Capitalism: The Unsustainable System

The most obvious fact facing the Socialist Party is that most workers are not socialists. Indeed most workers accept capitalism, believe it can’t be changed, and view socialists who want to change it as idealists or troublemakers. So how can this change?  Capitalist ideas seem to make sense because they reflect the world as we experience it.  They justify the current class divisions.  As Marx put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’. To use the language of an earlier time, something ‘ordained by God’. Or as the hymn says:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly,

And ordered their estate.

Capitalist society is founded on the profit motive – and therefore this is thought of as ‘natural’.  Enterprises are run for profit. If capitalist ideology didn’t dominate workers’ thinking in this way capitalism couldn’t survive at all. Workers’ ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by socialist propaganda. A socialist journal such as Socialist Standard can’t match the operations of the billionaire press. The spread of socialist ideas on a mass scale must have a material base; just as capitalist ideas dominate workers’ thinking because they reflect their daily experience, so the spread of socialist ideas will reflect changes in that daily experience. The ruling class controls and directs the formation and propagation of ideas. None of this means that the attempt by socialists to spread their ideas through newspapers, pamphlets and books is irrelevant or unnecessary. Workers do not have to be socialists before they engage in battles that challenge the ruling class – but their ability to win those battles is closely linked to their level of political consciousness. Mass strikes, workplace occupations, and demonstrations create conditions in which it is possible for socialist ideas to spread, but it is impossible for workers to improvise, suddenly and in the heat of battle, a fully worked-out socialist understanding of the world. The socialist ideas have to be there, ready to inform those struggles, to articulate and generalise from these new experiences, and ready to prove their practical relevance by pointing to the way forward.

 

Capital is interested in production for profit, labour in production for use. Capital is based upon a constantly increasing exploitation of labour, in order to maintain its profit; labour constantly resists this exploitation. There is and can be no such thing as a “legitimate profit,” inasmuch as all profit is derived from paying workers less than the value they add to the product. There is and can be no such thing as a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” inasmuch as wages are the payment for only one part of the day’s work, the other part of which the worker is compelled to contribute to the employer in the form of surplus-value, or profit. Capital always seeks to intensify the exploitation of labor by reducing wages, increasing the work-day, or speeding-up production, or by all three at once; and labor always seeks to raise its wage and working standards. Capital always seeks to increase its profits, which can be done only by exploiting labour; labour always seeks to resist exploitation, which can be done only at the expense of profits. These are fundamental economic facts. Under capitalism, nothing that all the capitalists or all the workers can do is wipe out these facts. The capitalists, of course, hammer into the heads of the workers, from childhood on, that the laws of God and Man and Nature entitle them to a profit, especially a “legitimate” profit.

The class struggle is a political struggle. It cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The workers need a party of their own. The first great step is breaking from the capitalist parties and capitalist politics, and toward independent working-class political action. A political party that does not proclaim its intention of capturing state power, overthrowing capitalism an is establishing a new society, is not worthy of the name, socialist. When the power of the capitalists is left intact and there is no fundamental change, the position of the people is not sufficiently improved or not improved at all, because no bold steps were taken to remove the causes of the social evils produced by capitalism. The hopes of the people are then disappointed. Their enthusiasm declined. Their hopes diminished.

Only in an entirely different society, where the people (the producers) own in common the tools they use in production (the factories, pits, depots and offices) will it be possible to plan democratically the rational use of labour and resources to satisfy the needs of the people. Production for use, not profit would be the basis of such a society, in other words, a socialist society. The Socialist Party came into existence to achieve such a society.  Its members are committed to helping transform crisis-ridden capitalism into socialism. To transform capitalism requires the understanding of the nature of the beast, what makes it tick, and how changes are brought about. Because our Party is based on Marxism — the science of social change — we are better able to understand the world we live in and how to change it. It is not an easy task, nor will it be achieved by a handful of dedicated socialists acting on their own. It will require the unity in struggle of the majority of our people in mass organisations of the working class. But to realize this aim of socialism, the Socialist Party must grow in numbers and influence, and the circulation of the Socialist Standard which puts forward the socialist case must be increased.

 We ask visitors to this blog who agree with its analysis and conclusions to seriously consider joining the Socialist Party and participate in creating a better world, fit for mankind to inhabit. 

The future is up to us all

It has taken many years, filled with bitter experience, to teach the working class that emancipation from capitalism is not to be won by apparently easy and simple means. That the socialist goal cannot be reached by relying on any one-sided method; either the exclusively parliamentary tactics of reformism, or the direct action of the syndicalists. This objective will only be achieved by the movement conducting a multi-sided struggle; a struggle on all fronts – the economic and political. The behaviour of Labour Party politicians in office, their complete subservience to the ruling class, soon unmasked the treachery of reformism. It revealed its futility. The mission of upholding human culture and rebuilding society on a basis of social justice to-day rests with the socialist movement. Society is ripe for the change from capitalism to socialism, so all sorts of groups are busy advertising their political panacea pills to cure the impending social ills.

