Yes, we can, If we want to.

If all the owners of capital were to disappear, the world would be exactly the same—you would have the same farms, the same factories—but if all the workers disappeared, then everyone would starve to death. Some hold that capitalism is in a state of collapse, or at least is imminent, and look upon every recession as the harbinger of the collapse. It is of no use waiting for the system to collapse, nor preparing a new economic structure to replace it. It will not go until the workers determine that it shall go, and the pressing service revolutionary organisations can perform is to prepare the workers' minds for the possibility of the immediate establishment of socialism. When the workers understand Socialism they will take the direct and simple steps necessary to give them control of the political machinery of society for the purpose of introducing socialism. Until that time, the only useful action possible is the act of speaking and writing about socialism. It is true the Socialist Party has not succeeded in organising large numbers, but have our critics done any better? We have at least assisted materially in giving a correct understanding of socialism which is by no means insignificant.

Under capitalism, there are no "good times" for the working class, but just so long as the working class does not see through the capitalist "work hard now and wait for reward" fairy story. Capitalism, in the pursuit of profit, is an inhumane society. Capitalism cannot let the people of the world prosper in peace, but socialism will ensure it. Capitalism breeds economic rivalry, hatred and destruction. Only socialism is based on the international community of interests of the working class of all lands. It is the workers who keep capitalism going, for the benefit of the capitalists. It is the time the workers determined, by international socialist action, to refashion human society on a socialist foundation. The productive power and the administrative ability already exist for the making of a new world. Do not delay the decision to use them. The Socialist Party teaches the way to working-class emancipation and the happiness and well-being of humanity. The problem is that people are so used to the existence of capitalism, they’re so used to the idea that you have to work for somebody else, that they don’t see that they can just take it over. The role of the working class under capitalism is to be exploited so that the capitalists can get rich. In parliament, representatives of the robber class run the system and if members of the robbed class want to see the capitalists and their political agents at work we are confined to the "strangers' gallery'  — highly appropriate, seeing as workers are strangers to any real power. There can be no economic or political justice for the workers within the framework of capitalism which cannot be reformed, despite its continually rebranding itself. The Left, seduced by identity politics, largely ignores the primacy of capitalism and the class struggle.  Capitalism, at its core, is about the commodification of human beings and the natural world for exploitation and profit. To increase profit, it constantly seeks to reduce the cost of labour and demolish the regulations and laws that protect the common good.  capitalism by its nature lurches from crisis to crisis. This makes our current predicament similar to past crises. But it unleashes uncontrollable yearnings among an enraged population that threatens capitalism itself. We don’t have conversations about capitalism. How many times can you turn on a mainstream news and expect to hear the system of ‘capitalism’ discussed?  

The Socialist Party takes the view that it is impossible to solve the major problems of modern society in isolation. The social problems from which the working class suffer all have their roots in the very basis of the capitalist system. They can only be solved when the workers rid themselves of the confusion and equip themselves with socialist knowledge.  Instead of focusing on the plight of all of the oppressed, oppressed groups seek representation for their own members within capitalist structures.  We in The Socialist Party aim at building a world community — without frontiers, based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production where things will be produced for use. A world without war, world hunger or racialism. A world that has no need of money and has abolished rent, interest, profits, wages, and prices. A world fit for human beings. We think such a society can be brought into being only when it is technically possible for abundance to be produced (as it is now) and when a majority of the population understands the implications of such a socialist reorganisation, desire it and take the necessary democratic action to establish it. We insist that any attempt to make such a revolutionary change, except by organised democratic political action will never succeed. We are opposed to the efforts of Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists and other elitist groups which set out to disrupt the democratic process or to seize power following deliberate provocative actions aimed at manipulating workers in the interests of the self-appointed ‘revolutionary' vanguards. Fortunately, although they do not share our revolutionary socialist view, most workers have sufficient political insight to reject the roles intended for them by these would-be leaders.

Season after season we teach socialism: the possession by a community of workers the world over, of the things needful for human existence. The end of production for profit; the abolition of slave-jobs and subsistence wages; the end of commercial rivalry and the struggle for political supremacy on the part of rival groups of bosses; the end of the wholesale slaughter of the workers by the machines they themselves produce; the death of blinding superstition and the birth of rational hope; the end of all things capitalistic and the beginning of a real society; the beginning of production for social use, of co-operation for mutual welfare, of universal brotherhood.

