Why we are angry

In a socialist society, there will be no wage system where the workers receive in wages only a fraction of the value of the goods they produce.  We shall produce for use, rather than for sale with a view to profit for private capitalists. We shall produce the things we want and need rather than the things for which a market exists in which the goods we produce are sold for the profit of the private owners.

Socialism is the story of a robbery so colossal that it defies measurement. Compared with it the prizes, loot, and spoils taken by all the pirates, buccaneers and freebooters of history are a mere bagatelle. The robbery is confined neither by time nor space. It is continuous, unremitting. It proceeds wherever society is divided into classes, wherever one class owns the instruments of production to which another class, owning no tools of its own, must have access in order to live. There is nothing illegal about this robbery. Under the capitalist system, it is considered the normal "way of life." But it is robbery nonetheless. For the capitalist class uses its ownership and control of the factories, land, railroads, etc., in the same way that a highwayman uses his gun -- to extract a tribute from its victims. It is an insidious form of robbery.

It abounds in illusions. For example, there is the illusion that conceals the real source of wages and makes the capitalist exploiter appear to be a sort of benign philanthropist. The worker goes into the factory on Monday morning empty-handed, but, when he or she comes out on payday, lo and behold, he or she has a paycheck in his hands! If he or she meets a socialist and hears the socialist attack the capitalist system, he or she might say: "Don't attack my boss. I'm getting little enough as it is. I wouldn't get anything if he were put out of business." see, this worker is under the illusion that the capitalist supports him or her, whereas, as we shall demonstrate, it is we who supports the capitalist.

Why is the worker the victim of this illusion? What goes on inside the factory that conceals from him the true state of affairs? What goes on is simply this: In the first hour or two that he is on the job the worker produces in the form of new values as much as he is paid in wages for the entire working day. Of course, the worker has no way of knowing this. When the serf of feudal times was forced to yield part of what he produced to the feudal lord, he knew he was being robbed. But capitalist robbery is more subtle. The worker may perform but one-minute operation in the production of a commodity requiring thousands of operations. Nevertheless, the labour has created new value equal to a day's wages in the first hour or two on the job. and this new value -- together with the value added by fellow workers -- is embodied in the finished product.

 Marx called the part of the working day in which the worker reproduces wages “necessary labour time”. During the rest of the working day the worker produces values not paid. This part of the working day Marx called “surplus labour time”. For purposes of simplification, take the case of a worker who sells his labor power -- to be expended in eight hours -- for the price of $15. The first two hours of his working day are necessary labor time. In these two hours, he or she produces as much as the boss pays him for eight hours of labour. During the remaining six hours -- surplus labour time -- he produces three times as much or $45 worth of new values. In the science of political economy we call the wealth that the worker produces, but of which he is robbed - surplus value.

What is the degree of robbery, or exploitation? It varies as conditions vary in the different countries. In a country, where more advanced techniques and methods of production are applied (such as the UK, USA or the EU), the degree of exploitation is greater than it is in less advanced countries. At first, this may seem contradictory. Why you may ask, should workers who are more productive receive less proportionately of what they produce than workers who are not so productive? The answer is simply that wages are not determined by what the worker produces. Leaving aside their temporary rise and fall due to fluctuations of supply and demand in the labour market, wages are determined by what it costs the worker to live and raise a new crop of wage slaves to take his place when he dies or is thrown on the scrap heap. Everyone is familiar with the expression a "living wage." Our grandfathers got a "living wage"; our fathers got a "living wage": and. normally, we get a "living wage." Thus, in terms of food, clothing, shelter, etc., we receive substantially what our grandfathers did. Yet we produce vastly more than our grandfathers and considerably more than our fathers. Why, then, haven't we advanced beyond the "living wage" concept? The answer is that we cannot advance beyond this concept, no matter how much our productivity increases, as long as capitalism lasts. And the reason is that, under capitalism, labour power is a commodity, an article of merchandise, whose price is governed by the same economic laws that govern the price of any other commodity.

Price may fluctuate according to the supply of a commodity and the demand for it in the market. Just as a pendulum swings back and forth, but is always drawn toward the center by gravitation, the price may go up or down -- but always it oscillates around its value in accord with the economic law of value. In other words, price, in the long run, coincides with value. And the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce it. In the case of the commodity labour power this means that its value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required to produce the food, clothing, shelter, etc., needed to keep the worker in working condition. He or she gets a 'living wage."

