Sowing the Seeds of Socialist Revolution

Too often in the past has the working-class placed its trust in leaders and reforms yet ultimately for the working-class there has been nothing but a return to wretchedness and the outlook of gloom and despair unless we learn the lesson of reliance upon no other class but our own and attain that class-consciousness with its appreciation of the universal solidarity of working-class interests that shall presently deliver us and with them the whole human family from the throes of slavery for evermore. The remedy, socialism, means, not high wages or low wages, but the abolition of the wages system. Socialism means the end of the employing class. There is a real class divide. It is us against them.

The capitalist economy does not exist to serve our needs, but instead, our needs are shaped to serve capitalism. We are all expected to make whatever sacrifices are required to help the economy – so we face cuts in pay and working conditions, damage to our environment, the cuts to social services because the economy ‘demands’ it. Everyone is a slave to the market economy. Today's economy is based on a very simple process – money is invested to generate more money. Bosses call it profit, politicians use the term economic growth. When money functions like this, it functions as capital. As capital increases (or the economy expands), this is called capital accumulation, and it's the driving force of the economy. Furthermore, for money to make more money, more and more things have to be exchangeable for money. Thus the tendency is for everything to become commodified. Money does not turn into more money by magic; capitalists are not alchemists! Rather in a commodified world, we all need something to sell in order to buy the things we need. Those of us with nothing to sell except our capacity to work have to sell this capacity to those who own the things we need to work; factories, offices, etc. But therefore the commodities we produce at work are not ours, they belong to our employers. Furthermore, we produce far more commodities and products as workers than the necessary products to maintain us as workers, due to long hours, productivity improvements etc. This difference between the wages we are paid and the value we create is how capital is accumulated. The function of a class analysis is to understand the tensions within capitalist society.  Since the employing-owning class is all but powerless in the face of ‘market forces,’ each needing to act in a way conducive to continued accumulation, they cannot act in the interests of workers, since any concessions they grant will aid their competitors on a national or international level. Thus the struggle between our needs and the needs of the capitalist economic system takes the form of a struggle between classes. When we say the economy doesn’t exist serve our needs and therefore we have to assert them against capital, we beg the question what a society that does exist to meet its own needs would look like. In other words, where does our vision of asserting our needs lead? Such a society, based on the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ is called socialism. Needs’ in ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ does not mean mere physiological needs as distinct from wants. Needs are self-determined, encompassing everything from the physiological to the psychological to the social, and everyone has an equal right to have their needs met. 

 Socialism has nothing to do with the former USSR or present-day Cuba or North Korea. These are capitalist societies with only one capitalist – the state. Socialism is a state-free society where our activity – and its products – no longer take the form of things to be bought and sold. Where activity is not done to earn a wage or turn a profit, but to meet human needs. It is also a democratic society, in a way far more profound than what ‘democracy’ means in its current sense. As there will be no division between owners (state or private) and workers with the means of production held in common, decisions can be made democratically among equals. As production is not for goods to be sold on the market, there are no market forces to pit different groups of workers against each other.  There will be only a self-managed, self-governing society which exists to meet the self-determined needs of its members. Production is socialised under our conscious control. Capitalism is a class relation, and class struggle is the only way to break out of it - by ultimately rejecting our condition as human resources and asserting ourselves as human beings. This can only be done with the abolition of social classes altogether. It’s not about saying class is more important than other things, but about understanding what capitalism is and where potential revolutionary subjectivity arises. It is not from oppression, but from alienation – the separation of producers from the product, of activity from the meaning and control of that activity. The working class are potentially revolutionary subjects because of our material position within capitalist society; we've nothing to lose but our chains.

Ends are made of means – some means get us closer to what we want, others make it more remote. As the Socialist Party, we do not spend much time dreaming of the future – our politics are very much oriented to the here and now by analysing present-day capitalism and its problems. Now it is true that having some idea of what a future society could look like can persuade others we’re not just idle dreamers who don't know what we're for. But a fully worked-out vision of the future is not a prerequisite for workers to struggle to advance their concrete material interests. To this end, we try to spread propaganda advocating socialist ideas which grow more tangible and more meaningful and our fellow-workers begin to feel their power to change the world and to imagine what that world may be like. Anti-capitalism is not workers managing the economy in place of capitalists but the abolition of ourselves as a class. Non-owning bosses such as in co-operatives taking the place of owning ones are not anti-capitalism. This is because capitalism is a mode of production not a mode of Therefore anti-capitalism has to go beyond opposition to those who manage it to opposition to the social relation as such ie the abolition of wage labour.

The Socialist Party has a vision of a class-free, state-free, non-market society without money, commodity production, and exchange guided by the maxim ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need.’ We believe that only certain means can create this end, and that these means therefore form a part of our vision, a vision that extends from the present to the future. We can make suggestions as to how such a society might work. But no blueprint, merely an exposition of possibility. We think it unlikely that would-be political ‘thinkers’ such as ourselves can anticipate all the details of a future society – no society has ever been designed in such a way in advance. Nevertheless, we can offer some broad guidelines and some speculation as to how it could work, the details will need to be filled in by the self-organisation of millions, whose collective genius far exceeds that of any individual.