 If we envision a world where communities work together to ensure that our basic needs are met, then our movement can't operate like secret societies. The Socialist Party has been committed to full transparency since its foundation. Even our Executive Committee meetings are open to the public so they can scrutinise our decision-making process if they wish.

Generation War - A Smokescreen

The popular notion that baby boomers are wealth hoarders who have gained at the long-term expense of the young is unfair and unjustified, according to, Dr Beverley Searle, from the University of Dundee. The academic, who is head of geography and environmental sciences at the university, recently led a three-year study into the transfer of family wealth across generations.

She said the current trend for the inter-generational conflict, which usually pitches retirement-age baby boomers against so-called millennials, who are typically in their twenties and thirties, as a “smokescreen” that obscured greater social inequality and poor decisions by politicians. Dr Searle said that baby boomers, those born between 1945 and 1964, had benefitted from the inception of the welfare state, better housing opportunities, healthcare and lower taxes. However, she added it was policy that had driven the benefits that were now costing those still in work. Dr Searle suggested more funding could have been made available for health and social care if taxes and national insurance paid into the system by the Baby Boomer generation had been reserved. “The government choose not to do this, the government wanted instead to reduce taxes,” she said.

She said: “Baby boomers get blamed for the benefits they have enjoyed, such as better housing opportunities and access to universities, but it was the politicians who took the decisions on how the policies would be funded. The debate around inter-generational conflict is just a political smokescreen. It is diverting away from the politicians that have created these problems and it is unfair and unjustified that baby boomers get the blame. Governments have known about the baby boomers from the 1940s onwards. It is not like they are a surprise. These arguments about the inter-generational conflict are just trying to divert attention away from policy decisions which have been made over the years.” 

Dr Searle said that the value of housing had become a key focus of the debate. 
“Politicians want house values to increase so that people can use the equity, possibly to fund their care in later life. The problem is, it is the people behind them, the young, who are suffering because house prices are so high. There is an assumption that older people are hoarding all the housing wealth but this is not the reality. A quarter of housing wealth is held by those between the ages of 35 to 64-years-old who are also in the top 20 per cent of households in terms of incomes. This idea that baby boomers are being greedy and hanging on to their housing wealth doesn’t pan out in reality."

Dr Searle added that inequality lay “within generations” and not “between generations.”

https://www.scotsman.com/news/attacks-on-greedy-baby-boomers-are-unjustified-says-academic-1-4686858

Old Folk Need Better Housing

Within a generation, almost a third of all Scots will be aged over 60, increasing to almost 1.8 million by 2039. Those aged over 75 will have nearly doubled from 0.43 million to 0.8 million.

Age Scotland, the Scottish Older People’s Assembly, Castle Rock Edinvar, and McCarthy and Stone have joined forces to launch the Older People’s Housing Coalition to put older and disabled people’s housing needs at the centre of the planning system.

The coalition is urging the Scottish Government to make housing for older people and those with disabilities a specific priority in its Planning Bill, with clear national and local targets similar to those for affordable housing. Planning authorities should be obliged to identify appropriate sites close to local shops, GPs, services, and transport links. It is also pushing for “age friendly design” to be incorporated into the planning process, with elements including accessibility, energy efficiency, adaptability, and shared facilities.

Research commissioned by the government found that the next generation of affordable homes will be too small for many disabled people who rely on wheelchairs or other mobility aids as the standards being followed do not allow sufficient floor space for wheelchairs.

Jim Eadie from Age Scotland, a spokesperson for the coalition, said: “Scotland is not building enough housing to meet the needs of its rapidly ageing population. There simply aren’t enough homes where older and disabled people want to live, and this is putting increasing pressure on health and social care budgets. We urgently need to improve the mix of housing across all tenures to rent and buy, so we can meet the diverse needs of Scotland’s older and disabled people.

One People - One World - No Nations

Workers have to make an effort to realise that the culture they have been conditioned to accept as eternal and invulnerable does not hold good for all time and all over the world and that different social circumstances will often result in different customs and conventions. At the moment they prefer not to make the effort; it is easier to reject facts and surrender to prejudice, fears, and the dog-eat-dog competition on the labour market. It is easier to try to keep out anything foreign.