The Left constantly refer the “dictatorship of the proletariat” but when Marx coined this phrase he had in view a democratically-elected body using coercive measures against an obstructive minority during a short transitional peril after a Revolution. Lenin perverted this clear meaning into the dictatorship of one proletarian party. In Russia party dictatorship narrowed down into the dictatorship first of the Executive Committee, then of the latter’s political bureau, finally of its general secretary – Stalin. Marx and Engels visualised socialism as the highest stage of human society, economically, socially, ethically and intellectually. Based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new and higher economic system was to be built up, raising production to a higher economic level, and ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. This socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

Socialism is a system of society in which all the members of the community democratically determine their conditions of life and their way of living.  In order to do so, we must own and control, in common, the machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production and the purposes are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society, there can be no question of the social control of the conditions of life.

Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. To become big the capitalist must first squeeze out his weaker competitors and add their capital to his – centralisation of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital. The first method is of no direct interest to the worker as it matters very little who the boss is. If the capitalists want to fight things out amongst themselves, it is their business. It is of little interest for another reason: it adds nothing to the productive powers of society; the national wealth does not grow as a result of it. In fact, all it leads to is the concentration of the same amount of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. We are interested mainly in the second form of capitalist growth: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. This is what affects the worker most directly. The source of accumulation is surplus value.

In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi.finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value). Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

Understanding The Socialist Party

The Socialist Party is not a party that says it represents everybody. We’re not a political party that stands up and preaches the idea of harmony between capitalists and the workers, because there can’t be harmony between the slaves and the slave-masters. There can’t be harmony between the exploited and the exploiters because the slave-master lives by exploiting the workers – the capitalist lives by exploiting, that’s his whole existence. And we live for the day when we can break those chains of exploitation. We are not a party of both the slave-master and the slave. We are a party of the wage-slave. We proudly and openly proclaim that. And more than that, we proudly and openly proclaim that our class which is now in wage slavery is going to break those chains. We are one mighty class that represents the majority. That is the spirit in which the Socialist Party was founded. The Socialist Party mission is revolutionary in character. Goals determine methods. The goal of social revolution being the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal.

There is anger stirring among the masses, particularly as their living standards implode. Yet at the same time, there is widespread despair. The media spreads the notion that capitalism is the only alternative. Every day is a struggle to survive – to try to live like people and not be driven down and forced to live like animals like they’re trying to make us live. This system, this capitalist system of wage-slavery, doesn’t allow us the choice of whether or not we are going to struggle. Everybody knows the fact that we have to struggle to get a job and once you get it, you’re driven even harder. People are driven by the whip of the capitalists trying to make more profit for themselves.  People feel the impact of the changing world on their daily lives and search for an answer to their problems. What is blocking the way to economic and social progress? The Socialist Party reply: The system of profit-making, the ownership and control of industry by the few for their own gain and not for the benefit of the people. The solution for the ills of present-day society is the social ownership of the industries and natural wealth and production for the common good, instead of profits for the few.

The Socialist Party is a worldwide movement. We are "patriotic" for our class, the working class. We hold that as workers we have no country. The flags and symbols have been seized by our employers. Today they mean naught to us but oppression and tyranny. As long as we quarrel among ourselves over differences of nationality we weaken our cause, we defeat our own purpose. The Socialist Party is open to all workers. Differences of colour and language are not obstacles to us. In our organisation, all are on the same footing. All are workers and as such their interests are the same. An injury to them is an injury to us all. No longer will wage-slaves be docile as in the past. No longer will they submit to unspeakable brutalities. They have gained a knowledge of the cardinal principle of solidarity, that is priceless. We need a socialist party unapologetically anti-capitalist, democratic in both its view of the future society as well as in the manner in which it operates. We need to proclaim the goal not to reform capitalism, but to eliminate it.

 We are going to do away with capitalism by taking possession of the land and the machinery of production. We don't intend to buy them, either. The capitalist class took them because it had the power to control the muscle and brain of the working class in industry. Organised, we, the working class, will have the power. With that power, we will take back that which has been stolen from us. The goal of the Socialist Party is to create a system where classes no longer exist, and the state withers away, where each will receive according to their needs and give according to their abilities. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with the Industrial Democracy, under which the necessaries for production are commonly owned and operated by and for the people. The Socialist Party at all times stands for a peaceful solution of the political, economic and social issues of our time. The power of the working people who recognise the need for social change and participate in carrying it through, the elected Parliament, is capable of securing peace, and of creating the conditions for the establishment of socialism.

Capitalism is the basic cause of war in modern times. It is capitalism which gives rise to the danger of a third world war.  Socialism puts an end to wars and the danger of Wars because under Socialism there are no capitalists who are interested in war profits and the conquest of new markets. and colonies. Socialist planned economy abolishes anarchy of the market and thereby puts an end to depressions and unemployment. The solution is to end the private ownership of the means of production and replace it with social ownership and production planned to meet the people’s needs, that is, socialism. Socialism ends the exploitation of man by man because it is through private ownership of the factories and workshops, mills and mines and land that the wealthy minority exploit the great mass of the people. Social ownership frees the energies of the people and productive forces for mighty economic, social and cultural advances by means of socialist planning.