We do place class analysis and the profit motive as central to our understanding of capitalism and how to abolish it. This is not a priori assertion, but an a posteriori one; that is one arising from rational, critical inquiry into the social phenomenon. So when we try to understand the persistence of starvation and malnutrition in a world of food surpluses we cannot but note the impact of export-led growth policies that see countries export grain to feed cattle to export to relatively affluent markets while the populations of the exporting countries go hungry. When we try and understand the world's unswerving course towards catastrophic climate change despite scientific consensus as to the causes and the severity of the consequences, we cannot but conclude that the capitalist imperative to 'grow or die' over-rides all else, perhaps even human life on earth. When we look at rising urbanisation and the global spread of shanty towns, for example, it cannot be understood without looking at the spread of capitalist social relations into the countryside, turning peasants into landless workers, many of whom are forced to migrate to the slums of the cities to scrape out a living. When we talk about capitalism and class struggle, we are not just talking about workplace disputes, but society as a whole, and the struggles that take place in society between the dispossessed and those who represent the interests of capital. 


Adapted from this debate
https://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism

Create a New Society

The notion that a socialist party simply needs to manage the media better is a nonsensical proposition. The capitalist media is not there to be won over, it can't just be "managed" into giving socialists a fair and balanced hearing. Journalists and TV current affairs presenters are subjected to a 'filtering' process as they rise up the career ladder. They are selected for positions of ever-increasing responsibility only if they have demonstrated to the media owners, higher management and their superiors that they can be trusted to say and do the 'right' things; even to think the 'right thoughts'. As Chomsky explained to Andrew Marr, then the young political editor of the Independent and now with the BBC:

'I'm sure you believe everything you're saying. But what I'm saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting.'

 You can't make concessions and compromise with interests who want nothing but your total destruction. We are required to make our own case for socialism with information and education the best way we can with our limited resources.

The Socialist Party does not say that the trends of capitalism cannot be hastened or slowed down by legislative measures, but he does emphatically declare that such modifications are slight and that the general problems of the system can neither be overcome nor circumvented by such methods. One thing can certainly be said of future developments—that, whatever they may bring, the workers will continue to get the worst of the bargain until they cease to be deluded by the red herring of reform, by attempts to patch up capitalism, and until they unite for the only programme that can solve their problems—the abolition of the whole rotten system itself and the establishment of socialism. Though there is abundant discontent, there is in actual fact a lack of class-consciousness and an abundance of the most confused thinking amongst the workers. This, to the Socialist Party, is lamentable— but understandable. Economic developments are producing conditions that make the case for socialism more strikingly clear than was possible in the past era of rampant individualism, and collectivist ideas of sorts are floating around and being discussed in the most unlikely circles. But in the building up of a sound and powerful party of socialists, for which The Socialist Party affords a nucleus, a very great amount of work remains to be done and must be done. If you are interested, fellow worker, study our principles. If you are convinced, join our ranks.

There is and can be, only one revolutionary measure and that is the dispossession of the capitalist class of their ownership and control of the means of production and distribution and the transfer of these to society as a whole. That act once accomplished, all the rest of the adjustments necessary after the abolition of capitalism will fall into line. But if that act is not accomplished then there can be no question of socialism. The basis of present-day society is the ownership of the means of living by the capitalists as a class. It is the class that holds the power; not a number of isolated individuals acting independently of one another. Capitalism survives as a system because it is organised. Many on the left-wing encourage the workers to fritter away their energies in sectional conflicts, thus reducing the ability of the workers to organise as a class for the establishment of a new system. The workers cannot gain possession of the factories by walking out of them, nor even by staying in, so long as the capitalist class controls the coercive forces of the State. The class struggle, therefore, necessarily assumes a political form. In the words of the declaration of principles of the Socialist Party: 

"The working class, must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that .this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.’’

The policy consistently advocated by the Socialist Party is the policy of those who understand their environment and adapt their efforts intelligently to it.  Nothing finally produces greater apathy than the expectation of the impossible; yet these are the characteristic attitudes prevalent on the Left, whose leaders have affected, in the past, such hearty contempt for patient study and organisation.  Sincerity without knowledge or intelligence is useless to any cause. 

