Fishy Denials

Scotland's No. 1 food export is fish-farmed Atlantic salmon.

Last year, almost $786 million worth of Scottish salmon was exported globally, with the United States as its largest market. The aquaculture industry, which already contributes $2.85 billion to the U.K. economy, has ambitious targets for growth. The Scottish Salmon Producers' Organization, the main industry group, aims to more than double production to as much as 400,000 tons by 2030.

That growth, however, comes with high costs for Scotland's environment according to a government report, which echoes the concerns of environmental and community groups. The report, part of an ongoing inquiry by the Scottish Parliament's Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, found that the country's farmed salmon sector is reaching a critical point in which "the status quo is not an option."

"If the current issues are not addressed," the report says, plans for expansion "may cause irrecoverable damage to the environment."

The link between Scotland's wild fish declines and the rise of salmon farms is one of the many points of contention between pro- and anti-fish farming interests.

On the one side are the aquaculture businesses, and the supporters of the 2,472 jobs that the sector brought to the Scottish Highlands in 2016. On the other side are wild fish advocates, environmental organizations, and coastal community groups concerned about the sector's environmental impacts.

Government reports lay out the environmental issues — as well as responses to them — such as sea lice infestations, disease outbreaks, fish escapes, feed sustainability, and biological and medical waste. Because Scottish salmon farms consist of large, open metal cages that sit above the seabed, everything that goes in or comes out also affects the marine ecologies surrounding them. The reports note that the issues in this year's review are not new; they were in fact highlighted in an earlier government inquiry from 2002 and, according to the new data, the sector has made little progress in addressing them since then. Instead, the salmon industry has continued to grow, with each new or expanded fish farm amplifying the negative impact on the environment. This year's reports conclude that the industry's ambitious growth targets fail to "take into account the capacity of the environment to farm that quantity of salmon."

Pro-aquaculture interests, such as the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organization(SSPO), the largest industry group,contend that "any potential impacts on wild fish are not understood, and the science is particularly lacking for Scotland." The SSPO says that many of the studies rely too heavily on data from Norway and Ireland, but "Scotland is different in many regards, for example, in its regulatory framework, farming environment, and scale of production."

For Dr. Richard Luxmoore, a conservation advisor for the nonprofit National Trust for Scotland, SSPO's questioning of the science is just "mental acrobatics" in an attempt to "highlight uncertainty and undermine the overwhelming evidence."

"It's the same species of fish in both places. Ireland is south of Scotland and Norway is north," says John Aitchison, a documentary filmmaker who led a successful community petition against a planned farm site in the Sound of Jura in western Scotland.

Aitchison continues, "And it's the same fish that go to the same places. All their life cycles are the same, so you could turn that question on its head and say, on what basis do you think this wouldn't apply to them if it's close to those two countries with oceans straddling Scotland?"

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/17/657539821/scotlands-2-billion-salmon-industry-is-thriving-but-at-what-cost

A Conscientious Objector's Letter

Postal worker Robert Climie had been a lifelong activist in the international peace movement before he was conscripted in 1916. A tribunal hearing initially backed his case, but a retired army officer pursued the matter and saw it overturned.

Like hundreds of other Scottish objectors, he was imprisoned at Wormwood Scrubs, before being moved to a labour camp by Loch Awe in Argyll and Bute to work on forestry. He wrote to his daughter Cathie for her first birthday, while at the camp.

The letter says: “The first year of your life … will in later years be known as one of the worst years in the History of the World.” It continues: “A most fearful war is raging. The World is just now divided into nations and the people of each nation believe themselves to be fighting on behalf of their own particular country. However, there are men and women who believe that all men and women are brothers and sisters. These people are known as Pacifists.”

University archivist Carole McCallum said: “When Robert Climie was put to work in the labour camp, he befriended a fellow pacifist called Sandy Stewart.

“The men stayed in touch, and Robert’s daughter Cathie went on to marry Sandy’s son – who she supported when he became a conscientious objector in the Second World War.

