The Gig Economy

The number of people working temporary jobs has shot up in Edinburgh in the last year, with one in 10 workers now on a non-permanent contract,  leaving people in the city without job security. 

It’s an increase compared to the 7 per cent of workers in this position the year before, and means Edinburgh has the highest proportion of  temporary workers in the country.

Steve Turner, assistant general secretary for Unite said: “Too many  people are eking out an existence in low paid, temporary, insecure work when all they want is a permanent job. Rather than putting workers on permanent contracts we have seen firms such as Sports Directbase their whole business model on exploitative zero-hours contracts and temporary agency contracts. Workers deserve the dignity of knowing from one week to the next whether they will be able to put food on the table and pay the bills. Ministers need to ban zero hours contracts and proactively tackle  bogus self-employment and the use of umbrella companies, which are fleecing workers out of their hard earned cash while bosses get away without paying their fair share of tax.”

UNISON assistant general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Zero hours contracts may be good for employers, but not for all workers. Many face sleepless nights worrying what their take-home wage will be at the end of every week. Insecure employment is a huge issue in the care sector, with staff  too scared to whistleblow for fear hours will be cut. Bosses should guarantee fixed hours to everyone who wants them - and this should be enforceable by law.”

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/edinburgh-tops-scotland-temporary-workers-12513806

Rallying for Socialism

Starvation, hunger, disease, the cries for “food!” – the depths of privation in the midst of an unprecedented abundance of wealth. The Socialist Party views capitalism as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few.

The Socialist Party advocates and works for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good.  Votes obtained by a campaign conducted on the case for socialism mean that those who voted can be counted as sincere votes for socialism but votes obtained by offering all kinds of promises, can shift to some other party the next election with a better menu of reforms. The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of financiers sets nation against nation and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts, the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit labour. Hence under capitalism, the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers and are but mere commodities.

Socialism aims at giving a meaning to people's life and work; at enabling then freedom, their creativity, and the most positive aspects of their personality to flourish. Socialist society implies people's self-organisation of every aspect of their social activities. Socialism can be established only by the autonomous action of the working class. The hallmark of socialism is for the first time in history, technology will be subordinated to human needs. We are socialists out of conviction–because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of our own and the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world when they resist. We see in socialism the seeds and the method of achieving a more just, more cooperative and more peaceful society. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. As the socialist movement grows, we will be nearer to creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. People are the planet's most precious resource.

In opposition to all other parties—Conservative, Lib-Dem, Nationalist, and Labour—we affirm that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community is compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no peace between them.

By your neglect you stand for misery, exploitation, greed and war. The eyes of the world are upon you. The choice is the sweeping away of ignorance.

 

The Choice Before Us

Socialism is the road to future prosperity, peace and plenty. All other ways lead to perpetuated poverty. The future of the planet rests on its accepting the path of struggle. So far the working class has been fundamentally reformist, concentrating on getting as much as possible out of the present system.   Gradualism meaning the gradual attaining of the control of the means of production. This we believe to be impossible. Its impossibility has been demonstrated in every country where the workers have been strong enough to try it out seriously as a policy. Socialism cannot be presented as a gift from the Labour Party. It cannot be built down from above, with only the passive consent of the citizens as expressed from time to time by their votes. Nationalisation leaves the worker with no more control or interest in the job than have the employees of any enlightened capitalist employer.  It must come from the active participation and understanding of the people. Many models of socialist society have been constructed on paper. The task is to get the job building socialism into the hands of the working men and women. 

The socialist movement is not weak because we are divided, but divided because it is weak.  “Unity” is justified by the argument that revolutionaries must not separate themselves and become a sectarian minority. Such logic stifles any discussion and prevents any debate or conflict of opinions giving political groups a false feeling of being part of something.

We live in difficult times of pending environmental catastrophe, constant threats of war, intensified repression and suppression by the State. The class struggle between capital and labour is basic to modern society. It is a struggle that goes on all the time The class interests between capitalists and the workers cannot be reconciled. One or the other must triumph. They cannot be harmonised by compromise. The greed for profits knows no limit. The lower the wages paid, the higher the profits made. Capitalists always seek to reduce wages. The lower the wages paid, the higher the profits made. The capitalists always seek to speed up the worker, to intensify his production, to have one worker operate more and more machines and do the work of more and more workers. The more intensely the worker toils, the more value is created, therefore, the more surplus-value; therefore, the more profit.