A Better World Can Be Had

When the Socialist Party enters the electoral arena with candidates, it is not just a matter of another party muscling in on the time honoured game of fooling the workers. We do not treat the business as a sport, wishing our opponents good luck and congratulating the one who succeeds in collecting the most votes and a well-paid job with generous expenses and ample benefits. We do not indulge in hypocritical handshaking with our opponents or in the “good-luck-old-man, the-best-man-has-won” bunkum. We are in deadly earnest. Our opponents represent our class enemies and there can be no truce in the class struggle. We do not even canvass votes as do our opponents. In fact we urge workers to refrain from voting for us unless they understand our object and are prepared to work with us for its achievement. An election campaign, for us, is a means of propagating our ideas amongst the workers at a time when political interest is rife and it is a means of gauging the development of socialist ideas in the constituency contested. Further to that, of course, is the fact that, in contesting every possible election we are working towards the achievement of our object. Election campaigns that are successful in bringing more and more workers to an understanding and a desire for socialism are preparing the ground for an increasing number of campaigns in the future. Join with us in the only war worth fighting, in the only struggle worthy of working class effort, the struggle to end the system that deprives the workers of the fruits of their labour, the struggle so that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom. Instead of allowing ourselves to be the tools of the master-class; to be housed in hovels, bred, fed and buried cheaply, slaughtered on battle-fields, packed into factories or superseded by machines we must take control of the world's resources ourselves and use them for our own comfort and advantage. We urge fellow-workers to study the case of the Socialist Party and work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. There can be only one solution for working-class problems, the dispossession of the capitalist class and the institution of socialism by the working class. Our fellow-workers must  adopt the only possible solution, the abolition of private property and the establishment of a society where the needs of men and women will be the sole criterion for the production of goods and services. The remedy is for the workers to do a little thinking for themselves. For when the majority of workers have become socialists it will mean doom for the professional politician. For then the working class will have established a society which will no longer need politicians of any sort.

From the earliest days of working-class history, racial hatreds and national antagonisms have repeatedly been an obstacle to working-class solidarity and organisation. Capitalists and their agents know the value of keeping alive these antagonisms.  It would be difficult to find a capitalist class of any country which has not at some time or other stirred up its workers against those of another nation or race.  They know quite well that, whilst the workers remain divided racially and nationally, their own privileged position in society will remain secure. It is largely to divert the attention of the workers from a critical examination of the true cause of their poverty, from an examination of the capitalist system. Racial hatreds have been of great service to the capitalist classes of America. Both in Latin America and in the United States, the idea is carefully nurtured among “white" workers that the “black" is his enemy. Here we have the capitalists importing minorities to work in their concerns because they can force them to accept low wages, and then doing all in their power to rouse white against black so as to prevent them from joining forces. The same thing happened here last century. Irishmen were brought to England to work at cheap rates and then the capitalist played off the Irish and English Workers, one against the other. About this, Marx wrote in 1869: —

   "The English bourgeoisie has not only exploited Irish poverty in order to worsen the condition of the working class in England, by the forced transplantation of poor Irish peasants, but it has, moreover, divided the proletariat into hostile camps. . . . The average English worker hates the Irish as a competitor who lowers his wages and level of living. He feels national and religious antagonism towards him. . . . This antagonism between the proletarians of England is artificially cultivated and maintained by the bourgeoisie. It knows that in this antagonism lies the real secret of maintaining its power"

The fact that the agents of capitalism are able to stir up workers of one country against another is proof of the immaturity of the working class. It is a proof that up to now the workers are without a true understanding of their position in capitalist society. They are still ready to consider their own interests identical with those of their master class.

Be Realistic - Demand the Impossible

 There exists a perspective of the Marxian socialist political theory and strategy known as impossibilism.

Impossibilists may be characterised as presenting a political theory and strategy:

“that stresses the limited value of political, economic and social reforms within a capitalist economy…and that pursuing such reforms is counterproductive as they only strengthen support for the existing system…such reforms are irrelevant to the realisation of socialism and should not be a major concern for socialists.” (Wiki)

Impossibilists argue that socialists should be engaged in class struggle, in trades unions and elsewhere but that capitalism imposed limits to the gains for the working class that such activism could achieve. Whilst impossibilists are generally opposed to syndicalism (the idea that socialism can emerge from unions organised at industrial scale rather than by trade or workplace) they are not hostile to trades unions, the function of which is to raise workers’ wages as high as practically possible within capitalism. Impossibilists hold that the political struggle for socialism ought to aim beyond the immediate ‘guerilla war’ of the struggle for immediate demands within capitalism or risk being swallowed up by those struggles. They are not necessarily opposed to individual reforms within capitalism but to a strategy and definition of socialism defined by the reform of capitalism.

This approach remained unchanged during the turbulence of domestic and world history experienced during the twentieth century and has often infuriated and frustrated its friends as well as its opponents.  This it owes in part “to a certain political style which steers an unsteady course between uncompromising clarity and doctrinaire intolerance” (Non-Market Socialism in the Nineneenth and Twentieth Century) but also to a strategy that places its emphasis on persuasion and rational argument – to the development of socialist consciousness – and does not offer the immediate hopes (or jobs) of ‘practical’ political activism or single-issue campaign politics.

There is a caricature of impossibilism which its critics often wrongly draw, that of ‘voluntarism’ – that impossibilists pursue a strategy of conversion person by person until majority of 51% is reached when socialism can be established by the election of a majority of socialists to the legislature. Impossibilists do not seek to ‘convert’ people to its creed in the manner of a religious sect but to encourage members of the working class to draw on their experiences of class struggle and to build their political conclusions based on it. The ‘conversion’ is achieved not by socialists but by the dynamic social experience of class struggle. The political object of impossibilism is to clarify and give purpose to class consciousness that it might move beyond capitalism rather than work for change within it.