Actor Gary Lewis has now recited a letter Mr Climie wrote to his daughter Cathie for her first birthday, while at the camp. Mr Lewis said: “Men like Robert Climie were victimised and persecuted because of their stance, but it was a principled stance. It wasn’t that they were cowards – it was because of their very firm conviction that men should not fight.”

We are THE Socialist Party

The Socialist Party has capably demonstrated how socialism could end poverty, unemployment, and war by eliminating private ownership of the means of producing the things of life, competition, and the struggle for existence by the overwhelming majority of the population in this and all other countries. We have mercilessly exposed evils of capitalist society, its murderous exploitation of the workers, its utter hypocrisy in human relations, and the most evident feature of its class character: the impoverishment of the majority and the enrichment of a small class of capitalists. The necessity of building the movement for socialism requires the establishment of the art of socialist campaigning and agitation, to tell millions what socialism is, its relation and comparison to capitalism, and how it can be achieved. 

The importance of the Socialist Party is that it points a way out of this foul system. It not only shows why socialism is necessary but describes what it is and how it can be achieved. This is a  beginning. But it is not nearly enough. What has to be done, is to increase the spread of the message of socialism. To many, we have become naggers of the working class. The world is teeming with millions of able hands willing to build and operate new technology for the production of abundance. That the peoples of the world are today exchanging bombs and bullets instead of the good things of and for life, is not a necessity. It is the outcome of capitalism standing in the way of the peoples of the Earth. Only the working peoples of the world can end war.  For the peoples of the world to arrive at the longed-for destiny of humanity to produce the things of life in plenty, they must rid themselves of the motives of capitalist profits, saying that capitalism is their enemy. Humanity needs a socialist world. The profit-grubbing obstructionism by the capitalist class must be ended. The working people must take increasingly militant and revolutionary measures to oust the capitalists and establish working class power.

Capitalists are the most class-conscious people in the world. Despite their family squabbles over how to divide the wealth that is produced by labour and appropriated by capital, the capitalists all stand shoulder to shoulder when they sense any danger to their system of robbery. One thing finds all capitalists standing united, regardless of politics, race or creed. That is the defence of their “sacred” system of “private enterprise,” as they hypocritically call it or the system of capitalist exploitation, as socialists call it. All profits come from the exploitation of labour. It is no myth that there is plenty for all. More food can be raised today than we could, possibly eat. Yet people starve in the midst of plenty and food is dumped overboard in peacetime when people cannot buy for they may not have the jobs or the money. We have the resources, the technology, and the labour which has made comfort and leisure possible for all. Who will deny the great potentialities for good inherent in our advanced economy? The owners of production have at their disposal all these wonderful opportunities, but have they used them to end poverty, maintain security and a high standard of living and keep the peace? No, for they have flagrantly and wilfully mismanaged.  That the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is always true under capitalism. When the capitalists realize there is no profit in selling their goods, there are lay-offs and slashing of wages. Food is left to rot in the granaries and storage houses, and hungry people starve in the midst of plenty. The capitalist system won’t work, for the very root of capitalism is all wrong. It is based on a contradiction, namely, that the man who owns the tools of production (the capitalist) does not work them, and the man who works them (the worker) does not own them. 

The working people themselves should own and operate the industries cooperatively. This would end production for profit and the waste of competing corporations. There would be planned production for the first time, increasing the output of wealth so that there would be plenty for all. We have today more workers, more efficiency, more productivity, and more technology than ever before. We have more of all the means necessary to raise the standard of living, shorter hours and certainly full employment for every able-bodied person. Yet today the workers are now experiencing cutbacks,  lay-offs and under-employment. The kind of planned production we envisage would, for the first time, make possible an end to wars between nations.  The aim of the working class would be to end capitalism and all forms of exploitation everywhere. Its aim would be to create a socialist world.  
Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. It cannot plan on either a national or an international scale. It deprives the mass of the people of products. Socialism could plan better, provide the people with all necessities. 

In socialism, there would be no shortages or unemployment created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would own the means of production. And even more important, in a socialist world, that crowning and the most damnable instance of capitalist greed and inefficiency –  war – would be a thing of the past. Socialism could take the vast resources which are available and use them for constructive purposes. The inefficiency due to capitalist competition; the wars due to rivalry; the inefficiency and economic inequality due to the impossibility of constructive economic planning under capitalism – all would be things of the past. In their place could arise the new society of peace and plenty. That is why socialism is the burning need of the hour.

