material means of production and existence. They must all agree upon this in order to be socialists. We are told sometimes that “we are all socialists now,” but only those who believe in the object as here defined can be properly so described. Those who so believe are socialists, and those who do not so believe are not socialists, whatever they may say to the contrary. But agreement on the object does not presuppose universal agreement on approaches, and it is no reproach to socialists that in this respect there are wide differences between ourselves. There are matters to discuss, to argue out, to confer about, and, so far as the practical work of the moment goes, to come to an agreement upon. It is for such purposes that our Party holds annual conferences and party polls. Members of the Socialist Party will fight again and again until at last the co-operative commonwealth shall be established and the red flag flies.

Peace between the peoples! War against the exploiters! 

The Myth of National Self-Determination

Recent events in Catalonia demand a restatement of a basic socialist principle.

The word ‘we’ is one of the most powerful words, all the more so because its use often passes invisibly. Every time we speak of a ‘we’ we are also creating a ‘them’, an other, we are identifying ourselves as a group and placing others outside it. ‘We’ could be the people that live in our neighbourhood, it could be those with whom we share a common language or accent, or it could be those that go to the same clubs, pubs or places of worship as us. In daily life, we can easily think of ourselves as belonging to a variety of different overlapping communities. But which of these groups is the most important? With whom are you most loyal? To which people do you belong? 

Many people will see their national identity as being the most fundamental. After all we have to identify ourselves as a member of a particular nation-state when we go abroad when claiming benefits or applying for a job. What nation we belong to determines what rights and privileges we have, if we find ourselves in a nation other than our own we may find our rights restricted or denied. Our nationality can often form an important element in how we act with the world and how we are placed within it, it can often seem to be as natural and integral a part of us as our gender or hair colour.

A people with a shared culture, language, and history, who live in the same place over time naturally develop a strong sense of belonging together. This sense of belonging together and of being tied to a certain geographical place is what constitutes nationhood. A nation is a group of people that have a history of doing things together in a certain geographical area. And just as an individual has a right to choose and to freely express their will so too do peoples who form nations have the right to self-determination.

Or at least that is how the myth goes. However, does it really make sense to think of a nation as a homogeneous 'people' sharing the same interest and expressing its ‘will’ in the same way as an individual?

Behind the supposed unity of a national identity, we will find a whole manner of divisions, class distinctions and unequal power relations. In nation-states based on capitalist property relations, which is all of them, there is a fundamental divide between owners of capital – the factories, land, raw materials, means of transportation – and sellers of labour-power. The vast wealth of the minority, the class of capital owners, comes from the labour of the majority, the sellers of labour-power – the working class. Market competition compels the capitalist to seek to extract the maximum from the worker. The need to preserve and improve their living conditions drives the worker to resist. This sets up an irreconcilable class struggle at the centre of society. To think of a nation as a homogeneous block with all members sharing the same interest is to ignore the real conflicts that arise from the unequal economic power relations that exist within all nation-states.

Nations can be thought of as imagined communities. The majority of the population will never meet or know each other yet in their minds, they imagine each other as being and belonging together. These imaginings will be both semi-mythical and semi-factual in nature. The historical stories told for the purpose of nation building are always ones that have been sanitized and moralized, glossing over all the splits, conflicts and discontinuities that occur within and between the populations that have lived in the same space over time. History taught in a truthful and unpolished way does not have the effect of national building – the history of any one particular area is as fractured as any other.

The nation-state is now the fundamental unit through which political affairs are conducted but despite its seeming antiquity, it is a relatively modern invention. The origin of the modern nation-state is tied to the development of capitalism and the demise of monarchical regimes, feudal city-states and principalities. The nation-state came to the fore because it was the form of organisation that most suited the operations of the emerging capitalist class.

If our aim is to bring about a classless society of equals then our attention should be on the real antagonistic relation between the classes not the fake illusions put forward by nationalists. We have to find and create new forms of egalitarian organisation that can supersede the nation-state and capitalism, not help the local capitalist class in the creation of new and ever smaller states.