The Socialist Party does not “worship the State” nor aims at domination of the individual by an all-powerful one-party State. The State “withers away” and society is in the hands of a co-operative system producing for the benefit of all. Our aim is to achieve socialism by peaceful means. Socialism can only be achieved through the working class. We seek to expand a political party that articulates a vision of socialism that is revolutionary and democratic. 

Princes and Princesses

Harry and Meghan became Earl and Countess of Dumbarton.

It is a town where a quarter of the children live in poverty.

This year, volunteers in the area will be handing out emergency food provisions, school uniforms, and holiday hunger bags during the summer break.

The Queen has already invested in the town through her offshore trusts in hire-purchase chain Brighthouse, who have a shop in the high street. It’s a wonderful place where Dumbarton people drowning in debt can get a £300 telly for £600.

At the wedding, American Bishop Michael Curry preached  the words of Martin Luther King, “When love is the way, poverty will become history” to a room full of royals and Hollywood millionaires. Not even Martin Luther King himself held the view that marriage was a simple panacea for society’s complex ills.

Just ask the people of Dumbarton.

In the name of humanity

Socialism is the taking, in the name of humanity, of all the wealth that exists on the planet. In the society of the future, socialism will be the enjoyment of all existing wealth, by all and according to the principle: From each according to abilities, to each according to needs.  People will use the planet, the machines, the factories, transportation and will serve everyone in common with them.  We want all the wealth to be taken directly by the people themselves and to be kept in their hands, and that the people themselves decide the best way to enjoy it, be it for production or consumption. In future socialism, production will be so abundant that there will be no need to ration consumption, or to demand from people more work than they are willing or able to give. Right now, we can imagine this immense growth in production through the new technologies and robotics. Future society will see the end of commercial competition, one of the fundamental principles of capitalist production, which has as its motto: Mors tua vita mea, your death is my life. The ruin of one makes the fortune of another. And this relentless fight happens from nation to nation, from region to region, from individual to individual, between workers as well as between capitalists. One industry prospers where another industry declines. A worker finds work where another has lost it.

This individualist principle of capitalist production, every person for oneself against all others, and everyone against everyone will be replaced by the true principle of human society: all for one and one for all.  Imagine how great will be the growth of production, when each of us, far from needing to fight against all the others, will be helped by them when we will have them not as enemies but as cooperators. If the collective work of ten people attains results absolutely impossible for one person alone, how great will be the results obtained by the large-scale cooperation of all men and women who, today, work against each other?

The development automation and cybernetics, these powerful helpers of work, as large as it seems to us today, is quite minimal in comparison to what it will be in socialism. Today, the technology often has the ignorance of the capitalist against it, but more often still his interest. How many machines and inventions are going without being applied only because they do not bring an immediate benefit to the capitalist?  So many discoveries, so many applications of science go unheeded, only because they do not bring enough profit to the capitalist!

Technology is today the enemy of people, and rightfully so, because they are to workers the Frankenstein monster that comes to starve them, to degrade them, to torture them, to crush them. And what immense benefits it would be, if on the contrary, it augmented their labour and we are no longer enslaved by the machine; on the contrary, they would be at our service, helping us and working for our well-being.

Finally, it is necessary to take into account the huge savings that will be made on the three elements of work: the force, the instruments and the material, which are horribly wasted today, because they are used for the production of absolutely useless things when they are not harmful to humanity. How many workers, how much material, and how many tools are used today by the armies of the land, sea, and air to build all these arsenals of arms. How many of these forces are wasted to produce luxury objects that serve nothing but the needs of vanity and corruption! And when all this force, all these materials, all these resources are used for the production of objects that themselves will serve to produce, what a prodigious growth in production we will see.

We can let everyone take according to their will since there will be enough for everyone. We will no longer need to demand more work than anyone wants to give because there will always be enough products for tomorrow. And it’s thanks to this abundance that work will lose the dreadful character of enslavement, in leaving to it only the charm of a cultural and physical need, like that of studying and living in harmony with nature. Socialism is not only possible; it is a necessity.

Some on the Left support the individual attribution of products by worker-owned cooperatives. If we preserve the individual appropriation of products of work, we will find ourselves witnessing an accumulation of greater or lesser wealth, according to more or less to merit, or rather, to the skill, of individuals. Equality would thus have disappeared because those who had managed to accumulate more wealth would already have been thus elevated above the level of the others. But the individual attribution of products would re-establish not only inequality among men but also inequality among different forms of work. We would almost immediately see the reappearance of “clean” and “dirty” work, of “noble” and “ignoble” work: the former would be done by the rich, the latter would be the assignment of the poor. So it would no longer be calling and taste that led a person to dedicate oneself to one type of activity as opposed to another: it would be self-interest, the hope of gaining more in a certain profession. In this way, laziness and diligence, merit and lack of merit, good and bad, vice and virtue, and, by consequence, “reward” on one hand and “punishment” on the other, the law, the judge, the henchman, the prison, would all reappear.