 Against the ideas of capitalism and reformism, the Socialist Party works for the ideas of socialism. The workers must acquire a clear understanding the nature of capitalist society They must act consciously for their class interests. They must become conscious of the fact that these class interests lead to a socialist society and the need to replace this society with socialism When this takes place, the workers possess socialist consciousness. The Socialist Party makes clear to the workers the full meaning of their fight. It shows how the workers must organise as a class to capture political power, and use it to inaugurate socialism. Socialist Party represents a long and rich tradition, proud of the fact that its principles are founded on Marx and Engels,  principles to achieve socialism that has passed the most rigourous tests a hundred times over. Their analysis of capitalist society has never been successfully refuted. The Socialist Party calls itself Marxist merely to signify that it stands firmly on the basic principles of the greatest teachers in the history of the working class.

The Socialist Party champions the idea of social revolution. What is a social revolution? It is the replacement of one ruling class by another. The socialist revolution is simply the overthrow of capitalist despotism and the establishment of workers’ rule. This revolution can be accomplished peaceably. Socialists are not bloodthirsty maniacs. A socialist would indeed be insane to want bloodshed and destruction when the aim is an orderly society.

Socialism is based upon the planned organisation of production for use by means of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, is the abolition of all classes and class differences. Socialism is not a utopian ideal, a blueprint for society that exists in the minds of some people. It is a social necessity; it is a practical necessity. It is the direction that the people must take in order to save society from disintegration, in order to satisfy their social needs. To be a socialist merely means to be conscious of this necessity, to make others conscious of it, and to work in an organised manner for the realisation of the goal. The workers cannot rid themselves of their sufferings without abolishing the domination over them. They must destroy capitalism and proceed with the complete reorganisation of society. No other class is capable of doing this. The working class is the bearer of socialism. The abolition of private ownership would remove the last barrier to the development of production. Production would be organised and aimed at satisfying the needs of society.

 Abundance for all. Freedom for all. A society without a state. Upon socialism, depends the happy future of humanity and of civilisation. The working class is called upon to save society from barbarism, the only alternative to socialism. That is the task of the working class. That is the road to human freedom. 

Scottish Racism

Racist murders are more common in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, according to a shock academic study into the extent of prejudice.

A new book insists the belief Scotland is immune to racism and “culturally different” to England is condemned as a “misleading fantasy”. The authors of No Problem Here: Understanding Racism in Scotland cite official crime figures to prove there is a very real problem.

The analysis shows the rate of racist murders is higher on average in Scotland than in the UK as a whole. Between 2000 and 2013, there were 1.8 murders per million people with a known or suspected race element in Scotland. The equivalent figure for the UK was just 1.3 murders per million people.

Carol Young, senior policy officer for the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, said the stats show the idea that Scotland doesn’t have a problem with racism is false.  “There’s a perception that Scotland has less of a problem with racism than other areas of the UK, perhaps best summed up by the phrase, ‘we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns’.But, regardless of popular opinion, the statistics suggest otherwise. In 2013-2014, 4807 racist incidents were recorded by police in Scotland. That’s equivalent of 92 incidents every week, without accounting for the many cases that go unreported.” Young added: “You could be white-skinned and still identifiably minority ethnic in many circumstances. Skin tone has not protected Jewish people, Irish people, Gypsy/traveller communities or new European migrants from racism.”

Neil Davidson, a sociology lecturer at Glasgow University said: “The idea that there is ‘no problem’, or at least much less of a problem, has grown for three reasons. One is that the Irish-Catholic presence – the largest-ever migrant group to settle in Scotland – tends to be discussed in the context of ‘sectarianism’, a concept which treats Catholics and Protestants as equivalent and ignore the racism directed towards the former. The second is the relatively small size of the migration to Scotland from the Indian sub-continent and especially from the Caribbean, which did not mean that migrants did not suffer racism, just that it was much less visible than in Birmingham or London.

“Finally, the movements for devolution and independence have involved the idea that Scotland is ‘culturally’ different from England, and that part of this difference involves the Scots being more ‘welcoming’, ‘tolerant’ and so on...these are misleading fantasies, which ignore the historical experience of Irish Catholics and the contemporary experience of Muslims, Roma and other BAME groups...'

There is abundance for all

 As capitalism breeds great inequality, it also generates great anger against the system. The trouble is that, instead of workers everywhere uniting against the common enemy, the ruling class, they are turned against one another. People are told that their problems are not the result of the unjust system of capitalism but because of the "others"- the outsiders and outcasts. Workers are told organising for better conditions will cut jobs because the bosses will outsource them elsewhere; people are made to resent foreigners and migrants. It is the employed against the unemployed; it is the old versus the young. The mass media are complicit in this, feeding prejudice directed against other people rather than against capitalism. Suffering from the effects of exploitation workers are ripe to be influenced by populist demagogues who blame other workers such as immigrants or those with darker skin tone. Anything that provokes more division among workers — by sex, ethnicity, caste, — is a benefit to capital because it keeps people from uniting and struggling together for better conditions. The conservative parties and right-wing movements use immigrants as scapegoats, blaming them for the varied problems facing labour.