But, note: The more highly developed a nation is industrial, the less labor time is required to produce the workers' necessities. Hence, instead of the workers' share of their product increasing proportionately as their productivity rises, it is the other way around. As new methods and techniques -- such as automation -- are introduced, the articles workers consume are cheapened and wages fall accordingly. Thus the workers' relative wages (what they receive in relation to what they produce) tend to fall as productivity rises. In other words, as labour productivity rises, the necessary labour time grows shorter, thus lengthening that part of the working day when the worker produces surplus value. Apologists for capitalism sometimes try to refute socialist charges of high-degree exploitation by pointing to the net profits of corporations. But socialists have never contended that the corporations pocket all the surplus value their workers produce. On the contrary, socialists point out that before a capitalist can count his net profits he must pay off the landlord, government tax collector, the bankers' interest, advertising capitalist, insurance and all the other parasites on parasites. By the time taxes, interest, rent, etc., are deducted, net profits of the immediate capitalist exploiter may be only a fraction of the surplus value of which workers are robbed. But this in no way disputes the fact that the working class is robbed by the capitalist class of wealth so vast that it defies measurement.

Exploitation is not the act of any individual capitalist or set of capitalists, perpetrated upon any individual worker or set of workers. Exploitation is a class act -- the act of the whole capitalist class-perpetrated upon a class -- the whole working class.

Capitalism Promotes Hate

A major problem besetting society, and one that is justifiably receiving an enormous amount of attention, is the problem of race prejudice -- a sickness that infects all of our society to a greater or lesser degree. The whole subject of race is one that usually lacks constructive thought and sober reflection. Race hatred is not an ancient and inherent thing. On the contrary, all this prejudice, and the very concept of race is the product of the modern era, of the era we call capitalism. There were other fears, other hatreds, other prejudices, but before the capitalism mankind never discriminated because of the colour of skin. And, as they are wrong who say "race prejudice always was," so they are wrong who say it "always will be."

We think it is self-evident that the less the capitalist has to pay for this labour, that is less wages, the more he can take for himself. It's like dividing an apple in two parts -- if one part is smaller, the other part is larger. This brings us very close to one of the reasons why racial minorities are segregated and humiliated and held down to a status of second-class citizenship. To put it bluntly, by forcing racial minorities into submissive patterns of behaviour the ruling class supplies itself with a pool of cheap, unresisting labour. This is one way the capitalists benefit from race prejudice and race discrimination.

There is another more subtle way. We have shown that labour's product is divided between the wages paid to the workers and the surplus value taken by the capitalists. We said it's like dividing an apple -- if one part is smaller, then the other part is larger, and vice versa. Now, by the very nature of things, there is a struggle between the capitalists and workers over this division. The capitalists, either because they are forced by competitive compulsions, or out of sheer greed for profit , constantly try in one way or another to increase their share. Contrariwise, the workers resist and strive to maintain their living standards, and even improve them. Here we can see the focal point of the class struggle that rages in modern society. The Socialist Party hold that this struggle is irrepressible and irreconcilable. It can be ended only when the workers, male and female, black, brown and white, skilled and unskilled, Catholic, Protestant, and Jew, unite as a class to put an end to capitalist exploitation. The point is this -- race prejudice is one of the most insidious, and effective devices ever invented to keep the workers divided and fighting each other.

Another factor to be noted is the competitive nature of capitalism. And it isn't just the capitalists who are competing against each other; the workers also are cast in the role of competitors. They must compete for jobs. Now, then, the fewer the number of workers competing for the jobs the better chance each person has. And one way to keep the competition down is just to keep Nminorities who are easily identified by the colour of their skins, out of the job market. Of course, there has got to be some justification for such discrimination. So we find it in the myths that circulate about races. These myths and libels are not looked at too carefully. They are believed when it serves one's material interests to believe them.

And so the working class is kept divided, the capitalist class remains in the saddle -- and the outmoded capitalist system keeps all of society in turmoil and conflict, postponing the day of international peace and social harmony. There is but one way to end prejudice. That is to remove the capitalist cause and to lay a egalitarian economic foundation for human harmony.

We must outlaw private ownership of the land and industries. We must make the means of social production the property of all the people socially. Then, instead of producing things for sale and profit, we will carry on production to satisfy human needs. In short, we replace the competition and strife of capitalism with the cooperation and collective interests of socialism. There can be no peace without socialism!

End Exploitation

Capitalism threatens the existence of civilisation and of mankind. The system faces problems it cannot possibly solve. The problems that defy capitalist solutions are wide displacement and impoverishment of global populations, racism and xenophobia, and pollution of our air, soil, and water. All these are taking us toward social catastrophe. They are a plain warning that the issue before us, and the whole world, is: perish with capitalism or survive with socialism. It is a grave situation.

The great social questions of our age which demand immediate remedy are: Are we going to keep the system of private ownership? Shall we attempt to preserve a social system that has proved its incapacity to solve the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty? Do you favour prolonging the life of a society in which a few own all the means of wealth-production, in which labor-saving machinery, instead of lightening labour's toil, throws workers out of their jobs onto the industrial scrapheap? Must mankind pass through still another vicious cycle of depression, crisis, and war? Or shall we do the common-sense thing, make the means of production our collective property, abolish the exploitation of the many by the few, and use our productive genius to create leisure and abundance for all?