With collective work, that imposes upon us the necessity of large-scale production and large-scale implementation of machines, with this ever-growing tendency of modern work to serve itself of the work of preceding generations – how will we be able to determine which parts of the product belong to whom? It’s absolutely impossible, and our adversaries themselves know this so well that they end up saying “Well, we will use as a basis for distribution the hours spent working,” but, at the same time, they themselves admit that this would be unjust, because three hours of work from Peter might produce as much as five hours of work from Paul. We call ourselves socialists because this was the word that distinguished us from individualists.

The Socialist Party unmasks these Leftists who would like to limit the range of revolutionary thought.

Nationalism is no solution

Various little bands of quasi-socialists in a patriotic effort try to persuade the working class that Scottish independence would mark a step forward towards its own liberation, a step towards socialism. Nothing could be further from the truth. With the conditions that prevail today, the independence of Scotland would not mean a step forward towards socialism. it would be a step backward. The people who parade behind the banner of “Scottish sovereignty and socialism” catch the attention of Scotland's workers by perpetuating a number of falsehoods.  lf Scotland gains its constitutional sovereignty, it will not be independent. The reason is quite simple: it goes against the interests of the native capitalists.  the unity of capital and commerce goes from sea to shining sea, for the good of all of the capitalist class. The SNP is a capitalist party. It works on behalf of the capitalists. The difference between the SNP and the other capitalist parties is not that it is calling for a different social system. What’s different is that they are looking for a new sharing of powers. The sharing will just be between groups of capitalists. Keep it in the family. But that’s not fair, the supporters of left-wing independence and socialism declare. “What we want is real independence. What we want is freedom from imperialist domination.” Our left-nationalists should stop playing with words.

Working class unity is a must right now if effective resistance is to be mounted to the crisis measures imposed by the capitalists. Unity is necessary to stand up against all the austerity attacks upon our fellow workers across all the borders. Unity is the key to putting an end to capitalism.  The working class faces a powerful and aggressive enemy which is solidly united despite the real contradictions within its ranks. The people are not going to win by dividing themselves along national lines. Those political activists who dress up as socialists in order to push nationalism in the working class are the objective allies of the capitalists. The “left” nationalists would have us believe that the welfare demands of the people can only be met through independence. Thus, they claim, the task is to transform bourgeois home-rule into a socialist independence. In reality, they find themselves in the camp of those promoting division of the working class.

Supporting Scottish independence in the name of socialism is a monumental hoax.  It is the same pattern of thinking which leads some to preach nationalisation as the cure for all our ills. It is up to the working class to show it will not be duped by political nonsense and deceitful rhetoric. 

In Harmony with the Planet

People often wonder about the environmental movement and its inability to effect a discernible change upon the devastation done to the environment due to the corporate pursuit of profit. Centuries of Christian ideology and the capitalist mindset have convinced us that humankind is above nature and that nature's needs must accede to the needs of the dominant life-form on Earth. Now, we are collectively paying for this, as the environment continues to decline, and cancer-causing chemicals invade our water and poisonous pesticides are introduced into our food. Not to mention the nuclear waste that piles up as industry refuses to find safer sources of energy due to the nature of financial expense and the harmful genetic engineering that threatens to create new organisms that are not an accepted part of nature.

 Many high ecology advocates would exclaim that human civilisation itself is the cause of this destruction and that the Industrial Revolution and the enormous amounts of waste it produces are to blame. Some ecologists advocate that we must return to a more austere way of living, that the benefits of modern technology must be given up and we must all take voluntary vows of poverty to accommodate the needs of nature. In actuality, however, it is merely the capitalist mode of production that deserves the finger pointing, not the human race and its accompanying technology. One must understand the true nature of our economic laws to fully understand why the existence of the human race appears to be in opposition to the rest of nature. As socialists will correctly point out, it's not humanity that is the problem, but rather the way our current system of production for profit works. To do this, a brief recap of why production under capitalism occurs is in order.

Under capitalism, industry produces goods for the sole purpose of making a profit. Everything else takes a back seat to this profit motive. The spectre of financial expense hangs over every endeavour. As a result, the most financially inexpensive methods of waste disposal will be used, as well as the most financially expedient means of controlling pests of crops. Thus, safer and less environmentally hazardous methods of energy production, such as solar and wind, are set aside in favour of financially "cheaper" but non-renewable fossil fuels. Destructive and environmentally dangerous methods such as nuclear power are used in place of other sources that may be far safer, because the development of these safer sources would be more expensive from a "financial" standpoint (actually, under socialism, it's quite possible that nuclear power would be used in a safer and more responsible way than under capitalism). To compound the problem is the fact that the vast majority of the people in a capitalist world, the working class, do not make production decisions. These are made by the capitalist class, and these decisions are made solely towards the goal of increasing corporate profits. These firms are each in vicious competition with each other, and they must outperform other businesses on the market or fold. Thus, safer but costly methods of waste disposal and safer energy sources, all of which are currently technologically possible, are too financially expensive to utilize. Hence, the needs of the corporate hierarchy come before the needs of the working class and the biosphere itself. Attempts by regulatory bodies of the capitalist government to control these abuses amount to almost nothing, since the capitalists are the ones who ultimately fund the nests of the politicians. As a result of the above, safe environmental measures aren't enforced.