Marxism is more relevant than ever in understanding capitalism. One of the most significant concepts may be commodity fetishism: the idea that under capitalism, relations between people become mediated by relations between things -- that is commodities and money. The overwhelming focus on exchange value rather than use value means that exchange value gets seen as intrinsic to commodities rather than being the result of labour. The market interaction becomes the "natural" way of dealing with all objects. This is what creates commodity fetishism, an illusion that the centrality of private property determines not only how people work and interact, but even how they perceive reality and understand social change.   Capitalism is a relentless, system, ceaselessly searching the planet for opportunities to accumulate capital. And it looks for elements of our lives that have yet to become commodified and works to create markets for them. Both are made possible by the exploitation of wage labour and the expropriation of land and resources everywhere in the world.

Marx spoke of the creation of the world market, which we now call globalisation, as the natural result of the tendency of the capitalist system to spread and aggrandise itself, to destroy and incorporate earlier forms of production, and to transform technology and institutions constantly.  The tendencies for the concentration and centralisation of production have very strong contemporary resonance, even when such centralisation and concentration is expressed through the geographical fragmentation of production (as in global value chains driven by large multinational companies) or in the sphere of non-material service delivery, or even through the commodification of knowledge and control of personal data for purposes of making profits. Many workers have seen their incomes stagnate while many have been forced to take lower-paying jobs than they previously held, while still others have been rendered superfluous by the forces of automation and outsourcing to lower wage regions within the same country or to other countries. Many discarded workers do not have the resources to move to regions with a better chance of employment. This has left a sizable number of people struggling to live and raise their children, aware that something is very wrong, but not understanding what has caused their predicament. 

Alienation still relevant. For Marx, this was not an isolated experience of an individual person's feeling of estrangement from society or community, but a generalized state of the broad mass of wage workers. It can be expressed as the loss of control by workers over their own work, which means that they effectively cease to be autonomous human beings because they cannot control their workplace, the products they produce or even the way they relate to each other. Because this fundamentally defines their conditions of existence, this means that workers can never become autonomous and self-realised human and social beings under capitalism. Such alienation is blatantly obvious in factory work, but it also describes work that is apparently more independent, such as activities in the emerging "gig economy" that still deny workers effective control despite the illusion of autonomy.

Capitalists have assembled a vast array of mechanisms for control. Some of these are used in workplaces and include monitoring; constant speed-up; systematic hiring and firing; the deskilling of whatever work possible; the threat of dismissal for attempts to unionise; divide-and-rule assigning of workers to pit men against women, black against white, ethnic majority against ethnic minority, one religious group against another. The intentional geographical separation of different aspects of a business’s production processes is another divide and rule tactic, which makes potential antagonists of workers in one country and those in other nations. In every nation, the state serves as a bulwark of capitalism, standing ready to repress and suppress workers' resistance. A continual ideological conditioning is waged by the capitalist class, reflected in patriotism and national chauvinism where we are taught to be suspicious of the “other,” to compete, to act selfishly, to see the system as all-powerful and unchangeable.

The future and survival of humanity depend on the working class struggle once again coming to the fore and oppose the social and ecological problems that result from the drive of capitalists to maximise profits. There is no alternative but to redouble efforts to organise and to carry out socialist education. Many workers instinctively feel a powerlessness and that they are at the mercy of the whims and needs of capital. This is the result of a class war from above that capitalists have been waging while workers have been mostly frightened into submission. The ongoing class war can no longer be one-sided. When people are pushed and pushed down again and as their lives deteriorate, they eventually will resist. We must fight back. Many people are beginning to understand the reality that the various social and ecological problems facing humanity can’t be solved in piecemeal fashion. A bigger view of society is needed, one that unites all those struggling for a more decent and healthy society. The struggles in the workplace for better working conditions and decent pay, the fights for social justice, the striving for ecological harmony, and protests against wars—presently manifested by separate organizations—are all part of the same struggle for a more humane world.  Socialist ideals are now developing again across the world.  The future — if there is to be one — lies with the working class. Capital must be attacked at all times. Class warfare must be waged in all aspects of life. Our fellow-workers  must build an independent politics, without allegiance to any capitalist party. It must fight for the entire working class. We must emphasise solidarity: an injury to one is an injury to all, the “We” is more important than the “I.” The bounty of the Earth belong to all of us. Our goal is to end capitalism’s destruction of humanity, society, and the planet itself.   

What we want and what to do about it

Socialism will then be based on:

1. The abolition of wage labour.
2. The elimination of classes.
3. The disappearance of the state.
4. Full socialist development of the productive forces in the context of world communism.
5. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
6.  The abolition of the private ownership of the means of production.
7.  Elimination of competition and production for exchange value and its replacement by democratic planning and production for use.
8.  Workers’ and people’s management of the economy and society.
9.  The creation of mass forms of democracy and free associations. 