If you accept that society must be reconstructed, then there are certain things to understand. The first is that we can expect no help whatsoever from the beneficiaries of capitalism. Here and there, a capitalist may see the handwriting on the wall and join with the workers, but as a class, the capitalists, like the slave-owning and feudal classes before them, will strive to prolong their poverty-ridden, war-breeding system. The workers of brawn and brain must build this new world and emancipate themselves through their own class-conscious efforts. The second thing to understand is this: Though the workers are in the overwhelming majority, and have tremendous potential power, they can apply their collective strength to the task at hand only through organisation. This means organising politically.

The workers who run the industries today, under capitalism, will run them tomorrow, in socialism. The difference will be:

1. that tomorrow, with socialism, production will be carried on to satisfy human needs - instead of for sale and profit.
2. the despotic management of capitalism will be replaced by the workers' own democratically elected and democratically controlled managers and delegated representatives. Their function is that of administering social production for the benefit of all. A social democracy, the most complete democracy ever achieved since the breakdown of the tribal councils of earlier mankind.  This will be a living, vibrant democracy in which all power is in the only safe, place for power to be - with the people. 

Capitalism breeds wars and recessions and it is easy to see why.

What is capitalism? It is an economic system in which goods are produced to be sold at a profit. The goods are produced by the working class in industries owned by a small class of capitalist parasites. The capitalist owners of industry become the owners of the products. The workers get for their creative efforts a wage (or salary), an amount just sufficient to maintain themselves and their families. It is the relation of this amount to the value of the workers' output that is at the bottom of capitalism's depressions and wars.

For the fact is their capitalist exploiters have always paid the workers only a fraction of the value of their products. Worse still, this fraction keeps growing smaller as technological improvements step up labour's productivity while, at the same time, steadily wiping out jobs.

The capitalist class is very much afraid of depressions; because, as Karl Marx pointed out more than a century ago, these periodic economic crises put capitalist society on trial for its life. Hence, preventing the accumulation of surpluses by acquiring foreign markets in which to sell them is of vital importance to our capitalist masters. But every capitalist class in every country is under the same compulsion to unload surplus goods abroad. Consequently, there is hot competition for available markets, and this eventually explodes into -- war! "The seed of war in the modern world," confessed President Woodrow Wilson, "is industrial and commercial rivalry."

"But," say some, "it is no longer true that capitalism would go to war for commercial purposes. Besides, during the past twenty-five years the government has devised means of coping with economic recessions that minimise dependence on overseas markets."

Don't be misled. The Socialist Party says this: Economic slumps and wars are inevitable effects of capitalism, therefore they can never be eliminated as long as the system survives. Only when our economic life has been entirely rebuilt on a new foundation can lasting peace and economic well-being for all be achieved.  we must establish a new society -- a socialist society. We mean genuine socialism and emphatically not the monstrous counterfeits which were the Russian centralised command economy or the present Chinese state-capitalism.

Production for private profit must be replaced by production for the common good. Instead of letting a tiny useless class appropriate the lion's share of our collective product, the producers who create it must retain its full social value. There can be no peace or economic security without socialism. Nor can we solve our other tragic problems until we get rid of their capitalist cause. Put your full influence behind the only movement that can transform this country into a model of peace, abundance, freedom and social sanity.

Making Colonialism Respectable

The National Museum of Scotland has been accused of ignoring the “violent” parts of Scotland’s history with a display that appears to praise Scottish colonial officers. A sign on display as part of the ‘Global Scots’ section in the Discoveries gallery describes Scots involved in colonialism as being motivated by “high principles and personal ambition”.

The text – titled Scottish connections - added that “for many Scots, the Empire presented a chance to build a career, fulfill a new a better life and make money”.

Nicola Perugini, a lecturer in International Relations at Edinburgh University, says “I felt there was something extremely unsettling with the idea of presenting settler colonialism as a ‘normal’ form of career development motivated by high principles. What would those who paid the price for colonialism and imperialism, and their descendants, some of whom live in our ‘postcolonial’ societies, think of such a way of framing their history of dispossession?

“I don’t know how deliberate the choice of the curator is of framing Scottish involvement in imperialism in this way. However, the effect is clearly one of normalising this involvement, and making it more acceptable to the non-critical public.”

Minna Liinpaa, editor of the book ‘No Problem Here: Racism in Scotland’, who is also PHD candidate in Nationalism at Glasgow University.says, “These kinds of continuing uncritical representations of the relationship between the British Empire, slavery and the role of Scots – as exhibited by this NMS display – are extremely damaging as they ignore and erase parts of Scottish history. You cannot understand the present without understanding the past, and we need to make sure we account for the uncomfortable and violent parts of Scotland’s past as well. This is extremely important from an anti-racist viewpoint.”

The historian Professor Sir Tom Devine of Edinburgh University ?and author of the book ‘Scotland’s Empire’ says "It is certainly the case that there were positive impacts in terms of some aspects of 19th century colonial administration, educational development and the role of Scots missionaries particularly in Africa. “However, there is a darker side to the story. And that aspect has been one of the foci of modern historical research, especially in relation to the Scottish role in slavery, the role of the Highland regiments in imperial expansion and the notoriety of Scots traders in the Canadian fur trade and the commerce in opium."