A lot of the reason for these insular prejudices can be found in the fact that many workers, in their little homes, feel they have built themselves a fortress. They will defend it against all comers — and at the moment the enemy they see coming is the migrant. The tragedy is that those little homes are not castles so much as prisons. Capitalism is a massive confidence trick which convinces workers that their chains are ornaments, that their poverty is prosperity, that cheap, cramped houses are objects of pride — because they have had to be worked for. Newcomers to the UK are equally deceived—the limits of their ambitions is to get a visa on their passport into the working class with all its poverty, fears and suspicions, probably to set up their own prejudices and insularity.

Capitalism is strikingly adept at erecting barriers among its people. It divides them into nations, income groups, races — all of them inspired by false notions of economic and social interests. It is a desperately inadequate society, in which for millions of people the highest achievements is to close themselves up into the confines of a little home and a little job and a little family. These confines are self-productive; they encourage the neuroses and prejudices which fear a different skin colour, and which insist that I shall keep in my small corner while you must keep in yours.

The Socialist Party stands for social equality, for all human beings having equal access to wealth and being of equal worth. In socialism when the means of life are social property, men and women will play their part in producing society’s wealth as best they can and, no matter what their contribution, take from that wealth what they need. In socialism, it is not a question of individuals working on their own, but of people co-operating to produce wealth. So how can one man’s contribution be measured? The Socialist Party says that this society can, and should, be changed. The means for producing wealth should belong to the whole community since this is the only arrangement that will allow them to be used to satisfy human needs. Production solely for use (without buying and selling) is only possible, given modern technology, on the basis of this common ownership and democratic control. Modern technology can provide the plenty for all that will allow mankind to organise the production and distribution of wealth on the principle of: from each according to ability, to each according to need. The Socialist Party is not preaching brotherly love as the solution to social problems. We advocate a change in the basis of society, a social revolution. One of the distinguishing features of homo sapiens is the ability to think abstractly, to plan actions without reference to his immediate circumstances. Insofar as mankind has instincts these are merely biological needs like food, drink, and sex. But this tells us nothing about how these needs are met. That is a question of social organisation. But since human biology has hardly changed in millions of years while human society has, it is no good trying to explain society and social change by biology. Human nature (whatever it might be) is no barrier to socialism. Indeed socialism is, in the present circumstances, the only rational way to run society. For, with common ownership and production for use, man is in charge of his social environment and not, as under capitalism, at the mercy of economic forces.

What's the incentive to work in socialism? Work is merely the expenditure of energy. For human beings, it is both a biological and a social necessity. Human beings must somehow use up the energy that eating food generates, and if no wealth is produced society will die out. So the real question is: How is work organised? Under what conditions is it done? Under capitalism, most work is employment, done in the service of other human beings. It is done under discipline, rather than as free co-operation. It is often dull, even dangerous and degrading. And, as a class society always “respects” those on top (who don't have to work), there is a stigma attached to working. It is a sign of social inferiority to have to work. Socialists say that work can, and should, be made pleasant. Indeed, one of our strongest points against capitalism is that it forces most people to do boring work. But men and women can only control their working environment when they also control the means and instruments of work.

The shortcomings of capitalism are widely felt but little understood. To many, capitalism is competition and private enterprise. Their answer is to restrain competition through government intervention. Capitalism is based on the monopoly of the means of production by a minority. Buying and selling and the commercial jungle result from this. Workers suffer insecurity under capitalism. It is impossible to conceive of capitalism without war. The private ownership of the means of production divides the world into antagonistic classes, competing firms, rival nations and international power blocs. It is this competitive nature of capitalism which causes its wars, which are as much a part of the system as the governments, the money and the treaties which the pacifists are prepared to accept. Modern war is fought to settle the squabbles of capitalism’s master class; it does not involve the interests of the ordinary people except that it brings them nothing but suffering. Capitalism divides them into nations. The problem is not one of rich and poor nations but of rich and poor social classes. The solution to the worldwide poverty problem is the establishment of a world community in which production is geared solely to meeting human needs. 

Our answer is to replace minority ownership by the common ownership of the means of production by society as a whole. Then there would be no basis for commerce or competition as there would really be a common social interest. 