Even worse, the working class is blackmailed into choosing between jobs or the environment, i.e., they are told that in order to bear the costs of implementing expensive safety measures for the safe disposal of waste, downsizing on jobs must occur. Faced with this Catch-22 situation, and being dependent upon the capitalist class for their wages, the working class usually decides to keep their jobs and pray that the resulting environmental damage won't destroy human life on the planet during their lifetime, or cause horrific outbreaks of cancer and other diseases on the next generation. We can only hope that things do not get too bad in the next few decades, and that the planet Earth will continue to be able to sustain us. Never is capitalism blamed for the problem. Instead, we are told that the causes are unknown, that they are an unavoidable fact of living in an industrialised world, or that humankind is naturally "evil" and that our dominance of the Earth is to be expected and even encouraged for metaphysical reasons.
In a socialist world, these problems would be entirely avoided under the new world economic order. Without profit as the determining factor of production, and since society and all of its industries would be based on cooperation and not competition, different industrial facilities would not be engaged in a mad competiton to outdo each other. The concept of financial cost wouldn't exist; hence, any feasible method of containing waste would be enacted quickly and efficiently, with no need to worry about money. Also, since we would be collectively in control of the economy, rather then having the facilities privately owned and controlled, it would be easy for the working class to vote for technology and research to find safer methods of energy production. No longer would the human race be at odds with nature. We also wouldn't have to give up the benefits of advanced technology. Further, because we would not have an advertising market, we would not be constantly told that we need huge amounts of useless gimmicks and wasteful junk, nor would be compelled to purchase huge amounts of goods for the purpose of looking "wealthy" or to provide us with status symbols, since personal enrichment would no longer be a factor in the cultural mindset. All of the waste produced by capitalism, such as the plastic used to wrap items that are mostly only good for advertising, and the resulting garbage that it creates, would be eliminated. Thus, the high ecology advocates insistence on only "appropriate" technology being used would probably be fulfilled, for the most part.

Most importantly, production under socialism would be geared towards meeting the needs of everyone, including the collective need for a healthy environment and a peaceful co-existence with the other lifeforms on this planet, and not simply a privileged few's need to make a profit.

Hence, the existence of the human race and its industrial society is not inherently at odds with the environment; only the continued acceptance of a socio-economic system based on production for profit is.

From here
http://www.angelfire.com/co2/socialism/theenvironment.html

How to recognise socialism

Capitalism takes several forms, be it the pure, privatized version of the system which exists in the U.S., Japan, Germany, etc., or the state capitalism, or Leninism/Stalinism, that exists (or has existed) in Russia, China and in all the nations that falsely claim the mantle of "communism" or "socialism." The name "socialism" has also been claimed by the liberal form of capitalism that exists in Sweden, France and previously, in Great Britain.

 The bottom line is that socialism has been terribly misrepresented. If we are ever to move beyond the current social system that is killing us and rapidly leading to global chaos. We must understand what capitalism truly is, how we can organise against it and what the next form of society should take. That system should be the humane, class-free society. It should be pointed out that human beings lived in peaceful cooperation for hundreds of thousands of years before the first class-divided society, chattel slavery, appeared. The fact that this happened was one of necessity. Despite the equality of humanity's first economic system, often called primitive communism, it was an equality of poverty. Once material conditions advanced to the point where a small surplus was available to society, the concept of class divisions emerged. In that primitive world, society lacked the industrial capability of producing an abundance for everybody. Hence, the only way for society to advance was for class divisions to emerge. Now, however, thanks to modern technology of production, we will have an equality of abundance, and not an equality of poverty that once made class divisions necessary for our distant ancestors. Ruling classes no longer serve a useful purpose in society, such as advancing culture and science, that they did in the class-divided systems of the past when the primitive levels of production didn't allow human progress to occur any other way

The ruling class can maintain their despotic wealth and privilege, continue fighting their useless and bloody wars with the full support of the general public and continue to dominate the world economy with their ideas and interests. The cost to the working class, i.e., the vast majority of citizens of the world, is poverty, massive unemployment, a culture dominated by nihilism, despondency, crass materialism, avarice and selfishness, crime, violence, constant attacks on our basic civil rights, repressive laws, environmental devastation and the continued threat of a nuclear war. All this so a few individuals can live in luxury, while the rest of us do not.

Genuine socialism has NEVER been tried in any country. In fact, socialism is a system that will be worldwide and isn't intended to function in just one country. The principle of "socialism in one country" was expounded upon by the Russian dictator Josef Stalin in a self-serving attempt to convince the world that the country he ruled was indeed socialist. Furthermore, socialists firmly believe that socialism will be brought about by working class organisation, and by no other means. It will never be brought about by politicians, whose purpose is to control the working class on behalf of their capitalist masters, not to liberate the working class from oppression, or to meet the needs of the working class.  Diversity will be tolerated as never before, as no one will have the power to gain dominance for a particular group of individuals. No one will have economic control over anyone else, everyone will be free to choose a job that they are suited for and have the talent to perform well, and the media, as it's called today, will be completely free and in control of the public. This is the society of the future, and we have the technology to achieve it now. All we need is to organize to establish it, and this future is ours for the taking.