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15847076.National_Museum_of_Scotland_in_colonialism_row_after___39_unsettling__39__exhibition/

Scotland's Corruption Companies

Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) were set up a century ago when they were widely used to register contracts for tenant farmers, but today organised crime gangs and corrupt politicians are exploiting the system with them. SLPs can own assets and borrow money, just like a person. They can register as a partnership of two parent companies with no obligation to reveal the people behind them - until last year. The British government changed the rules last year to compel SLPs to identify "persons of significant control", but some have simply ignored the regulation.

SLPs were established in 1907 and widely used as a loose tenancy agreement but they are now primarily used for private equity and venture capital investments.

"What seems to make them attractive for legitimate use in the fund industry also makes them attractive for illegitimate uses," Stephen Chan, a partner specialising in SLPs at Scottish law firm Harper Macleod, told AFP.

Dirty money from eastern Europe is flowing through companies registered to nondescript properties across Scotland in a practice that has alarmed global campaigners and policymakers

A tiny flat in the crime-ridden council housing scheme  of Pilton was found to be home to hundreds of SLPs including Fortuna United, part of a US$1 billion theft that crippled the economy of Moldova in 2014.

"It's kind of crazy," Ben Cowdock, an SLP expert at anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International, told AFP. "There were over 100 SLPs in the Moldova scheme, and some were used to own shares in banks, allow individuals to take over banks and then make dodgy loans to companies that they also controlled."

Such companies also cleaned money for Russian and Azerbaijani "laundromats" exposed by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). 

More recently, a joint investigation by Al Jazeera and Scottish daily The Herald this month linked SLPs to US$1.5 billion of assets seized from associates of ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. On paper, their registered address looked like an office suite a few minutes walk from Holyrood Palace - but it is actually a run-down apartment with a broken window.

Cowdock said there were 612 SLPs registered in 2009, a figure that rose to more than 5,000 by 2015. Over 70 per cent of SLPs registered in 2016 were controlled by anonymous companies based in jurisdictions such as Belize, Seychelles and Dominica, Transparency International found. "If you're hell-bent on laundering money it's still quite an attractive tool, because it's cheap and disposable," Cowdock said. "You can submit false information, and then launder your money before anyone notices."

Companies House said the government was "considering whether any further action is required to prevent limited partnerships from being used for unlawful activities". Scotland's  government is powerless to regulate them directly as company law is controlled from London.

Echoes From Our Past

I recently had the pleasure of reading Dennis Hardy's well-researched and supported book, Alternative Communities in Nineteenth Century England (1979). Covering the communities of utopian and agrarian socialism, sectarianism, and anarchism, Hardy lays out a history of socialist thought well worth searching for a library or used copy to add to your socialist reading list. 

Hardy, not overlooking the role scientific socialists also had in the development of workers readying themselves to give capitalism the final toss, one marvels at the simplicity and vigour of the ideas set by early socialist Diggers how to do this:

"The earth is to be planted, and the fruits reaped, and carried into barns and storehouses by the assistance of every family; and if any man or family want corn, or other provision, they may go to the store-houses, and fetch without money. If they want a horse to ride, go into the fields in summer, or to the common stables in winter, and receive one from the keepers, and when your journey is performed, bring him where you had him without money. If any want food or victuals, they may either go to the butchers shops, and receive what they want without money; or else go to the flocks of sheep, or herds of cattle, and take and kill what meat is needful for their families, without buying and selling. And the reason why all the riches of the earth are a common stock is this, because the earth, and the labours thereupon, are managed by common assistance of every family, without buying and selling . . ." Gerald Winstanley c.1652

For socialism,

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

Build A Sane World

In the political and economic world, we are expected never to "Do It Ourselves." "Leave it to our leaders to do" we are advised. The Socialist Party alone has warned of the dangers of dependence on "leaders." For years we have explained that since the working class is intelligent enough to plan, design build and operate the wonderful industries throughout the world, it is also intelligent enough to own and administer those same productive forces through the self-managed democracy of socialism. Socialism cannot be handed to you by "leaders." Socialism is strictly a "Do It Yourselves" plan. Socialism is not a paternalistic society in which the good things are given to you. Socialism cannot come a little at a time, or in one small locality at a time by government decree. Socialism does not mean a lowering of anyone's standard of living to one common level.