Throughout history, the bosses have always tried to keep workers divided, unorganised and weak, in order to intensify their exploitation and thereby grab bigger profits. Society contains many contradictions which have arisen as a result of the fact that production has a social character under capitalism while ownership of the means of production is in private hands. The struggle to resolve all of these contradictions is a part of the socialist revolution. Only through socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing wealth, can the people be freed from misery, we declare ourselves a socialist movement, and undertake to conduct propaganda among the people to win them to the need to establish socialism. After the working class has overthrown the capitalists we will establish socialism which will mean the rule of the workers. It will put an end to the exploitation of man by man. It will bring freedom to all those oppressed by capital and open up a new period of history. Socialism represents an enormous historical advance over capitalism. The enormous waste of capitalism will be abolished. There will be no more billions in profits squandered by the competition of rival capitalists.

Socialism is the future of humanity, a radically new society where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated. It is possible to do away with classes and the state since these only exist during a specific period of society’s development. Humanity has not always been divided into classes. In the primitive communal societies, all the members cooperated together to assure their survival. Everything created and valued by men, all wealth has been produced as a result of human labour being applied to the materials supplied by nature. The way human labour has been used through the ages has depended both on the tools available and on the way men have been organised—the social order. Different social orders, like slavery, capitalism, and socialism correspond to different levels of man’s development in. harnessing the materials for his own use.

But as mankind progressed, as the productive forces – the way in which man made his living – developed and it became possible to accumulate wealth, society was split into antagonistic classes. Since that time all of human history has been the history of class struggle; the struggle between slave and slave owner, between serf and feudal lord, between worker and capitalist.

The state is simply an instrument by which one class dominates another. It became a necessity when society split into classes. Just as the ancient slave state served the slave owners to suppress the countless slave rebellions, so too the modern capitalist state is a tool of the propertied class to maintain its dictatorship over the working class. In all the former societies, the state was an instrument for the domination of a minority of exploiters over the vast majority of working people. Socialism means, above all else, that political power has been taken out of the hands of the capitalists and their representatives and placed in the hands of the people.  It means that this political power is used immediately to place the economy in common ownership, taking it out of the hands of unelected capitalists. Industry will be run on democratic lines owned as a whole by the people. Together with this, the workers in particular factories and other public institutions will have their say in the control of those establishments. From the present day organisation of production for private profit, the aim will be changed to production for use, production of what is wanted and needed by the people. Work will become more interesting and more meaningful to millions as its results will go entirely into benefits for the people. As more goods are produced, so working hours will be shortened. Industry will have a completely different purpose under socialism, to serve the people. Priority will be given to improving working conditions, expanding the social services, education and the care for the sick, the aged and the young. The present enormous wastage by which the same goods are sold by different competing companies, which spend millions on advertising to convince you that their product is best, will be replaced by real variety in goods. Choice will be more real and less of an illusion.

Socialism will solve the problem of the poverty of the many by abolishing a system of society based upon the ownership of the means of production by the wealthy few; it will solve the problem of unemployment by abolishing the classes of employers and employed; it will solve the problems of competitive trade by abolishing trade. The wealth of the rich, their ownership and control of our means of life, this is the cause of poverty and unemployment. When world socialism is realised, classes and class inequalities will have been eliminated. The state and its instruments of repression will have ceased to exist; the class antagonisms that necessitated their existence will have ended. There will be no rich and no poor and all members of society will contribute to the common good.  The tremendous abundance of social wealth will allow for the application of the principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Each person will contribute to society according to his capacities, while society, in turn, provides for his needs. The differences between workers and farmers, town and country, and manual and intellectual work will have disappeared. Each individual will develop to his full potential. Life for the people will become secure, with the knowledge that there will be new freedoms added to those already won: the freedom to work; to have the proper facilities to bring up a family; to have equal opportunity with all other people in education, training and the like; the freedom to live in peace and friendship with other peoples; the freedom to develop one’s abilities and talents; the freedom to have holidays and leisure-time.  It will release the creative energies of the mass of the people, making it possible to build an industrial base that will be able to meet their needs in food, clothing, and shelter, and will open vast horizons of cultural and educational possibilities for millions. Mankind will be freed from worry about basic material needs as we know them today and will be able to meet new ones of which we as yet have no conception. Different classes will, in fact, cease to exist, as all people make their contribution to the productive life of society. The oppressive functions of the state as we know them will become redundant and will wither away as they fall out of use. What will remain will be only a democratic administration of production in the hands of the people. Men and women will be able to develop their own personality and talents to the full. With the harnessing of science and technology to industry, boring and repetitive work will be eliminated. Work for all will become as it is today for only a very small minority—interesting and satisfying. The essential difference between town and country will be ended, as housing, travel and cultural facilities become available to all people. The boundaries between mental and physical labour will be removed as all people receive the freedom and means by which to exercise their potential, their talents and abilities. But things do not stop there. There will never be a time when man has solved all problems and then sits down to live like a cabbage. What happens is that the problems change. They become more worthy of our time and attention. Life for all will be plentiful, secure, happy and interesting. Stop voting for the parties of want and destitution, stop and consider why social problems exist. The cause is in the organisation of capitalism itself. 