The Socialist Party has always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanaged the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reaped great profits while the masses of the people were deprived of a secure standard of living. We often prove this by demonstrating the tremendous capacities which the modern industrial machine has; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, ran the industrial machine for profits. 

Winter's Blues

The number of people who died in Scotland last winter hit a 18-year high, new statistics have revealed.

There were 23,137 deaths between December 2017 and March 2018, according to the National Records of Scotland - the highest figure since 1999/2000.

It also revealed that the seasonal increase in mortality - the number of "additional" deaths in winter - was 75% greater than in 2016/17.

The main underlying causes of the deaths were influenza and pneumonia.

Age Scotland's head of policy, Adam Stachura, said: "These figures are staggering and a real shock to the system. The large increase in deaths due to flu and pneumonia should be setting alarm bells ringing. We know that during winter months the homes of many older people are insufficiently heated, as a result of high fuel costs and poor heating systems, and can lead to a greater risk of ill health and even death."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-45876204

Class Conflict

There is no need for the food we eat. or the clothes we wear, or the houses we live in, to be restricted by the size of our pay. There is no need for the output of factories and farms to be restricted by having to make a profit. The productive resources are sufficient to make it possible to abolish buying and selling and thus money and to go over to free distribution of the things people need. The world's resources are not used to provide abundance because, being privately owned or taking the form of state and municipal capitalism, they are restricted by the limitations of production for sale at a profit. Modern technology cannot be used to serve human interests until the Earth, and all that is in and on it has become the common property of the whole of mankind.

Socialism will be a world community without frontiers. Based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production where goods will be produced, not for sale or profit, but solely for people to use. Within this framework, we can end once and for all the problems that are built-in to capitalism — the problems of housing, education, transport, health, pollution. racism and the others the orthodox parties and politicians are forever promising to solve. We can create a world of plenty where, as free men and women, we can co-operate to produce an abundance of wealth to which we can have free access according to our needs.

The only barrier to the immediate establishment of Socialism is that most of you, for various reasons, would not accept that it is really practical and prefer to keep capitalism in being in the vain hope that it can be made to serve human interests. Even though the politicians share the responsibility for keeping capitalism in being, it is no use you blaming their failures on dishonesty or incompetence since it is capitalism itself that sets the limits to what they can do. The national and local governments you elect have to work to a set of priorities which lay down, as we have shown, that profit must come before human need. We suggest you stand aside from the petty squabbles of rival leaders (which is about all conventional politics amount to) and realise that if this world is to be improved it can only be by the actions of ordinary people like yourselves. First, however, you must understand what socialism means and how it can be established.

Trying to reform capitalism in this way has proved time and again to be futile. Capitalism is a class society that can work only for those who live off rent, interest, and profit. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work in the interest of the other class in society (there is no middle class), those who have to work for an employer in order to live — the working class properly called. It is to you. our fellow wage and salary workers, that this statement is addressed since it is you who in the end are responsible for the continuance of capitalism and its problems.

Socialism is a society based on the common ownership by the population as a whole of the means of production (land, industry, transport, etc). It will be a money-free society because this means that what is produced is also commonly owned and so the question that arises is not that of selling it but how to distribute directly among those who already own it in common, i.e. the members of society.

Separate enterprises with their own accounts which they have to try to at least balance won’t exist, not just because money and what it reflects (capitalist economic value) won’t exist but because, all industry being commonly owned, wider considerations such as pleasant working conditions and not harming the environment, will be able to be taken into account. Individual productive units will of course have to keep records of the materials they use and try not to waste them, but these records will be kept in physical amounts (tonnes, kilowatt-hours, metres, labour time, etc) not money. Similarly, hospitals, schools, etc will be built and maintained out of the physical resources available to society. Calculation in socialism will be calculation in kind.

Why cannot capitalists provide plenty for all? Why is wealth piled up on one side and poverty on the other? Why are “boom” years followed by years of “depression”? Why are people pitted against other people,  class against class, nation against nation?