The term "impossibilist" emerged, of course, as a term of political abuse. Socialists who stood for the end of capitalism and no compromises along the way were seen to be demanding the impossible. Interestingly, before anyone ever used that word there was another term which was popular: possibilism. The so-called possibilists emerged in France in the early 1880s, and they were the reformists, tired of trying to bring about socialism and nothing less, who imagined that the best possible option would be to chip away at the edifice of capitalism bit-by-bit, reforming it until it looked like socialism. Over a century has passed since these undoubtedly sincere people embarked upon their futile course and everywhere reformist gradualism has ended in the most abject failure. Over a hundred years of demanding "the possible" or "something now" has landed the Labour Party no-where. So, if we who refuse to settle for anything less then real real socialists are impossibilists, perhaps it is time for our fellow workers to be rather more practical and demand "the impossible". We are advocates of the Social Revolution. No reform can bring any permanent economic benefit to the whole working class. Revolution tears an evil up by its roots; reform merely shifts it from one spot to another.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was not the artificial creation of a bunch of intellectuals flaunting some pre-determined, universal plan of action. The Socialist Party sprang into existence when a group of socialist workers decided to organise for socialism. Mistakes were made at first but these were never more than minor miscalculations since the Socialist Party refused to deviate from its principles and, above all, never kidded itself that numbers were an adequate compensation for compromise. Viewed against the wreckage of the Second, Third and so-called Fourth Internationals the programme of the Socialist Party has stood it in good stead. After all, we are the nucleus of the Final International - the one which will achieve socialism.

'For our demands are most moderate, We only want the earth'

Adapted from here

https://impossibilism.wordpress.com/about/

Portrait Of Working Life Some 170 Years Ago ...

"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it, but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of steam engine worked monotonously up and down like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next."   
Charles Dickens, Hard Times, 1854

Regular readers of our monthly report will have noticed that, so far, we have not provided a detailed analysis of the friction between the American and Canadian governments over NAFTA. This is because of lack of space. We have merely said it is a trade dispute between rival groups of capitalists and therefore the working class has no stake in the matter. For those who wish for a deeper analysis, there will be one in the upcoming edition of our journal ''Imagine''; don't forget to get a copy.

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

Are you with us or them?

The State is the governmental power that makes and enforces the laws and regulations of society. Since it developed it has always represented the social class that is dominating. The armed forces of this State were organised for the purpose of defending the interests and the social arrangements that suited the dominating social class.

Every rising social class has had to struggle for control of, or influence in, this State power in order to abolish or modify the existing political arrangements that hindered the further development of the rising class.

In present society, this holds true of the working class movement which seeks to overthrow the domination of the Capitalist class; a domination that keeps the working class in a subject position. The fact that most of the workers do not yet recognise the source of their subjection, or only vaguely do so, does not effect the question. Thus, before the workers can throw off this domination they must obtain control of the State power in order to take out of the hands of the dominating class the power that defends this domination.

Parliament is the centre of state power in modern “democracies” and the workers, who comprise the great majority of each nation, vote the representatives to these parliaments. Therefore, when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose. By doing so they will take out of the hands of the Capitalist class the control of the powers of government, including the armed forces.

Once the workers have obtained control of the governmental power what then? They will proceed to reorganise society on a Socialist basis. Now we come into the region of conjecture. While we hold the view that the overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of re-organisation (in other words that, while the workers will participate in the movement, and probably individual Capitalists, the Capitalists as a whole will realize that the game is up, as they have lost the power of effective resistance) we make allowance for a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary re-organisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with. While at full liberty to advocate a return to Capitalism, no violent minority could be allowed to obstruct the will of the majority. Hence the phrase in the 6th clause “in order that this machinery including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” There will be no suppression of speech, opinion, or peaceful organisation.

A revolutionary policy is one that recognises that since the capitalist system gives rise to, and perpetuates the problems of war, poverty, and insecurity; and that these and many other problems are inherent in the system itself, the only solution to these problems is the abolition of the system itself and replacement by another—a socialist one. Programmes of social reform cannot solve these problems; they only help to perpetuate the system that causes them. Therefore one would expect a "revolutionary” not to advocate, say, a national minimum wage, but the abolition of the wages system altogether.  Many claim to stand for socialism—sometime in the future. But what do they mean by socialism? Do they mean by socialism—or for that matter, communism—what Marx and Engels meant by socialism or communism? Socialism to Marx and Engels and socialism to the Socialist Party means a world-wide universal system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production. It will be a classless society, democratic throughout—a free society, where the coercive forces of the state will have disappeared, and where production will be solely in order to satisfy the needs of the people. When a socialist society "gets on its feet” the watchword will be: "From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her needs.” Socialism will have no need of the state apparatus. That the state will have “died out"; and that the state ownership of the land, farms and the factories is, in fact, State Capitalism.