Edinburgh's rich live 21 years longer than the poor

People living in Edinburgh’s wealthiest areas can expect to live 21 years longer than those in its poorest. Poverty can take more than two decades off your life in Edinburgh.

 The life expectancies of men living in the impoverished areas of Greendykes and Niddrie Mains were compared with life expectancies of men from the up-market New Town. A man from Greendykes and Niddrie Mains can expect to live to the age of 63.6 years. In contrast, a man living in the more affluent area of New Town west could expect to live to 85.

People in deprived communities developed “multi-morbidity” – having more than one disease at a time – ten to 15 years earlier than the least deprived.

Professor Alison McCallum, Director of Public Health and Health Policy at NHS Lothian, said, "The figures illustrate the stark inequity in life expectancy and we will continue to work with our partner organisations to tackle the impact of these unjust differences in our society.”

A socialist future can work

The basic aim of all our activities in the Socialist Party is to help the working class to accomplish the task of establishing a socialist society. Socialism means freedom. Freedom from poverty, insecurity, exploitation, and war. It means the full flowering of individual, spirit, and initiative and a richer and happier life for every family. It will provide, for the first time, opportunities to develop the full potential of every human being. It will guarantee the conservation of our land, and a more secure. These goals can only be brought about by the socialist revolution. The noble aim of the Socialist Party is to abolish the right of one person to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour, bankers, landlords, and profiteers no longer exist and common ownership prevails. This is what makes the Socialist Party different from all others. Nowhere in the world has socialism been established. The system of exploitation for profits extended over the entire globe. There is only one class capable of overthrowing capitalism: the working class. Exploited by the relations of production under capitalism, the working class has a direct material interest in the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism, the system in which the working class owns and controls the means of production and collectively shares in the products of its labour. The working class, created by capitalism, is also the destroyer of capitalism.

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has inspired hundreds of millions. It has been the driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win? The effort to build a revolutionary movement capable of creating communism while still working under the powerful grip of capitalism is clearly no small or simple task.

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has inspired hundreds of millions. It has been the driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win? The effort to build a revolutionary movement capable of creating communism while still working under the powerful grip of capitalism is clearly no small or simple task. Despite false starts and setbacks, we remain convinced the working class will realise its revolutionary potential but no movement has yet been built primarily around making socialist ideas mass ideas.

Nationalism preaches to the people of a nation or national group that regardless of class they have more in common with one another than they do with the people of other nations. Nationalism helps bind the working class to the plutocracy and the oligarchs of its nation. The Socialist Party line is, "One world, one class.” In response to nationalism and to anti-immigration, we say, "No borders." We don't say, "Abolish some borders." We don't say, "Some of the workers of the world, unite." Our class has learned from bitter experience that there is no halfway or reform solution to nationalism. Our call is for all of the workers of the world to unite. There are no capitalist solutions. There are no "good" borders or bosses. There is no "good" nationalism. And there are no "good" reforms. We show that dividing the workers on national or ethnic race lines enables the bosses to rip-off, one group of workers, while robbing all workers. The workers must awake, and awake quickly, to the realisation that war with all its horrors is the product of the capitalist system. To conceal the true source of war, capitalist propagandists divide the nations into “aggressors” and “peace-lovers.” This is a lie. The people of every nation hate war, for they are its victims. They are plunged into war by the capitalist rulers, who alone profit from it.

By making the reforms primary priority our fellow-workers are neglecting the socialist idea of abolishing the wage system." We need to live in a society in which the labour of the working class enhances everybody, where there will be no profits for the bosses. There will be no bosses at all. Only the working class, which suffers the cruelties of capitalism in peace and war, can deal the death-blow to this foul system. The workers can rally the broadest masses to their liberating banner and can change the world. Having abolished capitalism, they can harness the productive forces and the wondrous discoveries of science to the service of human needs.  The release of new technology and computerisation opens up grand vistas for the development of human society. It holds the promise of eliminating all poverty and raising the living standards of all peoples to undreamed-of heights. Hazardous and unhealthy occupations can become things of the past. The drudgery and servitude of ugly and unnecessary toil can be ended. There can be leisure and comfort and cultural advancement for every man, woman, and child on earth. All on one condition – that capitalism, the strangler of human progress, is ended! In the meantime, the poor and the needy – the millions of them – drag out their drab and dismal lives.