Socialism is one of the most lied-about and misrepresented words in common usage today. Many believe that it means State ownership or State bureaucratic control of business. If that were "Socialism," we wouldn't want it; we would be unalterably opposed to it. Socialism has never existed, nor does it now exist anywhere in the world. Socialism means the social ownership and democratic management of all the machinery of production and distribution, as well as the natural resources and land. The working class today creates all wealth for the private owners of industry in return for a fraction of that wealth, called wages. With socialism, the same producers will create the wealth for all of society to enjoy. With those now unemployed, or senselessly occupied, put to useful endeavour, and with all the ingenious labour-saving inventions put to use, the hours of the working day will be shortened tremendously. Automation in industry will cease to be a threat to job security, it will bring the blessing of greater abundance and more leisure time to enjoy that abundance. The leisure which our shorter hours of work will give us will mean a great enrichment of our lives. Travel, the development of cultural appreciation, the best of entertainment -- all these will be ours.

 The following basic facts must be recognized and understood. First, under socialism, there will be no private ownership in the necessaries of life, i.e., the industries and the system of communication and distribution, as well as the social services. In place of private ownership, we shall have social ownership of the necessaries of life. Second, there will be no political State, no political parties, no politicians, and, accordingly, there will be no State ownership or bureaucratic control of these necessaries of life. Third, there will be no wage system, hence, no exploitation. Socialism is a social system under which all the instruments of production, distribution, education, health, etc., are owned, controlled and administered by the people, for the people

Instead of workers being divided into hostile groups competing for jobs that will pay enough to keep a family until next payday, we will work in harmony, cooperating to produce most efficiently the best possible products, since we will all directly benefit from each improvement in quality and quantity of the goods and services we have made available. Increased leisure and general well-being will, of course, make it possible for all of us to lead wholesome and decent lives. All will enjoy better health. The modern scourge of mental illness will be practically eliminated in a society freed from the causes of anxieties and tensions that now plague mankind.  we will know the full pleasure of family life, without the cares which frustrate our happiness today. It has been claimed by some that socialism would "break up the home." It is now obvious that it is capitalism which is the home-breaker, with fathers and mothers both working to make ends meet. Marriage will cease to be a property relationship. Mutual love and understanding will be the fundamental principle upon which the family of the future will build.

Perhaps you are shaking your head at. this point and saying, "All this sounds like a heaven on earth. But it can never be.”  Would you be opposed to helping create a "heaven on earth"? Do you really prefer voting for politicians who are pledged to maintain the present social system which is the exact opposite of that "heaven on earth" we have described? Is it your nature to desire peace or war? Are other humans different from you? Is it your nature to prefer the insecurity of employment and the exploitation under capitalism, or does your whole being yearn for economic freedom and security for yourself and your family? Are you proud of the fear-instilling and intimidating measures used by some "leaders" to curtail freedom of thought, or does your whole nature rebel at capitalism's encroachment upon your liberties? The Socialist Party maintains that the best in human behaviour will only be brought out by the best in social and economic conditions.

The Socialist Party is the only organisation in the United Kingdom that stands uncompromisingly for the abolition of capitalism. We, men and women in the Socialist Party, deny that there is any possibility of real or lasting improvement for the vast majority, the working class, within the framework of the capitalist system. On the contrary, the Socialist Party warns that the longer capitalism lasts, the worse becomes the condition of the workers as a class, and the more difficult will become the transition from capitalism to socialism. And this despite the persistent efforts of the liberals and reformers, whether they pretend to be socialists or not. The Socialist Party has learned through the hard school of experience that reforms under capitalism lead away from the progress towards socialism. Every reform granted by capitalism is a concealed measure of reaction. Therefore, we contend that capitalism must be abolished. The social revolution can not be accomplished unless the working class becomes conscious of Its class interests, conscious of its historic mission, and is organised accordingly. To deny the fact, and yet expect socialism, is Utopian.

There is the only way socialism may be attained - by "Doing It Yourselves."

Price Fixing Crapitalism.

Its all in the open now, Loblaws and Weston have been price fixing for 14 years and during most of that time denying their workers a raise. And what you may ask are the authorities going to do about it, and the answer is zilch! -- and why should they since they are there to administrate capitalism and Loblaws and Weston haven't caused any problems for them.

The line ups at the post office in Shoppers' Drug Mart this time of year are very long because they are understaffed. When packages are delivered the help haven't the time to check them because they are serving customers. 

So whats the connection? Loblaws own Shoppers! But they are so full of remorse they are offering 25 buck gift cards to be used at grocery stores across Canada: now ain't they all heart. 

Doesn't it make you want to use the F.O. expression in response to their ''generosity.'' You may want to, but shouldn't instead translate that into action in relation to crapitalism as a whole.

For socialism, 

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

The Voice of Socialism, A Vote for Socialism

The Socialist Party holds that the very essence of socialism is inherent in the word itself -- a SOCIAL system that, freed from economic class rule, serves the common interests of the people-as-a-whole. But while many organisations and groups profess socialist  the Socialist Party is unique among them in that  to reach the goal  we will not use a reform ballot  to put more patches on the capitalism but use the vote in a revolutionary manner to replace capitalism, a vote that seeks the mandate to outlaw the capitalist class and its the exploitive wages system.