Fellow workers, your masters take advantage of your hunger and nakedness to enlist you in their battalions. For what? To defend their property at home and abroad; to keep your fellow slaves in subjection. You own no property to defend; you have no freedom to conserve. It behooves you, therefore, whether inside or outside the army, to join the Socialist Party. The aim of the Socialist Party is to abolish the property conditions that give rise to wars; to institute a system wherein armies and navies become unnecessary and merely figure in the memories of a hated past.

Manipulating The Realities

Stats-Canada reported that in June 31,800 jobs were added to the economy, but the unemployment rate went up from 5.8 to 6 per cent.

Figures sometimes can be quiet deceiving, but they explained 76,000 job seekers came into the work force. So, even if 31,800 of that 76,000 got jobs, it would leave 44,200 without one. 

Many years ago the Minister for Labour said, ''the economy can't exist without a reserve army of unemployed,'' which within capitalism it cannot. It needs this ''reserve army'' to fill jobs when the economy is going through one of its periodic booms only to discard them when it has its inevitable slumps.

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

Our Message is Socialism

Workers feel powerless to deal with the important questions affecting their lives. So they ‘participate’ in politics only to the extent of investing some emotional energy by identifying with some personality whose victory will give them some vicarious satisfaction. The workers’ sense of powerlessness with respect to events also makes them unconcerned with policy issues concerned with proposals for reform. Middle-level bureaucrats, Op-Ed writers, intellectuals, and all species of ‘middle class’ reformers frequently advance proposals that are intended to solve, within the confine of capitalism, such problems as racial conflicts, decaying cities, unemployment, climate change and pollution, and foreign policy dilemmas. Such people often bemoan the lack of interest among workers for these proposals. Workers, through their experience, have developed a cynicism about such promises and they feel “let those who get paid for it worry about it”.

Outside the small strata of the decision-makers for capitalism, little serious attention is given to the stuff that is served up by the news media as the subject matter of politics. The frivolities and gossip that pass for political and social issues are discussed by a small number of those concerned, the masses apathetic; businesses keep on making profits that are quietly pocketed by the ruling capitalist class, and everyone continually faces the problems which the capitalist mode of production makes inevitable. From this perspective capitalism has not changed fundamentally in the past hundred-plus years—only the problems have gotten larger. War and environmental destruction now threaten to annihilate the human race. Political class consciousness, the conscious desire for socialism, is still all but non-existent. The world is quiet about socialism. Yet this discouraging scenario is deceptive. Beneath the surface, the forces that shape society are at work, ceaselessly changing the foundations. It is not merely that machinery improves, workers become more skilled and new commodities are marketed while capital accumulates. Mankind's ideas also change as their conditions of life change. Ideas about social conventions change — customary formal dress and bathing attire are trivial examples. Ideas about right and wrong change—the propriety of chattel slavery, birth control, and tobacco smoking are illustrations. However, so far these changes in ideas have stopped short of rejecting the assumptions of capitalist ideology. Before there can be a change in ideas basic to a society, there first must be a crisis of confidence in which the ability of accepted ideas to explain events is disbelieved. There is some evidence that the world is just starting to enter such a crisis of confidence. Everywhere there are signs of a growing uneasiness—an increasing realisation that something is deeply wrong. People are now having second thoughts.

Capitalism sees a shiny future of more consumer gadgets. This philosophy of more and more of the same is beginning to make people wonder if it will provide the answers. The truth of the matter is that however successful and secure capitalism looks at first glance, it is plagued with deep contradictions. These contradictions revolve around the inability of capitalism, despite its wealth, technology and power, to satisfy human needs. On one hand there is fabulous wealth, on the other hand, the most basic of human needs go unsatisfied. Scientists put a man on the moon but society cannot perform the simple task of giving a hungry person a full belly. The rate of infant mortality in the US is above that of far less advanced nations. The capitalist ‘utopia’ is becoming a hell of hatred, despair, and violence. This can no longer be ignored and so people, or at least some people, are beginning to lose confidence in the reasonableness of the system.

The inability of capitalism to solve its contradictions is slowly undermining people's confidence in its ideology; this is the first step. In the middle ages, feudalism began to crumble before developing capitalism when men became sceptical about the accuracy of its world-view. Don Quixote, the famous book ridiculing feudal values, marked the stage when feudal ideas were being rejected to prepare the way for capitalism. In a similar way, capitalist values are being first weakened, then disbelieved, and finally ridiculed. In the middle ages it was segments of the intellectuals, lower clergy, and tradesmen who first became disenchanted; today it is mainly segments of the youth. The Left has undertaken political action avowedly against the system; although, unfortunately, it does not understand the system well enough to take effective action against it. But beyond those observedly alienated from capitalist ideology, there are widespread misgivings among almost all. There is a growing crisis of confidence about capitalist ideology. This is not to say that all these doubts have led any significant numbers of people to explicitly reject capitalism and to become socialists. This is where we socialists come in. The great challenge of the times is in hastening the development of a socialist consciousness that is the prerequisite of socialism. We have accomplished no momentous things, nor do we expect to do so in the near future. We take heart with the thought that, although our numbers are insignificant, our ideas will triumph. The intellectual bankruptcy of capitalism— and its phoney ‘radical’ critics—assure our success. The Socialist Party is working always to keep the message of socialism to the fore.