Which Banner?

Today's nationalist march was being held using the slogan "All Under One Banner."

Members of the Socialist Party in Scotland remind our fellow-workers of Object 8 in our Declaration of Principles

"The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom."

Many Happy Returns, Charlie

Happy Birthday Charlie

Today is a special day: it’s Karl Marx’s 200th birthday. On the 5th of May, 1818, Marx was born. He chose to be an advocate for the working class and dedicated his life to their cause. What kind of force would arise if their individual powers were consolidated into a unified political movement?

Things appear more unstable and unpredictable than ever before. The truth is that we are all victims of capitalism and our destiny is to confront and change the socio-economic forces that cause our modern epidemics of social ills. The profit-driven economic system -  capitalism - is not working for us and we should create another economic system that puts the people first.

Day after day, year after year, even generation after generation workers, forced to work under alienating conditions for the money they increasingly need just to survive, workers surely fit Marx’s idea of a proletarian “class in-itself,” having experienced the wage-slavery of capitalism but many socialists and scholars have expressed frustration about workers’ continued failure to become a “class for-themselves.”  How on earth can the scenes Marx portrayed in Capital still remain unchanged after more than a century? They strike only for narrow economic grievances related to their specific workplace and rarely assert a broader class-based perspective. In this sense, it may seem that the prospect of a Marx-inspired movement is nowhere to be found. But regardless the ideas of Marx are still alive, providing many workers with a sense of purpose and direction. Despite years of neglect and distortion, socialist ideas still arise and are discovered by workers when false narratives do not explain realities of everyday life. Theories that do not fit people’s lived experiences are unlikely to hold for long.

Capitalism exploits all the resources. They treat humans as resources, they treat the flora and fauna as resources. Everything is just a resource to be exploited by capitalism for the capitalists. The big corporations and their owners are ]killing this living planet. The ruling class doesn’t have sleepless nights worrying about its workers or the world around them. The same people who own everything on the stock exchange own the media that tells the people what to believe and what to think. And the message is “Don't worry.” We’ve got to take on capitalism and its lies. We are socialists, disbelievers in private property, promoters of common ownership for the common good 

We must work together every day to build our collective cooperative future. The Socialist Party is committed to creating a different kind of world, a world where radical participatory democracy is how we make decisions and it is one where exploitation of our environment and the destruction of our climate is not the function of our economy. Throughout history, change has often seemed impossible. But once it comes, it seems like change was always inevitable.  The Socialist Party has always been the radical voice of the working class.

The Socialist Party Against Nationalism

So once again the Scottish separatists are parading with their Saltire and Lion Rampant flags, with those claymore communist left-wingers cheer-leading them on.

Members of the Socialist Party do not think that a sovereign independent Scotland is worth demonstrating for. We said it before, we say it again, and we will keep on saying it every time our fellow workers are exhorted to go down the nationalist dead-end.

We expect jingoist Tories to be flag-waving fools, rejoicing in the lunacy of nationalistic fervour, with parades of patriotic enthusiasm used as a means of whipping up workers' support for the pernicious belief that we, who do not own the nation's wealth, have an identity of interest with those who do. What particularly angers members of the Socialist Party is when self-styled Marxists endeavour to deodorise the stink of national chauvinism with the socialist vision. The Socialist Party continually accuses the Left who pay lip-service to the slogan “workers of the world unite” yet support the nationalism of the SNP.  The problems of workers in Scotland are the problems of wage-slaves everywhere and they will not be solved separately within a sovereign state from the rest of the working class.  For the worker in Scotland, there is but one hope. It is to join the world socialist movement and make common cause with the workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation: saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: “A plague on both your houses." For the true battle-cry of the working class is broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rallying cry is: “One World, One People”

“Independence" is a word used to stir up emotions. An "independent" Scotland will be no more independent than it is today. It will still have to conform to global economic pressures which govern how much food will be on the table of the average person.  And is this that most sane people are more worried about the necessities of life: putting food on the table, a roof over their head, and other far more important things than the constitutional status of the state they happen to live in. The capitalist system doesn’t play favourites based on national, ethnic, or cultural sovereignty. Investment and trade are based on making the best profits, not upon whatever nationality of politicians forms the government. The most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms in the City of London, Wall St or Shanghai. Even so, many locally-based businesses are indirectly tied into this economy as sub-contractors and the ever-deepening nexus of international linkages means they cannot escape economic crises emanating from elsewhere which impact upon the local economy. The limited leeway of governments to ameliorate such localised effects has been correspondingly reduced. Of course, the Scottish businessmen such as Brian Souter, who helps to fund the SNP, do so not because they want to end the Glasgow Effect and the dismal life expectancy but because he believes that Scotland’s rich can benefit. Freedom is not intended for the people of Scotland, but for Big Business to maximise returns.