Socialism mean the common ownership by all the people of the factories, the offices, mines, transport, land and all the other instruments of wealth-production. Socialism means the production of things to satisfy human needs, and not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Socialism means free access to and democratic management of the industries by the workers. For you, as an individual, socialism means a full, happy and useful life. It means the opportunity to develop all your faculties and latent talents. It means that, instead of being a mere chattel bought and sold in the labour market, an appendage to a machine, an automaton, a producer of wealth for the greed of a parasite class, you will take your place as a human being in a free society of human beings, and a participant in its councils. In a socialist society, there will be no wage system.  With socialism, we will produce for use and to satisfy the needs of all the people. Under capitalism, the industries operate for one purpose-to earn a profit for their owners. Under this system, food is not grown primarily to be eaten. It is grown to be sold. Cars are not manufactured primarily to be driven. They are made to be sold. If there are enough buyers here and abroad, then the capitalists will have their factories turn out cars, TVs and everything else for which buyers can be found. But if people lack money, if the domestic and foreign markets cannot absorb them, then these factories shut down, and the country stagnates, no matter how much people need these commodities.  In socialism, the factories and industries would be used to benefit all of us, not restricted to the creation of profits for the enrichment of a small group of capitalist owners.

Socialism would yield an abundance without great toil; the factories, working conditions would be the safest, the most modern, the most efficient possible, and productive beyond our wildest dreams- and without laborious toil. Our natural resources would be intelligently conserved. In all previous ages of human history, poverty for most of the people was inescapable. There was simply not enough to go around. But not so today. Automated machinery and our industrial and scientific knowledge have so vastly increased mankind's ability to produce what it needs and wants, that there is no longer any excuse whatsoever for the poverty of a single member of society. Today, we have the material possibility of abundance for everyone, and the promise of the leisure in which to enjoy it. Under capitalism, automation and computers are used to replace workers and increase profits.  Instead of creating a society of abundance, capitalism uses machinery to create unemployment and poverty. Our cities are being converted largely into festering slums. But it is not automation that threatens us at all. Improved machinery is not an evil. It is a blessing. It is under capitalism that automation is used for anti-social purposes.

No doubt you have read or been told that socialism would result in the loss of individual liberty; that all power would be surrendered to the state or the government, and a harsh bureaucracy would regulate our lives and enforce blind obedience. The truth is that socialism rejects the state. Socialists hold with Karl Marx that "The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery." How then, in the name of common sense, could socialists wish to glorify the state and surrender to it? On the contrary - where there is socialism, there can be no state, and where there is a state, there can be no socialism! You have been taught that socialism means nationalisation, or government ownership and control of industry. Socialism rejects nationalisation or state ownership of industry! For the workers, an economy operated by the government is merely a change of masters - it brings no solution to their problems. Socialism is not a mere change of masters. Socialism means complete control of their tools and products by the workers. It guarantees this by placing the factories, the mines, the railroads, the land - all social wealth - under social ownership and control. Not a state, not the capitalists, not a bureaucracy, but the people collectively own, control, and democratically manage the means to produce and distribute all social wealth under socialism.

The administration and running of socialism will rest on social and industrial democracy. All power will reside in the hands of the people. Delegates - elected democratically from communities and places of work - will have the privilege of serving, but not the power of ruling over their constituents. Capitalism keeps the workers on the ragged edge of pauperdom, by forcing them to keep their noses to the grindstone in order to eke out a bare existence. Socialism would offer an equality of opportunity under which each worker would become the architect of his or her own future

The Socialist Party does not advocate violence. It seeks changes through peaceful

means. The Socialist Party, founded in 1904, is the only bona fide party of socialism in the UK. It has no connection whatsoever with other parties or groups calling themselves socialist or communist. The Socialist Party is now and has been since its inception, the only genuine socialist organisation in Britain. Whether ones agrees or not that socialism offers the only workable solution to the grave social problems of our age, one must acknowledge that the only way to find out what socialism really is is to consult authorities on the subject, not those supposed so-called self-styled pseudo-socialists .

A socialist looks at Israel and Palestine

The assumption underlying the Zionist movement was that to establish a "national home for the Jewish people” was the only way to end their age-old persecution, especially under the yoke of the Tsars.   The Jewish Labour League, the Bund, which was affiliated to the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, had as its purpose Jewish cultural autonomy within a Social-Democratic Russia. They saw that on the principle of divide and rule the Tsars had actually fostered anti-semitism. They were convinced that the Jewish problem was a by-product of the private property system and would end with the end of that system. They did not think in terms of a return, to “the promised land” as a solution to their problems. 