Hares in Scotland

The mountain hare population of the moorlands in the eastern Scottish Highlands has plummeted by 99 per cent since the 1950s. From 1954 to 1999, hares on moorland sites decreased by almost 5 per cent every year, and the decline accelerated to 30 per cent per year between 1999 and 2017.

The increased decline in the past two decades coincided with a boost in hare culling by gamekeepers, with the intention of controlling the spread of ticks and protecting these fragile environments.

Duncan Orr Ewing, head of species and land management at the RSPB in Scotland, said: “We consider that large-scale population reduction culls are both illegal under EU law and unwarranted as a method for controlling grouse disease."

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/mountain-hare-uk-scotland-population-decline-1950s-moorland-grouse-wildlife-a8490721.html

Asked and Answered (1925)

1. Q. What is meant by political action? —
A. Political action is that action taken to use or control the institutions of government, local and national.

2 Q. Is Parliamentary action a phase of political action?—
A. Parliament is the central institution of national government, and action taken to use or control Parliament is, therefore, political action.

3. Q. Is the ballot the Marxian method of capturing the political state?—
A. As the central machine of the political state is Parliament and the ballot gives the workers an opportunity of electing a majority, the use of the ballot by a Socialist working class is the means under present conditions for the capture of the State. This policy is | based on Marx’s teachings and is in harmony with the necessities of the situation.

4. Q. Do we advocate political organisation to the exclusion of industrial organisation?—
A. No; our party manifesto points out that economic organisation is necessary under capitalism.

5. Q. Trade unions not being class conscious at present, would our party assist them in their struggles against the masters —
A. Yes. When they act for the workers’ welfare Socialists support their actions, but point out the limits of all trade union action. The function of Socialists being to make Socialists and assist to establish Socialism, the Socialist Party, therefore, points the lesson to all trade unionists that only Socialism can secure to the producer real and permanent improvement in his conditions. The work of a Socialist Party is to teach Socialism and organise those who agree with it.

Editorial Committee

No Longer A God-Fearing Country

Scots are becoming increasingly indifferent to religion, with the majority of young people describing themselves as not having any faith, according to new research. Scotland is now a nation where most people never pray and only attend church for weddings and funerals.

 Almost 70 per cent of Scots aged between 18 and 24 said they were not religious, while the figure for the nation as a whole is almost 60 per cent, a poll of more than 1,000 adults found.

51 per cent do not believe in an afterlife. Researchers also questioned people about detailed religious beliefs. In all cases, the majority of those questioned said they did not believe in concepts such as heaven, hell or a day of judgement. 68 per cent did not believe in hell, with a similar proportion stating they did not believe in divine miracles. Angels and evil spirits were also dismissed by 60 per cent and 65 per cent respectively.

53 per cent said they never prayed, while 60 per cent said they never attended church outside of weddings, funerals and other special occasions.

The study also uncovered significant regional variations in religious belief. The North East of Scotland contains the most non-religious people, at 66 per cent, while in Glasgow the majority was only 55 per cent. Glasgow also had the highest proportion of people who reported praying at least once a day (20 per cent), compared to just 11 per cent in the North East. Those from mid-Scotland and Fife were the least likely to attend church, with people from Glasgow most likely to attend at least once a week.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/poll-most-scots-never-pray-and-only-attend-church-on-special-occasions-1-4783663

We exist to spread socialist knowledge

The evils of modern society stand out for all to see but the remedy is far less obvious. To arrive at the conclusion that socialism is the real remedy involves study and investigation of the affairs of modern life.

Unfortunately, there are some workers who shun the duty of thinking out these “problems,” and they, therefore, fall a prey to what appears to be more plausible ideas. The danger exists that those workers who have been sickened by the compromise, confusion, and betrayal of the Labour and pseudo-Socialist left-wing parties may succumb to the ideas of other fake socialist parties to help them and advance their cause. Those who follow in the Left's footsteps and ramble in the reformist wilderness delay the time when they must inevitably come to see that the Socialist Party alone is sound, for its aims are revolutionary, its methods scientific, and its working democratic. With the materialist conception of history as his guide, the Socialist Party correctly grasps the relation which prevailing institutions bear to the slavery of the working class in contrast to the bewilderingly vague writings of the progressives on the Left. 

Loyalty to socialist principles and devotion to its aims will do far more to hasten the workers’ emancipation than the will-o'-the-wisp notions of the reformist Left. 