It is time to reject the notion that there are Scottish problems which apply exclusively to Scottish workers and which can be solved by a "Parliament of our own.”  Instead of turning their eyes to Scandinavia as inspiration, the aspiration should be to set their sights on the poverty of our fellow-workers in Brixton, Birmingham, Bristol and Bradford and call for unity and solidarity, not separatism.

So today,, when thousands of workers are on the streets of Glasgow to demand Scottish independence the Socialist Party members in Scotland, say we are proud to be anti-patriotic. Our fellow-workers on this demonstration today for Scottish independence are wasting their time when they struggle to make some aspect of capitalism better, to make capitalism more acceptable. Capitalism is not a system that can be humanised or reformed into something better. It is a profit system subject to economic laws which can only work in one way: as a system of profit-making and accumulation of capital in the interest of a tiny minority of profit-takers. You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this won’t make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting people's needs under capitalism. If our rulers want to reform the machinery of capitalist government, that’s up to them. But spare us the pretence that nationalism is some great extension of democracy. It is not imperfections in the political decision-making process that’s the problem but the exchange economy and its profit system. And the answer is not sovereignty but socialism. Independence would be a purely political and a mere constitutional change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. 

Socialism, a “society organised as a conscious and planned association”, "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common," as Marx described it. Socialism will be a world-wide co-operative commonwealth, not parochial provincialism.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

JOIN THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

The capitalist system is incapable of maintaining improvements in the standards of living of the world’s workers. All around the world, capitalism threatens to plunge humanity once more into the catastrophic cycle of economic depression, environmental degradation fascism, and war. Only the world working class can lead humanity out of the historical impasse of capitalism, by making the world socialist revolution. To realise this necessity, the working class must be armed with a revolutionary class consciousness. Throughout history, the bosses have always tried to keep workers divided, unorganized and weak, in order to intensify their exploitation and thereby grab bigger profits. Despite relative gains for some workers, the rate of exploitation continues to increase. Each year, a larger share of production goes for profits, a smaller share for wages and other workers’ income. The capitalist class has never stopped–and will never stop–its efforts to destroy and weaken the workers' movement. Economic insecurity has become a way of life for millions of workers. Despite a long history of the struggle to improve conditions, reforms have not resulted in a decent, stable life for working people. Every gain has been continuously threatened, if only by a factory closure or relocation to another city or outsourcing to an entirely different country. As long as the ownership of land and industry is under control of the capitalist class, the economy is run solely for the maximum profit interest of the bosses, and their state power is used to protect their capitalist system. The political and class consciousness of workers can be increased only by exposing the capitalist control of the two-party system, and by developing the understanding through specific political exposures that the government, regardless of which party is in temporary control, is actually the political general staff of the ruling class.

When militant workers participate conceal or set aside their Socialist aims and principles, they commit a serious opportunist error. Either out of fear that their socialist views will isolate them, or that their revolutionary position will give a “kiss of death” to the immediate struggle, or out of a misconception that “socialism is not on the order of the day,” they reduce their activities to those of other reformists and thereby forget the very purpose of being revolutionaries. Seeing the immediate struggle as everything, they fail to raise the political, class and socialist understanding of workers. Instead, they tail after the bureaucrats so as to avoid being “too left.” They fail to expose the nature of the capitalist state and the reformist nature of simple trade unionism. They fear to fight for the truth, and, as a result, they eventually abandon all fundamental Marxist principles, Thus, out of fear of isolation, they abandon struggle entirely – and thereby become isolated. Socialist workers must be guided by the slogan, 'An injury to one is an injury to all.' We must advance labour solidarity in all battles against the capitalist class enemy, vigorously combat all manner of discrimination, practices that cause disunity. Unity of workers on a class struggle program must begin “down below,” that is, with the grassroots unity of workers in a department, a shop, a plant, or an industry.

Workers’ understanding must be developed so that they fight the bosses politically as well as economically; so that they learn that the strike is not only a powerful economic weapon but also a potent political weapon. Workers must also build toward independent political action. For as long as capitalism exists, there will be capitalist oppression. A socialist party as Marx and Engels pointed out disdains to conceal its aims, and openly advocates the necessity for a socialist revolution. It is necessary for socialists to use every opportunity to develop workers’ understanding that real economic security, freedom, and peace can be achieved only by a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into socialism. Success in this work of developing socialist consciousness among the masses can make unions more powerful instruments to win immediate gains, and the struggles of the workers in their unions will provide experience and schooling for the inevitable and ever-nearer fight to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. Capitalism must be defeated ideologically, politically and economically. Capitalism operates the only way it can operate, for the capitalists to run things for their own profit.