Genuine socialism is a socio-economic system in which all of the industries and services (stores, restaurants, hospitals, mines, farms, etc.) are socially owned, not privately owned, as in capitalism, or state-owned, as in Leninism/Stalinism (i.e., often referred to as "state capitalism" due to its extreme similarity to "pure" capitalism). The industries would serve the needs and wants of everyone, not just the profit interests of the few. In fact, production is carried out exclusively for the needs of everyone, and not for private profit. People will work to improve society and to produce what we need, not to personally enrich themselves or to make the "owner" of the industry rich. Under socialism, no money or system of currency would exist.

 Instead, people would work according to their abilities and take according to their needs. Society would be one of free access, where no items were held from those who need them due to lack of ability to pay. We would live in a truly free society, with no political state to control our actions, and none would be needed in a system without the material conditions that breed crime and violence, thus making it "necessary" to pass laws to control our behaviour. We would be free from want, with no poverty or unemployment. As a result, crime would virtually vanish altogether, and we will have a society that functions with far less friction than any previous system in existence. We would be free from the violent and disturbed individuals that are bred by a capitalist society, which fosters ruthless competition among people, both within and across nations, and which routinely creates such tragedies as school massacres. Education would be free to all, without having to put ourselves into massive debt. The very idea of "financial debt" wouldn't exist any more. We would still be allowed to have personal property, such as a decent home. Although we would still have vehicles, it has often been stated that we would no longer have a need for separate cars to the degree that we do today. Instead, superior forms of mass transportation would probably replace cars to a large extent. Because the profit motive would no longer exist, sufficient health care, food, education, and recreation would be given to all directly in exchange for their work. No longer would anyone be forced into debt, and no small class of individuals would control the economy and use it for their own personal enrichment. Socialism will be a worldwide system. An exact detailed and specific blueprint for how this future society will be run isn't advisable before the system is actually established and the people have the opportunity to vote on it. 

Socialism can and must be established before capitalism brings our world into a second Dark Age. Currently, the working class is not class conscious. the working class is miseducated into playing the capitalist class' game for it. In our education, we are taught to support the government, to believe that the politicians are looking out for our needs and that we live in a truly democratic society. We are taught this in the capitalist-controlled media, schools, television and other sources of information. Most people never even consider questioning such tactics...we simply believe the propaganda that we have been fed all of our lives, and never think to question it. We may dislike certain politicians and policies, we may hate the crime, poverty and environmental destruction that capitalism creates, but never do we actually blame capitalism itself or even consider capitalism as the problem. Always do we consider "solutions" to the problems within the framework of capitalism, and never do we oppose the politicians and the capitalist class that controls them.

We are encouraged to work our jobs, grind our noses and ignore the daily exploitation that we suffer. We believe that the capitalists are necessary for production, that at least some of them deserve their wealth, that they earned their vast wealth through "hard work" (that we've never seen them do) and that all the social evils of capitalism are "necessary" for a democratic society. We dismiss socialism out of hand as that thing that Russia used to have, never knowing that this is a lie crafted by the politicians so that we will never question the power that they and the capitalists hold over us. We have had the technological capability for socialism for about 120 years now, and socialists will always recognise the 20th century as the "wasted century," as capitalism endured throughout the entire hundred years.

We must recognise ourselves as members of the working class, regardless of our occupations, income or employment status. Anyone who must work for a living is a member of the working class. Anyone who owns enough property to live off of the labour of others, yet never needs to work themselves, is a member of the capitalist class. It's that simple. We must cast off social mythology that casts us into fictitious classes such as the "middle class."  We must recognise this fact and unite. We must form our own political party which will be organised solely on the basis of fighting for socialism. Not for reforms, not for "nationalisation" of the industries, but for genuine socialism only. In short, the socialist political party will present us with the revolutionary ballot. The Socialist Party will capture the state with the express purpose of dismantling it. The Socialist Party will then vote itself out of existence.


 Poverty, hunger, racism, sexism, environmental destruction, unemployment, rampant crime, and war will become things of the past. Education will be given to anyone who has the desire to learn, This new society will herald a Golden Age for humanity, and it is within our grasp as soon as we organise to establish it.

Socialists for World Socialism

Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland will "restart the debate" on Scottish independence, according to the media outlets.

Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country. Socialism will be one world-wide community without national boundaries, a united humanity, sharing a world of common interests, would also share world administration. This is the socialist alternative to the way that capitalism divides the planet into rival states and sets people against each other.

But this does not rule out local democracy. It is sometimes said that world administration would mean power of central control over local democracy. In fact, a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced, such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level.

"Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations." - Engels, 1847.