Because the very root of capitalism is wrong.
Because the basic idea of capitalism is unsound.
Because the foundation of capitalism is illogical.
Because the capitalist system is founded on a CONTRADICTION.

What is this contradiction?
It is the system in which the man who owns the tools of production does not work them and the people who work them does not own them.
This is the basic contradiction of capitalism.
The product no longer belongs to the producer – the worker. It belongs to the capitalist owner of the machinery. He sold it for the best price the market would pay. And he gave the worker the smallest wage he would work for.

The less the wage for the worker, the bigger the profit for the capitalist.
The bigger the wage for the worker, the less the profit for the capitalist.
The capitalist was interested in longer hours, speed-up, and low wages?
The worker was interested in shorter hours, easier work, and high wages.

Capitalism created a class of owners pitted against a class of workers – at war with each other – engaged in a CLASS STRUGGLE with each other.

The capitalist owner of industry has only one reason to run his factory – profit. Under capitalism, the needs of the people for various goods are not the PRIMARY purpose of production. The capitalist will just as soon make bombs as medicine.  All he asks is: “Which will pay more?” The fact that the millions of people depend upon industry for food, clothing, housing, furniture, transportation, communications, and amusement is of interest to the capitalist only as the “market” in which he can realise a profit. He is the dictator over his plant. He can run it or shut it down as he pleases. If there is profit in production he hires men, works overtime, night shifts. If profit falls off, he throws his workers into the street. His only god is the Almighty Dollar – the sacred word is, “Dividends.” That is why capitalism is more destructive than all the earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, cloudbursts, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions ever visited upon earth from the beginning of time.

Capitalism kills and cripples millions in its wars and civil wars, in hunger in industrial accidents and disease, in malnutrition and child labour, in poverty and crime. It destroys the wealth of society and wastes the labour potential of millions of idle hands. Capitalism pits worker against worker in bidding for a job. It pits capitalist against capitalist in fighting for profits. It pits workers against capitalist in a class struggle. It pits capitalist nation against capitalist nation in war. It pits producer against consumer, landlord against tenant, farmer against city dweller, white against black WHY? All in the mad race for a crust of bread, for survival, for security. In an age when plenty is possible for all.

It is the system of COMPETITION – It is the system of dog eat dog, of each one for oneself and the law of the jungle. And in the mad scramble of capitalism, the era of potential plenty is trampled afoot. Capitalism stands before us indicted as a system of criminal madness, dripping with blood. And the capitalist class stands before us as over-lords in control of a system heading towards destruction.

When a majority of us are equipped with socialist understanding, we can use our votes to win control of political power so that class property rights can be ended and the means of production belong to the community as a whole. If you agree with us. we invite you to join us. You would be protesting against capitalism and its parties. Please get in touch with us. We urgently need your help in convincing more and more of our fellow workers of the need to organise for world socialism, the society of abundance.

Chilling Words Indeed.

David Olive, the Toronto Star’s economic expert, wrote a pretty gloomy piece in the edition of Sept. 15. The fact that is ain’t a barrel of laughs is indicative of the fact that the apologists for crapitalism have given up trying to put a brave spin on things.

 Olive reviewed the last ten years since the financial meltdown and said, "There's still reason to worry”. 

Aw Gee! and here is poor silly me thinking capitalism had corrected all its problems.

 Perhaps the most disturbing thing Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky said were his words of warning for Canadians: ”The global financial system is intimately connected, like the neural networks of the brain. At all times the world’s 300 or so biggest banks, including Canada’s Big Six, have enormous short-term loans outstanding to each other. Which means that the failure of just one giant financial institution could bring them all down”. 

Chilling words indeed.