Echoes From Our Past

 

John Keracher was friend to life long World Socialist Party of the United States' member, RAB. Both thinkers

shared knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, including monist materialism, theology, and, of course,

economics. Easily accessible and to the point for any reader, Keracher's writings have always been useful additions

to any Socialist's library.

 

From 1935, Keracher's Producers and Parasites:

 

The Individual Worker and the Boss

Some individual workers get ahead by allowing themselves to be used as tools against the others. The

individual worker, however, who becomes militant and goes to the boss with his demands, if he is able to

reach the boss at all, usually gets turned down and sometimes gets fired from the job altogether. When the

workers go individually to the employer, hat in hand, they are met with the sharp interrogation "What do

you want?" A tongue-lashing is often their reward for their individual efforts. It is more often the other

way about when the workers bargain collectively.

 

When the representatives of the workers enter the inner office of the capitalist they are not met with "What

do you want?" The employers understand the power of organisation; that is why they fight the unions so

hard. That is why they hire stool pigeons and struggle to obtain or maintain the open shop.

When the representatives of the workers approach, the capitalists, aware of the thousands standing behind

the leaders in the unions, use different tactics. Their attitude is "well, what can I do for you?" "Have a

cigar." "Sit down, let's talk it over."

 

Negotiate – temporise – arbitrate – compromise; these are the weapons the capitalists are obliged to resort

to. They know that the workers have one thing they can not take away from them. That is their numbers.

Organisation is the greatest weapon that the workers have at their disposal. All that the workers have ever

gained has been through the power of organisation.

 

For socialism, Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

The Socialist Party is Marxist

We are a Marxist party, that is, we accept the materialist conception of history, the labour theory of value and theory of the class struggle. Our object is socialism: a worldwide society where production will be solely for use, not sale or profit; where the means of life will be commonly owned and democratically controlled; where classes will have been abolished and all human beings are social equals. Production and distribution will be organised on the principle: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. There will be no buying and selling, no money, wages, profits or banks. All will have free access to what they need to live and enjoy life. As all will have the same common social interests there will be no need for a public power of coercion. The state, armed forces, and weapons of destruction will disappear. This is Socialism.

Present-day society, capitalism, is a class society. The means of production belong not to society as a whole, but only to a section of it, the capitalists. The rest of us have to work for them to live. There are thus two classes in society —capitalists and workers. The working class is not confined to factory workers but includes all who have to sell their mental and physical energies to live; clerks, civil servants, technicians, and managers as well. Built into capitalism is a conflict between these two classes—the class struggle. This struggle over the division of wealth (which is produced by the working class alone) goes on all the time. You are familiar with its forms: strikes, trade unions, employers associations, wage freezes. This means that the working class is an exploited class.  By this, we do not mean that workers are treated brutally by bullying employers or that foremen walk about with whips. We just mean that although the workers produce all wealth, the best go to the capitalists who live off rent, interest, and profit. How workers live is rationed by the size of their wage packet.  Generally, this is not more than enough to keep a man and his family in efficient working order. Despite a world capable of providing plenty for all, workers have to put up with the cheap and second-rate in food, clothes, houses, entertainment, health and so on. We say this is how it must be under capitalism. These social problems are built into capitalism and will not go till the means of production cease to be the monopoly of a privileged class and become the common property of the whole community. Capitalism cannot be made to work in the interests of all. It can work only one way, as a profit-making system in the interest of those who live off profits.

Class division cuts across all the others. If the entire working class had precisely the same skin colour in a capitalist system, they would still suffer from the same problems: poverty, unemployment, wage slavery, discrimination, poor housing, inferior education, and conscription. These problems are generated by the system of wage labour and the sale of commodities for profit. Though in some countries they may fall more heavily on a particular ethnic group, they cannot be solved for any part of the working class until they are solved for the working class as a whole.