The end of the second world-war saw Zionism reaping a harvest of disillusionment and despair. Out of the camps, emerged the Jewish survivors. Few who had witnessed the holocaust of the Jews could fail to be moved by the determination of the survivors to have a home of their own, to live in a land where they could walk with heads held high, where they could till the soil and make the desert bloom and little by little heal the wounds of two thousand years. Despite the brutally callous turning back of their ships by the British Labour Government, many joined with the pioneers to oust the British and set up the Jewish State.  True to form, the territorial demands of one set of Nationalists were diametrically opposed to the demands of the other set. In Palestine, where a majority of Arabs had lived for centuries, the territorial demands of Jewish and Arab nationalism proved utterly irreconcilable. When the clash came the Zionists, who were then militarily superior and created an entire new exodus. Israel was not established out of nothing; large numbers of Arabs had to be expelled to make room for the new state. With calculating cynicism normal to ruling classes, the Pan-Arab capitalist class left the Palestinian refugees idly by the frontier, to grow in hate as an invaluable political weapon.  A flag-waving mentality to convince that one Israeli is worth any three or whatever number of Arabs is easier to pound out of the propaganda machine than explain the distinctions between Arab rulers and their pawns. The evidence is with us. Zionism has failed to achieve its objectives. Inevitably so. So long as there are Jewish workers attached in any numbers to the divisive and anti-working-class national idea, so long as their (and our) Arab brothers believe likewise, so long will strife ensue, so long will their respective ruling classes remain in the seat of power. The Jewish problem remains with us. It is an aspect of the working-class problem which has no solution outside of world-wide Socialism.

As they run to the shelters as Hamas or Hezbollah rockers fly, Israelis may well have wondered whether there is any country in the world where Jews are less safe. Zionists are always complaining about anti-semitism, real or imaginary. They use such complaints especially as a gambit to de-legitimise criticism of Zionism and Israel. From the start, however, Zionist opposition to anti-semitism has been superficial and selective, because Zionism is itself closely connected to anti-semitism. Thoughtful Israelis may also wonder how much of the anti-semitism in the world today is generated by Israel itself through its mistreatment of Palestinians and Lebanese. The Zionist needs anti-semitism like heroin addicts need their fix. What if the Jews in a given country are well integrated, face no significant anti-semitism, and show no interest in being "normalized"? Originally Zionism was conceived as a means of solving the problem of anti-semitism. From this point of view, where the problem does not exist there is no need for the solution. However, ends and means were inverted long ago, and Zionism became an end in itself, with anti-semitism a condition of its success. Anti-semitism might still be regarded in principle as an evil, but as a necessary evil. Often it was also said to be a lesser evil compared to the threat of assimilation supposedly inherent in rising rates of intermarriage. Against this background, it seems a trifle naive to ask why Israel's ruling circles don't realise that by their own actions they are generating anti-semitism. They fully realise. But they make it a point not to give a damn what the world thinks of them. There is nothing unique about the affinity between Zionism and anti-semitism. Russian nationalism thrives on Russophobia (the denigration of Russians), Irish nationalism on anti-Irish prejudice, Islamism on hatred of Moslems, and so on. To escape the vicious circle, we must respond to ethnic persecution not by promoting "our own" brand of nationalist or religious politics, but by asserting our identity as human beings and citizens of the future world cooperative commonwealth.

One myth propagated for many years by supporters of Israeli nationalism was that when it came to running an economy there could be none more successful than a Jewish state. Despite this hope on the part of those many Jewish workers who have invested their hopes and lives in Israel that country, like all others, is a part of the world capitalist system and will not escape its inevitable crises.  Israel is just another capitalist state. The Zionists who thought they could create a land of security for all should go and talk to the destitute Jewish workers of Israel. The ignorant anti-semites who imagined that every Jew drove a big car and smoked fat cigars should look at the slums in which their fellow wage slaves live. And before the Arab nationalists gloat at the failure of Israeli nationalism, let them ponder on the fact that while Arab oil billionaires are loafing in palaces their subjects are dying of malnutrition or living on paupers' incomes. The prejudices of capitalism are once again being struck out by the hard truths of experience.

The meia goes to great lengths to portray the Israelis as a people strong, but tolerant and peace-loving. Little publicity is given to the fact that the Israeli Cabinet has included convicted terrorists and extremists. Palestinians on the West Bank have been dispossessed of their homes in favour of Israeli settlers. They must carry identity cards and are subject to military orders which, for instance, prohibit such subversive acts as the planting of olive groves.

Like the Zionists, the Palestinians have embraced a dangerous myth about the past; in their case, the myth that pre-1948 Palestine was some kind of paradise. It was no such thing: most Palestinians struggled along on tiny plots of land, under the weight of massive debts, exploited by a class of landlords. Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, any more than modern Israel belongs to working class Israelis.  It is easy to see why the oppressed people in the refugee camps might view the promise of Palestinian self-government as an answer. It is not surprising that settlement of the occupied territories by orthodox Jewish zealots who subscribe to the racist religious nationalism which advocates the expulsion of all Arabs from “Greater Israel”, has resulted in an equally vicious hatred of Jews by many Palestinians. But to strive for the replacement of an oppressive Israeli state by a Palestinian one cannot be an answer. It can only result in continued oppression — class oppression — by a Palestinian ruling class that would replace the Israeli ruling class. The dreams of Jewish workers of a life free from persecution and oppression finds its echo today in the dreams of Palestinian workers. Jewish dreams have not been answered by the setting up of the state of Israel and Palestinian dreams will not be answered by the establishment of a Palestinian state. Today some Israelis are also questioning why young conscripts should be sent into the West Bank to repress its inhabitants and defend the illegal Jewish settlers. Was this the kind of society that they have, on so many occasions, fought to defend and that their parents and grandparents dreamed about and struggled so hard to bring into existence?