We are revolutionary

There is a considerable amount of confusion over what genuine socialism is. For decades, capitalist spokesmen, politicians, educators, and preachers have been telling us numerous falsehoods about this socio-economic system of the future. We have been told that it existed in the former Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, that it's been active in Sweden and Great Britain, that it's a dictatorship or that it means state control over the economy. Capitalist speakers have been spreading these lies because it's within their interests to promote the falsehoods so that the working class never understands or supports, en masse, a viable alternative to capitalism or any other system based on class rule and exploitation of labour. As a result, since it was first conceived in the early 19th century as the next step in social evolution after capitalism (just as capitalism replaced a previous economic system, feudalism) the tenets of socialism have been suppressed by the ruling class. No school textbooks, from elementary school to graduate school, accurately promote it, all spread one or more of the aforementioned falsehoods, and all attest that such a system is impossible and that capitalism is the pinnacle of socio-economic evolution

At this moment in history, it is understandable that the revolutionary movement for socialism is fragmented, yet in time perhaps, a new, far larger party of socialism will appear, whereupon all socialists will fight united for economic freedom. Unfortunately, that is not the case presently. Ultimately, it will be up to the vast majority of the people at the time to determine which policies will be utilized, such as how to bring about socialism, how to run the system after it's established and what method will be used to distribute the output to the workers. It must be left to the people to decide after, or perhaps just before, socialism is established as to how the society will be run, and all the genuine parties agree that it is not appropriate or desirable for a small party to decide on specific details of how to run the system without the consent of the vast majority, since socialism will be a complete democracy and not the nominal one we have under capitalism. The Socialist Party is adamant that no blueprint for running the future socialist society can be administered now. It must be done by the vast majority of the people at the time of the system's inception, and not by the socialist minority that exists today.  Many questions exist unanswered at this time, such as what family structure, sexual relations, popular culture, romance, and philosophy will be like under socialism.  We won't know these things until after the system becomes a reality. 

 The important question as to when socialism will come about is also unknown. At the present time, no large revolutionary movement or challenge to capitalism exists; the working class of the present time remains a sleeping giant with few signs of an awakening. Pro-capitalist advocates hang on to the belief that their beloved system of power and privilege for the few over the many, class rule, will somehow manage to cheat history and scientific advancement and continue for as long as the human race exists. We also do not know if the people will rise up before the planet's ecological collapse, or sometime after; if it doesn't rise up beforehand, then a system of industrial feudalism and the dawning of a second Dark Age may well be the result. If the working class turns to the capitalist government for a "solution" to the collapse of capitalism rather then finding one themselves, we can be rest assured that the government will do everything it can to preserve class rule and to initiate the preservation of the class privilege of its masters by any means necessary.

In fact, if capitalism were to collapse tomorrow, chaos would almost certainly be the result. At the present time the vast majority of the working classes of the world remain apathetic, distracted by the modern equivalent of "bread and circuses" (sports events, mindless television shows), involved with futile reform measures to make capitalism easier to live with or attacking one specific problem of capitalism rather than the system itself, overcome with cynicism against the human race, ignorant of a viable alternative to class rule, misinformed about the true nature of socialism and, ultimately, still loyal to capitalism. Thus, the relatively small number of socialists that now exist can only continue with their education and agitation, and hope that the vast majority of the working class becomes class-conscious and initiates an organised resistance to capitalism before yet another of capitalism comes about, so that we can hopefully avoid a worldwide despotic reign of terror if civilisation collapses before the eventual establishment of socialism.

The Socialist Party supports the establishment of an economic system that is not divided into two contending social classes; there would be no minority class that owns all the property involved with the production or distribution of the goods in society and which thereby forces the majority class to work for them in exchange for only a tiny fraction of the wealth, while the ruling class appropriates the lion's share for themselves simply because they own. The Leninist system utilised by the former Soviet Union and China (as well as Cuba) do not fit the criteria of a class-free society, as they too were/are divided into a tiny and very privileged ruling class that owns the industries and services, and a very large working class that does all of the labour in exchange for a very minuscule portion of the social wealth. No genuine socialist political party would support this system of "state capitalism", or refer to them as being socialist.

The Socialist Party advocates a system that functions without money; in other words, there would be no type of circulating means of currency which can be used to purchase the means of production and distribution and be used by individuals for their own personal enrichment, and thereby acquire a disproportionate amount of the wealth in society, as under capitalism. Once again, the Leninist countries operating under the guise of "communism" or "socialism" in the world today all possess circulating monetary currency necessary to acquire the goods and services, and which limits the amount of goods the people can obtain.

The Socialist Party insists that there will be no political government, a point to be emphasised. The Socialist Party does not favour the continuation of the State or believes that the State is anything other than an oppressive tool of a ruling class used to enforce class rule. All of the other parties claiming to be "socialist" endorse the continuation of the political state and foster the belief that the state can be goaded into administering society for the benefit of everyone. True socialists realise that the political state is not needed in a genuine socialist society, and agree that it only serves the interests of the ruling classes, and would not and cannot serve the interests of a classless society, and that the latter would be quite incapable of existing harmoniously alongside a coercive entity like a state. 

The Socialist Party recognises the modern reality of potential abundance which will take over the outmoded principle of artificial scarcity and promotes the concept of common, ownership of the industries and services, with no ruling or boss class as part of the equation. Such social ownership exists nowhere in the world today.

Musings From Our Past

Musings from our past . . .

The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson's classic text, takes the interested reader far in illuminating the brutal social upheavals emerging capitalism caused monopolizing economic and political power in its violent thirst putting money of its class before humanity's need.