The working class must capture political power and, by using the state machinery, strip the capitalist class of their property. The means are already to hand in the vote and the ballot box. Elections are about who shall control the state. At present because people do not want socialism or think it will not work they send to parliament and the local council members pledged to keep capitalism going. When they want Socialism, then they will elect socialists. This is an important principle: there can be no socialism without a socialist majority. The only people who can change society from capitalism to socialism are you, the working class. Nobody, no leaders no MP’s, can do it for you. If you want Socialism, it is something you must get for yourselves. When we contest elections we do so on a socialist programme and nothing else. This is not because we are opposed to social reforms, but because we are opposed to a policy of reformism. Trying to reform capitalism is pointless. Capitalism cannot be made to work in the interests of the whole community. It is a class system that runs on profits and so any government that tries to improve social conditions at the expense of profits, within the framework of capitalism, is bound to fail. The economic forces of capitalism will, in the end, dictate priorities to the government, 

 Class consciousness takes a long time to develop. One of the signs of its development is a wholesale rejection on the part of workers that a treadmill is their only possible alternative in life.  We advise workers to recognise that capitalism cannot work for them, whether run by Labour, Tories or Nationalists and to withdraw their support from capitalist parties and join and support a genuinely socialist party dedicated to replacing capitalism with socialism. 

Witch Hunts All Over Again

Pressure has obviously been put on Patrick Brown to resign as leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, in the light of allegations of sexual misconduct. 

With an impending Provincial election, it was obvious the PCs could not win if he didn't step down. Brown's career is now over and his future is one of disgrace, and yet the man has not had his day in court and is condemned merely by accusation. 

On this whole matter of sexual misbehaviour, things have snowballed out of control since Harvey Weinstein was accused. It is witch hunts all over again, a return to the days of McCarthy where one was presumed guilty until proven innocent and good luck with that buddy.

It's easy enough to say it isn't fair, but who said life under capitalism should be fair?

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

Capitalism V. Socialism

“My friends, things cannot go well in England, nor ever, until everything shall be held in common, when there shall be neither vassal nor lord and all distinctions levelled, when lords shall be no more masters than ourselves.” John Ball, 1381

The Socialist Party sees itself as building a better world for all. In place of a world driven by competition and conflict, there is the prospect of a united humanity.  Instead of being driven by the economic laws of an exploitative system there lies the potential for a society that would work democratically in the interests of all people. This is the prospect of a new society based on common ownership, democratic control and production solely for needs

Capitalism is not essentially a system of production but a system of capital accumulation. Every capitalist hope is production, profit, capital accumulation, but because all these hinges on market capacity, which is limited, a good deal of the time it is no profit, no capital accumulation, no production; and this is an obvious fetter on the development of the productive forces. Another factor which prevents the full use of the world as a single productive unit results from national economic divisions. Each national capitalist class has to attempt to balance its books as a national enterprise, so the pattern of trade, imports, exports and therefore the order of world production is constrained by the problem that governments face about the balance of payments. With socialism, humanity will enjoy unlimited options about what it might choose to do. At any point in history, the options open to society are given by the actual circumstances of development, and this social framework of options will also exist with socialism. However socialism, by sweeping aside the economic shackles of capitalism, will widen the possibilities of social action with the objective of satisfying human need. It is also self-evident that since we now suffer a shortage of wealth in relation to human need, production for use will be required by necessity to increase production as quickly as possible. The first task of socialism will be to solve the great social problems of capitalist society. This will be co-operation to produce more food, to provide housing, sanitation and clean water for the hundreds of millions who endure sub-standard conditions or who live in squalor; to provide health services; to construct a safe world energy system, to stop the despoliation of the planet and the pollution of its atmosphere, seas, forests and lands; to provide for education, enjoyment and world contact. These are the great projects for which world socialism would release the immense resources of useful labour that are now exploited, misused or wasted by the insanities of the profit system.

It has been suggested that a business can be run in a “socialistic” way, as for example with workers co-operatives. Certainly, a unit may be organised along more egalitarian lines but this cannot escape the economic pressures that determine whether or not it can survive. whatever way they are structured, authoritarian or democratic, and in whichever scale they may operate, as a part of social production they are a link in the economic circuits of capitalism and can only continue to operate within the pattern of buying, selling and profitability. The irresistible mechanisms which only allow production units to operate on a capitalist basis rule out any possibility of combining the productive relations of capitalism and socialism. It is impossible to combine the class ownership of the means of production with common ownership by the whole community: it is impossible to combine a worldwide division of wage labour with the work of free men and women co-operating without wages in their mutual interests: it is impossible to combine the production of goods for sale on the markets with the free distribution of goods solely for needs. It is impossible to combine profit and the accumulation of capital as the motive of production with the democratic choices of communities about how to deploy their resources. All these things which clearly distinguish capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive. The commodity, the article for sale, is invested with all the anti-social features of the class society that has created it. We can only gain access to it by paying money; it serves our need only on condition that it first serves the profits of those who market it; it has been produced by wage workers whose economic function has been to generate more wealth for the company which exploits them. 