DJP

“Read! Think! Study!”

The weakness of single-issue social movements is that they do not have an overall view of the socio-economic crisis, and therefore they do not give an overall solution. There are periods of time in the course of human history which prompts men and women to depart from the old ways and begin to envision a world based upon “Each for all and all for each”. It is no utopian dream, no the product of imagination or mirage to vanish, but a theory of life in which the humblest individual secures life, liberty, and happiness. The Socialist Party concerns itself with the possible, with the practical. Its struggle is the struggle for freedom, for socialism. A worker should be ashamed to follow leaders. The Socialist Party is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality. It matters not where our fellow wage-slaves live or seek to go to live. The battles of the workers in the class-war, wherever and however fought, are always and everywhere the battles of the Socialist Party. The message of socialism is “Enough is enough. There must be change.” Now is the time for the workers of the world to assert their political power, to demonstrate their unity and solidarity. We are not here to play the dirty game of capitalist politics. Capitalism, founded on the slavery and exploitation of the masses, can only rule by corrupt means. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon its class principles in making its appeal to the workers. It is not begging for votes, nor bargaining for votes. It is not in the vote-catching market. It wants votes but only of those who recognise it as their party. To be sure, we want all the votes we can get but only as a means of developing the political power of the working class in the struggle for freedom, and not that we may indulge in the spoils of office. Our fellow- workers have never yet made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and how many, disgusted with their own blind and stupid performance are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties that perpetuate class rule and the Socialist Party organised by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists. There is but one issue for the Socialist Party - the unconditional surrender of the ruling class. To this end the Socialist Party has been organised; to this end, it is banding all its energies and resources; to this end, it makes its appeal to our fellow- workers.

In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the exploitation of the capitalist system, it condemns wage-slavery, it condemns poverty, hunger and famine, it condemns war and the murder of men women and children, it condemns ignorance and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child. There is no hope under the present decadent system. If a worker who still votes for the Tories or the Labour Party or Nationalists is a class traitor and will reap what he or she has sown.  We in the Socialist Party shall steadily move forward to a harmonious co-operative society having conquered political power and transfer the title deeds of the mines and mills and factories from the owners and investors to the workers to be operated for the common good. The education, organisation and co-operation of the workers, the entire body of them, is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the Socialist Party. It is the working class coming into consciousness of itself, and no power on earth can prevail against it in the hour of its complete awakening. In the coming social system based upon the common ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few, for which the Socialist Party stands, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brutish struggle for survival will end, and the millions of exploited poor will escape the clutches of poverty and famine. There will be leisure for all and the joys of life for all. Everyone will have an equal chance to achieve success and stature in life.

The Socialist Party has no leader and there never can be unless the party deserts its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. Each member has not only an equal voice but is urged to take an active part in all the party activity. Each branch meeting is a study session. The party relies wholly upon the power of education and knowledge.

Ignorance is slavery. Intelligence is freedom. 

Falling Pay

Many workers in Scotland could honestly say they are not making as much as they did last year. A lack of wage rises means pay packets are failing to keep pace with growing inflation - the result being a real term cut in earnings.

The impact of pay freezes across many private sector firms, and the well-documented row over the public sector pay cap, is seen in the latest official figures on earnings north of the Border. They reveal the median, or typical, gross salary in Scotland for all employees as of April 2017 was £23,150.

From 2016-17, salaries for all employees in Scotland grew by one per cent, which meant a 1.6 per cent fall in real terms.

Over the year salaries for full-time employees in Scotland grew by 1.5 per cent, which was a 1.1 per cent fall in real terms.

The social democracy movement

There have always been people curious about what the future holds and other people are willing, for due reward, to satisfy that curiosity. Prophets, astrologers, and psychics claim some special power of prediction. Nowadays politicians now employ economists and scientists to foretell the future. What can we expect for the future? The answer is simple. Within the prevailing class-divided society there can be no paradise, only a parasite/host mode of existence for capitalist and working class respectively.