Capitalist politicians make pretty speeches about “war on poverty,” then spend more on more machines to take away more jobs. For the workers, new technology and automation mean insecurity. Traditional skilled and semi-skilled trades become useless in many cases. Workers are removed farther and farther from the commodities they produce; they have less and less reason to take pride in their work. In those factories made obsolete by new robots, employers intensify speed-up in an effort to compete. If they can, they cut wages and lengthen hours. Eventually, such factories modernise or have to be closed down. To-day's automated factory, operated by a small force of technical workers, is presented as a model of production. But such a factory brings in its huge profits only because somewhere else there are workers who are sweated and speeded and driven and have to be held down. Efforts to cope with new technology have benefited a few workers, but only a few, and have sometimes delayed mass firings for a time, but only for a time. Nothing can be accomplished by tricky deals with employers. The principal way to deal effectively and correctly with the problem is to fight to shorten working hours with no cut in daily or weekly pay. Unions have done it before and must do it again.  The necessity is a movement of millions of workers, in industrial action, uniting employed and unemployed, black and white, old and young, men and women, skilled and unskilled. Such a movement must seek the support of working people abroad, who need our help as we need theirs. We are fighting the same enemy; we must work together; we must help each other. It will not be easy. The capitalists and their governments will do everything they can do to preserve their profits and their privileges.

Labour-saving machines are not objectionable in themselves, for in the long run, they produce more goods for people to enjoy. What is objectionable is the way in which capitalism introduces new machines, their use to increase profits at the workers’ expense, to bring on unemployment and depression and hunger. In socialism, society will use new machines not to produce unemployment but to produce more goods in less working time. The labour power set free by mechanisation and automation will be used for more science, research, education, health measures and other social services, and to promote wider participation in cultural life and recreation. Thus, with socialism, the workers will get all the benefits of new technology. So our main job is to kick out the capitalists and establish socialism.

But that doesn’t mean we can just sit around and wait for socialism to arrive. We have to fight back now against what the capitalists try to do to us. A working class and a people that do not fight for its material needs, and for its dignity, will never achieve socialism and is in danger of being reduced to serfdom. We can fight back, successfully. We can’t make capitalism work like socialism, but we can limit some of the capitalist thievery. And in fighting back, we are organising for the most important fight of all: we are preparing to dump capitalism and establish socialism. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can be achieved in today’s world only by a socialist revolution. 

Fight for socialism! Fight to win!

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

The Finnish welfare and benefits agency that pioneered the use of baby boxes has challenged claims in Scotland that the temporary cribs can reduce infant mortality.

The agency, Kela, supported warnings by a leading expert on infant health, Dr. Peter Blair, that it was wrong to say that Finland’s scheme had been proven to prevent or reduce infant mortality. Blair said baby boxes should only be used for sleeping babies in an emergency or when no cot was available.

Sturgeon unveiled the baby box scheme two years ago saying they would cut infant mortality – a claim that has been repeated by other Scottish National party (SNP) leaders. The first minister, speaking at the height of the 2016 Scottish parliament elections, told her party’s conference in March that year: “This simple but powerful idea originated in Finland. It provides practical help for parents and has reduced infant mortality and improved child health.”  Charities and infant mortality experts had warned ministers those claims could not be substantiated, but ministers have continued to describe the boxes as a “safe sleeping space” for infants.

Kela told the Guardian it had never made that claim and there was no evidence to support it.

“We don’t want to promote the idea that there is evidence the baby box as such has decreased infant mortality in Finland or that Finland has made such claims. Rather, it has been the improving of our healthcare system of which the baby box is a part of, that our low infant mortality can be attributed to,” a Kela spokesperson said. “Empirical data on the effect of the maternity package on infant mortality does not exist.”

 The British Standards Institution disputing the Scottish government’s statements that its boxes met safety standards as cribs and cots. The BSI, the UK’s national product-safety standards body, said no such standards existed for cardboard baby boxes. The Scottish government responded by citing the safety certificates for the boxes. Those showed the cardboard used for the box was tested under toy safety legislation, and not under the safety standards for cribs and cots. Sturgeon said the boxes conformed to all the relevant safety standards, including for fire safety and mattress quality.

The UK arm of the UN children’s agency, Unicef, stated in November last year t said it had received a number of queries about whether baby boxes met the accreditation standards under its Baby Friendly initiative on infant healthcare. It cited the Scottish government scheme and said: “As yet, there is little evidence regarding the efficacy of such schemes and so it is not possible to state whether they offer benefits or harm to babies and their parents.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/03/finland-disputes-scotlands-baby-box-claims-after-expert-warning