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

Socialism or apocalypse

Only a socialist world can give us peace and plenty. Look how the capitalist world totters on the brink of environmental destruction. For years capitalism has demonstrated its utter inability to make good its promises. The capitalist parties are as rotten and bankrupt as the system they uphold. They can maintain the system today only by piling additional burdens upon the people. For the future, they offer only more austerity, continued insecurity, and increasing conflict. The myriad evils of capitalism will disappear only with the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism. The Socialist party dedicates itself to move forward to socialism. The struggle for socialism will be an arduous one but only by wresting the power from the capitalists we can begin the task of building a new society that will do away with the anarchy of capitalism. Democratically-elected committees, councils, and communes of workers in every industry and district will manage the factories and public services. Freed from the fetters of production for profit, splendidly-equipped factories with robotics and automation will pour out their products without interruption: the productive forces will leap forward to provide almost undreamed of plenty. In the fight of the workers for power and socialism, they must gain strength and unity and weld together in solidarity.  We, in the Socialist Party, refuse to join the reformists in leading the workers into the camp of capitalism. Instead, we visualise a social system that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes. When we speak of the means of production becoming common ownership we mean that wealth which is necessary for the production of the necessities of the people, the industries, transportation, mines, and so on. We don’t the elimination of private property in personal effects. We speak of those things which are necessary for the production of the people’s needs. They shall be owned in common by all the people.

Then as classes are abolished, as exploitation is eliminated, as the conflict of class against class is eliminated, the very reason for the existence of a government begins to disappear. The State is primarily an instrument of repression of one class against another. As Engels expressed it, there will be a withering away of the government as a repressive force, as an armed force, and its replacement by purely administrative councils, whose duties will be to plan production, to supervise public works, and education, and things of this sort. The government over men and women will be replaced by the administration of things. 
There are plenty of liberals who give out phrases about reform. Socialists – real socialists – have a different job: to bring to the fore the necessity for a SOCIALIST world before man’s hopes of peace and security can be achieved. 

Throughout history, the bosses have always tried to keep workers divided, unorganized and weak, in order to intensify their exploitation and thereby grab bigger profits. Despite a bloody history of the struggle to organise and to improve conditions, reforms have not resulted in a decent, secure life for working people. Every gain is continuously threatened, if only by a plant shut-down or a re-location to another city or country.  The capitalists of today and their government will do everything they can do to preserve their profits and their privileges. As long as the ownership of land and industry is under control of the capitalist class, the economy is run solely for the maximum profit interest of the bosses, and their state power is used to protect their capitalist system. To revive trade union militancy, to end the policies of class collaboration, to defeat the anti-labor offensive of Big Business it is necessary to develop again throughout the labor movement the historical perspective of socialism. 

Revolutionary and militant workers must be guided by the slogan, 'An injury to one is an injury to all'. We must advance solidarity in all battles against the capitalist class enemy, vigorously combat all discrimination and disunity. Capitalists run things for their own profit.  That is the way capitalism operates, the only way it can operate. For the workers, automation means insecurity. Labor-saving machines are not objectionable in themselves, for in the long run, they produce more goods for people to enjoy. What is objectionable is the way in which capitalism introduces new machines, their use to increase profits at the workers’ expense, to produce worsened working conditions.  A socialist economy will use new technology, the robots, and automation, not to produce unemployment but to produce more goods in less working time setting free workers to concentrate more on science, research, education, health measures, and other social services, and to promote wider participation in cultural life and recreation. Thus, with socialism, the workers will get all the benefits of new technology.


 The main job of the Socialist Party is to kick out the capitalists and establish socialism. But that doesn’t mean we expect workers to just sit around and wait for socialism. We have to fight back now against what the capitalists try to do to us. A working class and a people that do not fight for its material needs, and for its dignity, will never get to socialism and is in danger of being reduced to bondage. We can’t make capitalism work like socialism, but we can limit some of the capitalist thievery. And in fighting back, we are organising for the most important fight of all: we are preparing to dump capitalism and establish socialism.

Workers of the World, unite! Fight for socialism! We will win! 

Solidarity

Thousands of women council workers across Glasgow plan to bring the city to a standstill this week in what is believed to be the biggest equal pay strike seen in the UK.

More than 8,000 workers, mostly women who have never been on a picket line, will take part in the two-day action that starts on Tuesday and will affect homecare, schools and nurseries, cleaning and catering services across the city.