Capitalism is a system of society in which the wealthy property-owner lives without working if he so wishes, and the poverty-stricken worker toils to provide the wealth of the propertied class. If the working class want to abolish war, if they want to get rid of the poverty which degrades and distorts their lives, they can do so. Sentiment is a fine thing. But it is no substitute for knowledge. Sentiment by itself is a fine ally of our masters, for it does not need education and study. And sentiment is used by the so-called patriots and clergy to chain us to the slavery of to-day. All they have to do is to accumulate some knowledge of capitalism and of how socialism, by abolishing the basis of capitalism, will also abolish its problems. When they have got that knowledge the working class will reject all the political parties which stand for the continuance of capitalism. They will opt for socialism—a world of abundance in which humanity, for the first time, will be free.

The Socialist Party is not like the Left out to steal the leadership of the Labour Party. We are out for socialism and therefore stand for the capture of political power by a socialist working class. Then, and only then, will the butchery by capitalism and its agents be impossible? Many so-called socialists say that we are on the same road. That is true. But we are travelling in opposite directions. The Socialist Party is going forward along the road on which the human race has evolved. The left-wing goes backward. Socialism is not the result of schemes and dreams. It is but a convenient name for the stage in social evolution made possible and inevitable by the economic tendencies of our time. It is not built up out of vain yearnings and longings for liberty, equality, and fraternity. It seeks to adapt the methods of owning and enjoying wealth to the co-operative system of production already reached by economic advance. Modern technology and global production is an advance.  Although this cooperatively worked such as by division of labour, industry is under individual and class ownership and it breeds poverty among plenty. The Socialist Party, therefore, seeks to commonly own and democratically control that which the workers commonly produce.

Socialists study history and find that the material conditions, the forces used in social production, the natural and social surroundings of the population, form the foundation for the life of the people. Methods of ownership, exchange, and distribution, depending upon the kind of material conditions existing. Ways of government, states of law, and all the political and civil regulations of humanity follow from the industrial habits and economic institutions of men. To denounce the State, the Law, and the social institutions because they do not fit in with some ideal principle does not help to change society. The Socialist Party understands that many things called “bad,” and most institutions called “evil,” once served society as methods of advance. We do not indict the entire past of the human race as wrong, forgetful of the truth of evolution that what is “bad” and useless now was “good ” and useful at some previous time. The materialistic explanation of history involves the truth that a given system of production leads to a definite and corresponding method of distribution and ownership. Hence, the common ownership of the resources of life cannot be controlled by varying and conflicting individuals at their own sweet will but must be democratically controlled by and in the interest of the whole working population. In social and therefore important matters the majority must decide if all do not agree.  The Socialist Party is directly opposed to every agency of privilege and every office of domination. But we realise that a central authority arose when the division of labour took place and it filled a useful function in the life of primitive but progressing society. The administration of affairs and the regulation of civil life was its chief function. Private property and class division gave rise to a State machine controlled by each ruling section in turn—chattel slave owner, patriarchal lord, a feudal baron, or industrial capitalist. Knowing how these institutions have grown out of and adapted themselves to each period of society, we do not demand their instant abolition. They are part of the existing society and to remove them we must change the economic and social system as a whole. The modern State, Law, Authority, police, and punishment are but the results of class rule and are integral parts of a rotten system. Rotten because it is over-ripe economically.