Contrast this with a simple object of use which could be produced by free people in democratically run communities. Such an article of use would express all the life-enhancing qualities of work carried out voluntarily by people co-operating in each other’s interests. It would not carry a price tag, it would not be sold, it would be freely available for consumption. By co-operation, we do not mean relationships in which people sacrifice their self-interest for the good of others. Co-operation is in the interests of both the individual and the community and is the natural expression of our social being. It is through co-operation that we best express and develop our individuality.  Across the entire world, the vast majority of people have a great need to live by the creative values of social co-operation, to share in the work of running their communities and providing for each other.

 Capitalism and socialism are fundamentally different systems that cannot operate together. A society to be run democratically in the interests of all its members can only be established by conscious, democratic methods. For modern socialists, the key to the question of the change from capitalism to socialism lies in the work of building the socialist movement to the point where there exists a majority of socialists. With this level of understanding and commitment, there would be no difficulty in enacting the common ownership of all land and means of production and distribution. On this basis communities would them commence the work of co-operating to organise the new society. This policy is the only practical way to establish socialism and it makes redundant the whole question of how a so-called “working class government” could convert capitalism into socialism over time through a programme of nationalisation.

Refusing the homeless

Local authorities have a legal obligation to find accommodation for people facing homelessness. Legal experts told the BBC that people were being unlawfully turned away by councils, despite their statutory duty.

The Legal Services Agency, a charity which provides legal advice to vulnerable people, said last year they saw about 200 people in Glasgow, many of whom had been turned away unlawfully without accommodation or help

Solicitor Alastair Houston said people were either being told straight away they were not entitled or that there were no temporary places available. Mr Houston said it was a "breach of their statutory duties" for local authorities to fail to provide temporary accommodation to someone presenting as homeless.

Government statistics show that most people are made homeless following a family breakdown or household dispute.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-42988881

The Problem Of Voting For Leeches

Despite any improvements in the condition of the working class, the gap between the amount of wealth they enjoy and that of the capitalist class has continually got wider. 

The Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, (I wonder if they've ever suggested socialism?), has been monitoring this gap for the past eleven years.

 Their findings are that the average workers pay increased in 2016 by 0.5%, whereas the average increase for Canada's top 100 CEO's was 8%. 

The average annual income for the Canadian worker in 2016 was $49,738; for the top CEO's it was $10.4 million.

 Some may think the working class is very considerate in allowing their bosses to exploit them to such a great extent, but I don't think they are considerate enough. The most considerate thing the working class can do for them would be to write ''Socialism'' on their ballot papers, then all the ex-capitalists can start living lives as useful, productive members of society, not as leeches.

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

What we want is socialism

The features of socialist society are dependent on each other and can only operate together as basic parts of an integrated social system. In combination, these define a way of organising society that in every important aspect of production, distribution, decision making and social administration, is clearly distinguished from the operation of capitalist society.

1. Common ownership means that the entire structure of production and all natural resources be held in common by all people. This means that every person will stand in equal relationship with every other person with respect to the means of producing the things we need to live, that is, mines, industrial plants, manufacturing units, all land and farms, and all means of transport and distribution. This also means the common ownership of all natural resources. Perhaps "common ownership" is partly a misnomer because what is meant is that means of production and resources would not be owned by anyone. In place of the property relationships of owners and non-owners, means of production will simply be available to the whole community to be used and developed solely for the needs of all people.

2. Democratic control means that social policy would be decided by communities. In place of rule by governments, public decisions would be made by people themselves. One great advantage of democratic practice in socialism would be not only the organisation of decision making but also the freedom to carry out those decisions. This freedom of action would arise from direct control of community affairs following the enactment of common ownership and removal of the economic constraints of the capitalist system. Without powers of action, decision-making is meaningless.