The State as we know it, arose as a part of the division of labour in early societies and carried on the administration of public affairs. The advent of private property in the means of producing wealth gradually influenced the form of the State until it became the instrument of the ruling class. The State has been the State of the chattel-slave owner, the State of the feudal nobility, and now it is the State of the industrial capitalist. It exists today because there is a class to be kept in subjection. When the present subject class become organised and seize political power, their supremacy will have sounded the death-knell of the State. The working class being the last class to achieve its freedom, its emancipation will end class distinctions: neither a dominant nor a subject class can exist when the ownership of the means of life is vested in the community. Tyranny presupposes power, but when the instruments of production are commonly owned, power to oppress can no longer exist. Further, when wealth is no longer privately owned there is no incentive to tyrannise. There are no clashing interests —the mainspring of tyranny. Socialists hold to the view that society is something more than a number of individuals—society is an organism. 

Consider the possibilities and needs of modern life. A great population covers the globe. These people need “food, clothing, and shelter” and a hundred and one other things that centuries of economic advance have accustomed them to and made part of their standard needs. How are these things to be supplied? What are the means at our disposal? To provide the things required the great machinery, etc., has to be used in accordance with the best and most productive methods. Association of the wealth producers is an imperative necessity of the future. This involves the organisation of industry, the division of labour, and the arrangement of processes in proper sequence. The distribution of wealth has to be organised, too, otherwise chaos and starvation ensue.

The Socialist Party does not advocate socialism as “the perfect system.” We seek but to adapt institutions and customs to the changes in the mode of producing wealth. We claim that subject to evolution, therefore, imperfect though it is, it is the best system possible in the circumstances that face us. The common ownership of wealth is decreed as the only alternative to private ownership, and the method of production conditions the method of control. Democratic control is the complement of communal ownership. Democracy, to the Socialist Party, does not only mean the counting of heads. It implies opening all the means of knowledge to the entire population; giving access to every source of information and advancement to all — thus ensuring, as far as is humanly possible, that the vote is the deliberate expression of the will of equals. And if all do not agree, then ample justification exists for acting on the decision of the majority in matters of social importance. There is no other way. The minority are ever free to try to change the opinions of the majority, but they must loyally abide by the supreme views in the meantime. Without this, all organisation is impossible, whether its ramifications extend to society or are extremely limited. It must be obvious that great populations cannot come together and discuss and arrange all matters in detail, but must delegate their authority to representatives. Though the “Referendum” is a serviceable method it must be supplemented by delegation when the occasion demands. Even the first two methods turn on majority rule in the last analysis.

Socialism is just as near or as far off as the industrial development and the political understanding of the working class will allow it to be. Notwithstanding the promises of the pioneers of the Left there has been no “hot-house” growth of socialist ideas—any more than there have been further progressive developments in Labour Party ideas.  The Socialist Party has propagated principles based on an understanding of the socialist teachings of Marx, Engels, and others who not only interpreted the world differently but showed the working class how to change it. The basic conditions of capitalism remain the same. However much the pedlars of vote-catching political slogans and election gimmicks try, they do not improve working-class understanding of socialism by their confusing jargon. With minds filled with capitalist ideas and bodies geared to the grind of capitalist economy, work is now all that matters to most people is the fact that they ‘live to work’ rather than work in order to live. The greater the acceptance of the status quo, the more stagnant the growth of socialism appears to be. Still, there is always a questioning of the value of the existing political parties and the industrial organisations. Self-styled ‘leftists’ still perpetuate the illusion that the salvation of the working class lies in Labour governments. Labourites oppose the socialist view that the emancipation of the working class lies in the abolition of the capitalist system. Socialists in all countries are faced with similar ‘intellectual’ opposition, our opponents adorning themselves with attractive political labels in order to suborn unsuspecting workers from socialist parties. The dissemination of socialist knowledge will help workers detect the political fakirs.

When the workers understand the need for socialism they can work for its achievement; while they submit to capitalism they will have to fight and die to defend it. Hence the pressing need for the dissemination of socialist ideas. It is a long and difficult task but the reward--“The World for the Workers”—is well worth it!

The In's And Outs Of Capitalism's Problems.

Doesn't it strike one as kind of nuts that on the US southern border thousands of people are trying to get in, whereas on its northern border thousands are trying to get out? 

You may say that it's on account of that madman Trump, which may be a good answer as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Trump couldn't do the things he does if capitalism wasn't undergoing a relatively bad time, which he is making worse. 

  Hitler and his thugs were able to do what they did, because of the effects of the Versailles treaty and the resentment it caused in Germany. McCarthy couldn't have destroyed so many peoples lives if there hadn't been such anti-Soviet feeling prevailing in the US. 

People make history from the conditions to hand. Positive actions can improve things a little, such as FDR's New Deal, which were suggested to him by Labour Secretary Frances Perkins, but far better still would be a society where the standard of living, war, the level of unemployment would not be dependent on the decisions of anyone.

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

Things are changing

 “We want no condescending saviours to rule us from a judgment hall.