Democracy means more than holding up hands or saying “Aye!” To open all channels of knowledge and information, to give everyone leisure and a chance to understand and learn of the facts of life, to offer to all the advancement modern “democracy” keeps for a few— this is the social and political expression of democracy. When men vote and discuss and delegate their opinions under these conditions they will know what they are doing. And then, if all do not agree, social matters can be decided by majorities until the minority convinces the majority. The Socialist Party, however, understand that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. Unless we can convince and convert the majority of workers, socialism is an idle dream. If you bring about a revolution with an ignorant, uninformed or hostile working class, defeat sooner or later faces you. Emma Goldman in her book on “Anarchism and Other Essays” says the majority is always wrong. The anarchists, therefore, will either rule with a minority or be wrong if they become a majority. She further states the great mass of the people never were and never will be the ones to progress. Just the intellectual few. Such views mean that the great body of the people will depend upon the kindness and wisdom of the anarchist intellectuals to guide and mother us. These reactionary ideas follow from their conception of the all-importance of individuals. They believe society is just a collection of individuals, not an organic whole as the Socialist Party and most social scientists understand. 

Scotland's Child Poverty

One-fifth of children in Scotland live in families that are in poverty and cannot afford basic necessities, new figures show.

20% of children in Scotland live in families which are both classified as having limited resources - meaning they have low incomes, defined as having 70% of middle income - and also live in material deprivation, so cannot afford basics such as being able to repair or replace a broken kettle.

Children in Glasgow were more likely to live in families with limited resources than the rest of Scotland, with 41% of youngsters affected.

The report shows children are more likely than the Scottish average to live in families with limited resources if they live in a single parent household (42%), have three or more siblings (39%), live with a disabled adult (32%) and if no or only one adult in the home works (67%).

Living in a rented home and in a deprived area both mean children have a higher likelihood than the Scottish average of being in poverty, with 53% of those in social rented accommodation and 30% in private rented homes affected and 40% of those in the most deprived areas.

In the list of basic necessities, they found 34% of children live in families which do not have £500 to cover an unexpected, but necessary, expense; 21% do not have enough money to repair or replace broken electrical goods; 17% lack the cash to take part in sports or other exercise and 8% are too poor to live in a damp-free home. For child necessities, researchers found 21% of children did not have money to save, 20% did not have a yearly holiday, 5% could not access a computer and the internet for homework and 2% did not have a warm winter coat.

The Socialist Party aims for socialism

The Socialist Party primarily concern itself with pointing out the defects of present-day society and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. The success of the socialist movement and the rapidity of its progress will depend very largely upon the method of education and the political tactics of the Socialist Party to bring about the cooperative commonwealth. The political policy of the Socialist Party is essentially constructive. There is no place in the socialist movement for the insurrectionists or the opportunists who seize upon the trade union movement not because it is an economic tool to maintain for the workers a higher standard of existence than that which they would enjoy if they were completely disorganised but as an economic weapon to replace political action. Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great industrial distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem. There is no ground for neither the conservative timidity of the reformists or the fetish-worshipping anti-parliamentarian.

We are living in a time when the comforts of life, and all the material wealth needed to bring happiness to every human being, can be produced in abundance. There is no need whatever for one human being to go hungry or homeless. Mankind’s inventive genius has developed the technology that abundance is possible to all. But between that abundance and its enjoyment, an obstacle has been placed. That obstacle is capitalism and its defenders and beneficiaries, the capitalist class. , Instead of fighting the capitalist for wealth and freedom, or fellow-workers fall upon each other, and the stakes in that internecine conflict are death to the loser; poverty, misery, and wage-slavery to the winner,  this fight between fellow-workers. For the Socialist Party, the work, then, is of organising and educating fellow-workers, to fight for wealth and freedom, and not for poverty and slavery; to fight their masters and not their fellow-slaves, to fill in their hearts the desire to forever end a system and a class responsible for social savagery.