3. Production solely for use means just what it says. People in socialism would be free to co-operate voluntarily with each other in producing goods directly for the needs of the community. This would be useful labour co-operating to produce useful goods solely for consumption. Production solely for use would replace production for sale at a profit. Things produced for sale under the capitalist system are of course intended to supply a need of one kind or another but as commodities, they are produced primarily with a view to monetary gain and the increase of money capital. As a general rule, the market system is a system of "no profit no production". In socialism, this profit motive would be entirely removed. In a moneyless socialist society, the factors of production would operate only in a useful form and not as economic categories with a price. Labour would not be wage labour serving the interests of an employer but would be free labour. People at work would be creating only useful things and not economic values from which profit is derived.

We can estimate that at least half of all the workers running the capitalist system would be redundant in a sane society where work would be organised economically solely for the needs of the community. This means that, including the present millions who are unemployed, socialism would more than double the numbers of people available to do useful work. Also, these vastly increased numbers would be free to use and further develop the most advanced techniques of production. All this would add up to a huge increase in our powers of production.

At first, to solve problems, production in socialism would have to be expanded. The priority would be to ensure that every person is comfortably housed and supplied with good quality food of their choice. The construction of a safe world energy system would be another urgent project. The present great differences in the world distribution of machinery, plant and up-to-date production methods would need to be evened out. But with an adequate structure of production in place we can anticipate that in socialism, we would soon be in a position to relax in the necessary work of providing for needs.

The idea of producing enough for the community and then relaxing to enjoy many other kinds of activity which may interest people is impossible under a capitalist system. Capitalist production is not primarily about supplying needs it is about making profit and accumulating capital. It can only work with a constant market pressure to renew its capacity for sales. Under capitalism, a surplus of commodities, in excess of market capacity means they cannot be sold for a profit. This can bring about a recession, with workers thrown out of jobs, governments having to pay out more in doles when strapped for cash trying to finance a reasonable health service, it means companies going bankrupt. It means the whole mad market system being thrown into yet another crisis simply because the goods cannot be sold. These are some of the destructive features of a money-driven economy which is long past its sell-by date.

In socialism, with the abolition of the market, and acting with voluntary co-operation, people will produce goods and distribute them to stores without any of the barriers of buying and selling. The cash tills will disappear, shoppers won’t be held up and the operators won’t have to do their boring, meaningless jobs.

To re-establish common ownership and co-operation would, in fact, revert to relationships which were normal for humanity for the very long period of pre-history. Now, of course, we would enjoy these relationships with all the advantages of modern technology and know-how.

Scotland Supports the USAF

 The Guardian has revealed Glasgow Prestwick airport is a base for live missions by the US Air Force.

In an effort to stem its losses, Prestwick executives have attended military fairs across the US to pursue contracts to service cargo flights, troop transports and air-to-air refueling operations for the US Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, National Guard and the US Defense Logistics Agency.

The USAF confirmed Prestwick was used to support frontline US military operations.

Maj Richard Komurek, a USAF spokesman for Europe and Africa, said: “Glasgow Prestwick airport is one of a variety of airfields within Europe that can be used to support a full range of USAF operations.

“The forward-basing of US aircraft in Europe enhances our ability to conduct rapid global mobility, global strike operations and training to maintain combat-ready forces that are ready to respond to contingencies and support allies and partners.”

USAF Stratotanker air-to-air refueling aircraft operated several sorties from Prestwick while based there for three weeks in May 2017. That month, the USAF also approved “active duty missions” from Prestwick for Hercules C130 cargo planes for its air mobility command, which describes the C130 as “the prime transport for airdropping troops and equipment into hostile areas”.

In October 2016, Prestwick signed a three-year basing and fuel supply deal with the Defense Logistics Agency, helping it almost double its income from fuel sales to £3m last year. Those contacts also led to the USAF earmarking Prestwick to take a greater share of its flights after it leaves Mildenhall airbase in Suffolk, its largest base in the UK, in 2024.

Sweden - The Ideal Society? (book review)

There was a time when many spoke of Sweden as having the ideal society, blending the best features of capitalism and socialism, though meaning enlightened reforms. 

Anyone who still harbours such illusions would be well advised to read Jonas Jonasson's novels. The Swedish humourist digs deep into the dark underbelly of the perfect society as his main characters are not the kind you'd want your kids to marry; such as con artists, violent criminals, junkies, pushers, and hookers. 

In this respect, if one can use the word, his most recent book is outstanding - ''Hitman Anders And The Meaning Of It All'', Harper, $17.99.

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.