The Zionist movement has pleaded the case for a Jewish Homeland as the answer to the problems of Jewish people everywhere. Those who have settled there have been subjected to continuous warfare, violent "incidents," and continuing poverty. The Palestinian elite gives out the same nonsense to their workers. Both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism hold back the growth of class consciousness among the working class in Israel and Palestine.  Until the hold of nationalist and racist poison on the minds of the world's workers is destroyed, it will not be possible to live the full and satisfying life of socialism. Stand up for yourself as a human being and fight for the only worthwhile end — the achievement of a free humanity.

 'Zionism as the dream of capitalist Jewry the world over for a Jewish State with all its trimmings, such as Government, laws, police, militarism and the rest. In other words, a Jewish State machinery to protect the privileges of the few against the many.'  , Emma Goldman, 1938

Capitalism Is A Divisive System

According to an Ontario Human Rights' survey released on December 8, negative feelings towards those on social assistance was surpassed only by the Muslims who were disliked by 21 per cent of the 1501 respondents.

The questionnaire found 63 per cent thought race or colour to be one of the most common reasons for discrimination on Ontario, followed by sexual orientation, 34 per cent, disability 25 and creed or religion, 24.

This hammers home clearly what a divisive system capitalism is pitting workers against each other in the competition for jobs and homes, which is an excellent reason to abolish it.

For socialism, 

Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC.

Imagine a better world.

 

Our political goal is to abolish private property by the organised working class.   We seekcommon ownership and democratic control achieved with a class-conscious majority, most likely accomplished peacefully. It requires a social revolution in people's minds, convincing workers by debating anyone and everyone.  We study. We learn. We experience. We reflect.  We aim to put  permanent end of the daily humiliation and deprivation of the poor.  We're talking about a fight for our very existence and the re-establishment of liberty and democracy. The revolution will force Capital to drop its mask of respectability. Capital has always been authoritarian by nature. It seemingly rules by consent because it manufactures that consent.

 Humanity is not a group of individuals. We are an intrinsically collective species.  Every freedom we have interlocks with the freedoms of others. Its impossible to talk of individual rights without talking about collective rights. Inalienable human dignity is a religious idea. Nothing is inalienable. Anything can be taken away from you. You can be conditioned to believe that you never had it and shouldn't want it. That's what makes the fight for our freedom so pressing. We hold that there still are ideas floating around that remind us of what it was like to be collectively empowered but there are no guarantees that these ideas will live forever if they are not fought for. The present state of society creates a huge amount of alienation which manifests as mental illness - depression, anxiety, etc 

We’ve become conditioned to accept a dystopia not a utopia. But it is possible that we can choose a healthy vision. Think about the future—the future you want for your community, and your world Imagine, for a moment, the future you want. What does it look like? What’s good about it? What are your grandchildren enjoying? Have a clear vision of what you want for tomorrow, and let that vision guide your actions today. What should you do today to help achieve your vision for the future? Having a constructive vision for the future can empower you. What can you do, today, to help create a better future for yourself, your family, your community and the world? Envisioning a different world and taking the steps to create it may seem difficult. Yet that is the only way forward, for each of us.  Change it for the better. There can be no resistance without hope in a better world. Envisioning a better future necessitates knowing exactly what you're resisting.   Not only should everyone be clear on what they're resisting, but why. 

There is only one way to avert the crisis humanity is heading towards, and that is the establishment of socialism. Survival means political and economic power— to acquire more for more people. In the of interdependence, technology is providing tools to do it. The painful irony, though, is that these tools are being used to accumulate profits for the parasite few. Today there’s enough to go around. We don’t need to hoard vast amounts of anything.   There is only a future that’s coming that we can help create our connection to nature, to re-establish our social cooperation, altruism, and reciprocity over the invisible hand the market and competition. Socialism does not mean solving capitalism's administrative and taxation problems. It has become almost the universal rule for capitalist parties and leaders to clothe themselves in socialistic and egalitarian sounding slogans.  If words could bring prosperity we would now all be living in splendour.

A British admiral once said “It's perfect rot to talk about civilised warfare. You might as well talk about Heavenly Hell!" And another time, he explained " We can only have community of interests in the masses of people always being on the side of peace, because it is the masses who are massacred, not the kings and generals and politicians." We all grow up now under a dark cloud of socially organised violence. Nobody can feel secure when the world itself staggers from one crisis to another, always with the horrible feeling that the next might be the one to press the red button marked FIRE.