The Socialist Party is a Marxian party. That is to say, we base our outlook on history and economics on the theoretical researches of Karl Marx. On the basis of Marxian economics, we have pointed out that there is no solution for booms and slumps as long as capitalism lasts. That booms and slumps are inevitable products of capitalism and will always be a part of it. We accept the fact that there is a class struggle in society—but that its solution lies in the hands of the workers to take political action for the establishment of socialism when they understood and want it. Consequently, we have put forward candidates in the parliamentary and local elections for the purpose of taking control out of the hands of our capitalist rulers in order to clear the way for the establishment of socialism. We hold that all people in the world, regardless of colour or nationality, are capable of understanding socialism and its implications. There is no fundamental difference in mental capacity of different groups of mankind, only differences in their stages of social development which has nothing to do with a difference in mental capacity. We have always insisted upon the capture of political power before any fundamental change in the social system can be achieved. Political power is the centre of the capitalist citadel, though the workers place this power in the capitalists’ hands at election times. But no fundamental change is possible until the majority understand and want it. We have also been opposed to reform policies and have kept unswervingly to the pursuit of socialism as our sole objective.

Just as capitalism has spread all over the world, bringing similar conditions of frustration, poverty, and insecurity to all peoples, so also the seeds of discontent and the yearning for something better has become a part of life everywhere. Unfortunately, this discontent takes wrong turnings and has led to riots and nationalist uprisings that, in the long run, have helped nobody but the ruling class of capitalists or budding capitalists. The solution is the same everywhere, for socialism is an international movement involving the workers of the world, whatever their colour. It is not possible to establish socialism in one country alone, in the midst of a wilderness of capitalism. Just as capitalism has spread, so have socialist ideas.  We, therefore, urge the workers of the world to unite in the world-wide socialist movement which has already begun, because socialism is the only solution to the social ills of mankind. Socialism is a system in which there will be no privileged class, as everything that is in and on the earth will be the common and equal possession of all mankind. Capitalism is not going to disappear of its own volition. Ours is the choice of being shaken by its shivers of fever for the whole of our lives or of using our brains and using successfully the only antidote, fraternal co-operation. Socialism!

Only then will mankind be able to live truly. Only then will it be no longer necessary for workers to have to beg for an opportunity to work and for men and women to be forced, after a life of labour and want, to have to drag themselves along to protest meetings in order to be able to keep some part of their standard of living. Peace and prosperity will then be truly secured as a matter of course. Man will step from the darkness of the jungle into the bright light of the landscape of culture.

On the contrary, we affirm that no political party, irrespective of its title or aspirations, can run a system BASED ON THE EXPLOITATION OF THE WORKING CLASS THROUGH THE WAGES-MONEY SYSTEM IN THE INTERESTS OF ALL. They have all put forward the ignorant assumption that they possess the policies and personnel to make a buying-and-selling system, a capitalist system, operate in the interests of ‘the people’.

The fact that it has not worked in the interest of the working class ANYWHERE, under ANY government or ANY political party, whether in the guise of ‘western democracy’ or ‘peoples' democracy’, bears eloquent testimony to their ignorance of the nature of capitalism.

Our role in the cocktail of politics is the political education of our fellow members of the working class to the end of achieving a mass understanding of why capitalism must always operate against us and why we must choose the Socialist alternative—a wage-free class-free society of production for use. With such understanding achieved, our purpose will not be to ‘take over the government’ but, rather, to gain, democratically, the use of its executive authority and, in concert with our fellow workers throughout the world, to banish such government—along with the system of class privilege that gave rise to it. Unlike our opponents we in the Socialist Party have no plans for running—or being run by— capitalism, separated, united, inside or outside the EU We have no urge for taking over the role of government, nor can we claim that, given the opportunity of ‘taking over the government’ we could administer capitalism fairly and in the interests of all. As socialists, knowing full well the nature of capitalism, knowing that that system cannot operate IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES in the interests of the working class, we feel safe in prophesying that our problems, the problems of the working class, will remain with us whatever the demarcations of capitalism’s market.

Cost Effective - For Capitalists - But Not For Workers.

 In his first day as Ontario's Premiere Doug Ford decreed that people under 24 would not get free prescription medications on OHIP. Now don't get the wrong idea folks the guy does have a heart. They can claim on their parents work plans if their parents are working and have a plan. If not, all is not yet lost. The out of pocket youngsters can apply for reimbursement from his government, but may not get it, may not get all of it and will have to wait a few months for what they do get. Fords explanation was we have to make OHIP ''cost effective'', which is the political chat for making a profit – profits squeezed further up by his government's canceling $100 million school repair fund first days of power. 

That guy's a dream – for capitalists – but no, not for the worker.

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

A Normal City Within Capitalism

Toronto, Ontario is Canada's most populated and, they say, prosperous city, but one which is up to its proverbial neck with problems. Crime is blatant and rampant almost on a par with Chicago of the 20's, with open gang warfare over the Narcotic trade. Refugees from the US are pouring into the city at such an alarming rate that Mayor John Tory has asked the Federal Government for financial help. It could certainly need the help as the city is billions in debt. The cost of living is one of the highest in the world.

All in all, a normal city within capitalism.

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