V. The Sherwood Lads

“Luddism lingers in the popular mind as an uncouth, spontaneous affair of illiterate hand-workers, blindly resisting machinery. But machine breaking has a far longer history. The destruction of materials, looms, threshing machines, the flooding of pits or damage to pithead gear, or the robbing or firing of houses or property of unpopular employers – these, and other forms of violent direct action, were employed in the eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth, while 'rattening' was still endemic in parts of the Sheffield cutlery industry in the late 1860s. Such methods were sometimes aimed at machinery held to be obnoxious as such. More often they were a means of enforcing customary conditions, intimidating blacklegs, 'illegal' men, or masters, or were (often effective) ancillary means to strike or other 'trade union' action.” Although related to this tradition, the Luddite movement must be distinguished from it, first, by its high degree of organization, second, by the political context within which it flourished. These differences may be summed up in a single characteristic: while finding its origin in particular industrial grievances, Luddism was a quasi-insurrectionary movement, which continually trembled on the edge of ulterior revolutionary objectives. This is not to say that it was a wholly conscious revolutionary movement; on the other hand, it had a tendency towards becoming such a movement, and it is this tendency which is most often understated.”

The Making of the English Working Class in England, 1963.

https://uncomradelybehaviour.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/thompson-ep-the-making-of-the-english-working-class.pdf

Capitalism's Pressures? What We Can Say.

Like everyone else, socialists are shocked and saddened at the senseless slaughter that happened on Toronto's Yonge St. on April 23 and need not be described here.

Obviously, it was the behaviour of a very mentally ill person which we socialists can never condone. Nor can we condone a society which creates such pressure on individuals that cracks them to perform anti-social acts. We cannot argue that there will be no mentally ill people in a socialist society. What we can say is with the removal of the pressures capitalism places on us, it will be considerably less, and if someone is showing signs of mental sickness, they will quickly receive treatment. 

Until then, violent antisocial acts, which crapitalism engenders year in and year out, will undoubtedly continue with no end in sight until it ends.

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

Lothian Socialist Discussion (23/5)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is not the socialist "party" that Marx (or even our Declaration of Principles) envisages, ie the working class as a whole organised politically for socialism. That will come later. At the moment, the Socialist Party can be described as only a socialist propaganda or socialist education organisation and can't be anything else (and nor would it try to be, at the moment ). Possibly, we might be the embryo of the future mass "socialist party" but there's no guarantee that we will be (more likely just a contributing element.) But who cares? As long as such a party does eventually emerge. At some stage, for whatever reason, socialist consciousness will reach a "critical mass", at which point it will just snowball and carry people along with it. It may even come about without people actually giving it the label of socialism.

In 1904 the Socialist Party raised the banner for such a single, mass socialist party and proclaimed itself as the basis of such a party. Not only did the working class in general not "muster under its banner" but neither did all socialists. So although with a long history as a political party based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles we were left as a small propagandist group, but still committed to the tenets set out in our Declaration of Principles. But we have never been so arrogant as to claim that we're the only socialists and that anybody not in the SPGB is not a socialist. 

There are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups. That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism -- and of course, the opposite is the case too: they're opposed to what we propose. Nearly all the others who stand for a class-free, state-free, money-free, wageless society are anti-parliamentary (the old Socialist Labour Party being an exception). For the Socialist Party, using the existing historically-evolved mechanism of political democracy (the ballot box and parliament) is the best and safest way for a socialist-minded working class majority to get to socialism. For them, it's anathema. For the members of the Socialist Party, some of the alternatives they suggest (armed insurrection or a general strike) are anathema. We all present our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials.

Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership referendums are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. In rejecting these procedures what is being declared is that the working class should not organise itself democratically.

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessarily claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is all about understanding limitations and they will be subject to change when conditions change. The main purpose of the SPGB at the moment is to (a) argue for socialism, and (b) put up candidates to measure how many socialist voters there are. The SPGB doesn't go around creating myths of false hopes and false dawns at every walk-out or laying down of tools but will remind workers of the reality of the class struggle and its constraints within capitalism and as a party, unfortunately, suffers the negative consequence of this political honesty.

Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch writer on Marxism, writing in an American magazine, Modern Socialism, said: "The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working-class . . . Because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the workers". He qualified this statement. "If . . . persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day."

The Socialist Party position is that it was not parties as such that had failed, but the form all parties (except the SPGB) had taken as groups of persons seeking power above the worker. Because the establishment of socialism depends upon an understanding of the necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot vote for socialism as they do for reformist parties and then go home or go to work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its absurdity. The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its fellow parties, therefore, reject all comparison with other political parties. We do not ask for power; we help to educate the working-class itself into taking it.

Pannekoek wished workers' political parties to be “organs of the self-enlightenment of the working class by means of which the workers find their way to freedom”and “means of propaganda and enlightenment”.

Which is almost exactly the role and purpose hoped for by the Socialist Party of Great Britain's present members.

Lothian Socialist Discussion

Wednesday, 23 May 

 7:30pm - 9:00pm

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh,

17 West Montgomery Place,

Edinburgh EH7 5HA