The Socialist Party's mission is so to organise production so that wealth can be so abundantly produced as to free mankind from want and the fear of want, from the necessity of a life of arduous toil in the production of the mere necessaries of life.  The Socialist Party is a class party. It frankly admits that a political organisation is but an expression of class interest. The party, therefore, exists for the sole purpose of representing the interests of the producers, that is to say, the working class. The Socialist Party did not create class lines or class distinctions. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit, wars are fomented between nations, indiscriminate slaughter is encouraged, and the destruction of whole races is sanctioned in order that the capitalists may extend their commercial dominion abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. The workers can most effectively act as a class in their struggle against the powers of capitalism by constituting themselves into a political party, distinct from and opposed to all parties formed by the propertied class in that we call for the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth and we warn the people against the “public” ownership demands made by capitalistic political parties, which always result in perpetuating the capitalist system. The State, in the hands of the capitalists is an instrument by which the capitalist class seeks to repress and suppress civil and political rights of the working class The Socialist Part call the attention of our fellow-workers to the fact that our government is but a servile tool in the hands of the capitalist class and hostile to the interests of labour, and we call upon the working class to use the ballot in defence of their own interests by voting for the Socialist Party. We call the attention of or fellow-workers to the fact that the class struggle so nobly waged by the trade union forces today, while it may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. It is the duty of every worker to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building upon a strong political movement of the wage-workers with the aim and to abolish wage-slavery and the establishment of a cooperative system of society, based on the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution.

What is labour? Labour is that element in capitalist society that produces all wealth. Labour, accordingly, is the element that feeds both itself and the capitalist class.  We suffer the pangs and outrages of capitalism rather than removing the system of wage exploitation upon which it is based. The only cure is to eradicate the cause of the evil by making the machinery of production common property, so that it may serve as a blessing, instead of a means of competitive destruction and thieving profit to private individuals, as at present. 

The struggle of all against all.

The problem that socialists set themselves up to resolve is the separation between the means of production and the producers. The factories in the hands of the workers despite lives spent in useless sacrifice. The workers are excluded from the riches they create. Under the system of non-possession of the property-less working class of the instruments with which they work, all progress, no matter what its nature, is turned against them, making greater their misery, their slavery; accentuating the insecurity of their existence; in a word: making unavoidable their exploitation—their robbery.

We hear “profit sharing” much spoken of as a remedy to heal all social sores, to reconcile labour and capital. If the cure were applicable, profit sharing would only remove the field of battle to a conflict over the profits to be shared. But without insisting on this point, in urging the worker to produce the most possible, it would only oblige him to do in two days the work of three, concluding consequently in the multiplication of the already too numerous days of no pay or stoppages. From the hell in which the dispossessed productive class struggles and writhes there is no redemption—“abandon all hope ye who enter here!”

We have a war of all against all. 

Firstly, war between the employee and the employer for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. 

Secondly, war between workers and fellow workers over who gets a job and for how much pay. 

Thirdly, war between capitalists and capitalists over the division of spoils.

 Capitalist society can provide a superabundance of riches to meet every demand of consumption and happiness, yet, instead, it produces misery, suffering, ruin, and death. The solution to the social problem is to create a vast co-operative commonwealth. production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another. 

The Socialist Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party. It does not propose to modify the competitive profit system, but to abolish it. We stand unequivocally for the common ownership and democratic control of all the means of wealth production and distribution — in a word, socialism. The Socialist Party is necessarily a world party. It is everywhere and always the same. It takes no backward step. It refuses to be bribed or otherwise deflected from the straight course first mapped out by Marx and Engels. The Socialist Party has no interest in any of the so-called issues over which capitalist politicians fight sham battles. It cares nothing about banking regulation, taxation, or imperialism. The issue is socialism vs. capitalism. It stands first, last, and always for the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution, and will press forward unceasingly until we secure them, thereby liberating humanity and solving the problem of the centuries. The Socialist Party claims that the cooperative commonwealth will take the place of wage slavery. The present social system is not only a failure but a colossal aggregation of crime. It robs, it degrades, it starves; it is a foul blot upon the face of mankind. It promises only an increase of the horrors. The Socialist Party offers no hope to our toiling brothers and sisters except the path to the cooperative commonwealth. Let us realize the possibilities standing unitedly and wholeheartedly let's develop the power to fight for our emancipation. The Socialist Party is positive and constructive. It stands for complete political and industrial democracy.