The dispute stems from 2006, when a new job evaluation scheme was introduced by the then Labour-run council, with the aim of addressing gender pay inequality. Instead, say the women affected, it entrenched discrimination by paying female-dominated jobs such as catering and cleaning less than male-dominated jobs such as refuse collection, despite them being deemed of equal value, because of a complex system that penalised people working split-shifts and irregular hours.

The scheme also built in a three-year payment protection for men who lost out on bonuses, which was only last year ruled discriminatory by the court of session in Edinburgh. A 12-year battle has been fought through the tribunals and courts. Many hoped it would be expedited when, after decades of Labour control, the SNP won the council elections in May 2017 on a manifesto that promised to settle the claims.

Describing the negotiations that followed as a sham, the lawyer Stefan Cross, who represents 8,000 of the claimants, said the council had repeatedly refused to engage with any of the underlying legal issues or state its own position across nearly 12 months and 21 meetings, before ditching a timetable suggested by the claimants and stating it would provide them with an offer in December.

“It’s just not good enough. An offer should be the product of negotiations, not the start. The women themselves demanded a ballot for strike action after that because their employer was refusing to negotiate,” he said.

The ballot results were overwhelming: 99% of Unison members and 98% of GMB members were in favour of action.

Shona Thomson, a homecare worker for 18 years and also her GMB branch secretary, said it was patronising to suggest the women were being exploited by their unions. “It’s the cleaners, carers and caterers who pushed for the strike,” she said. “We’ve been shouting about it since last year, and the union listened to us. We’ve got to the end of our tether with it.” For Thomson, the spur for striking goes beyond the headline issue of equal pay. “Low-paid woman are always fearful about losing their jobs, but we realised that we’re worth more than this,” she said. “It’s not just about equal pay but the changes we’ve seen, the increased workload, pressure, split shifts. The majority of these women are over 45 and have been doing their jobs for 20 years. We’re not seen by the city but we keep the cogs turning, working behind the scenes. I love my job but I’ve come to realise that I’m a strong woman who can speak out and say, ‘this isn’t right’.”

GMB organiser Rhea Wolfson said the reason for council intransigence was obvious. She said: “We were negotiating with the same officials who were advising their Labour predecessors to continue litigation against us for years.”

IF ONLY THE BOSS WOULD CO-OPERATE?

In their issue of September 1, the Toronto Star included a 14 page Labour Day supplement. It contained 10 articles, 11 advertisements for various unions and 2 reprints of bills of Labour laws, all of which could be summed up in a sentence: ” If the capitalist class in Canada and Canadian governments at all levels would co-operate with the unions we would all be better off”. 

One would think the Ontario Federation of Labour, which financed it, and their members who contributed articles, are unaware there is such a thing as the class struggle and everyone being nice reasonable folk just won’t cut it. 

All the O.F.L. and unions anywhere can hope for, through their efforts is a temporary improvement in life under capitalism. 

We, Socialists, want a permanent improvement, which is the abolition of capitalism.

For socialism,

Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC

GLASGOW BRANCH (17TH OCTOBER)

7-30PM
Maryhill Community Central Halls,
304 Maryhill Road,
Glasgow G20 7YE

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always held that the essential principle upon which the political party of the working class must be based is the principle of the class struggle.

 The implication is that only the class-conscious may be admitted to membership in the organisation, since only those who are conscious of the working-class position in society can understand the class struggle, and only those who understand the class struggle can effectively engage on the political field.

It is from the workers that the Socialist Party draws its strength because it is the workers whose interests demand the change. Hence the Socialist Party addresses its appeal for members to the working class.

We know that personal contact is a most effective way of making our case known so we warmly welcome all visitors.

To the average person, a member of Glasgow Branch appears as a type of individual who suffers from feverish discontent—full of complaints, always grumbling. We will show, however, that this view is but one of the many illusions which cloud certain minds.

 A Socialist Party member possesses ambitions of a particular kind, which do not allow time for morbid reflections. He or she recognises that the battle goes to the strong, and while, therefore, healthily dissatisfied with modern conditions of existence, nevertheless enjoys contentment of mind in the knowledge that he or she is working for the only thing worthwhile; i.e., the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of socialism.

The only war we prepare for is class war

FOR SALE

Socialist ideas were born in early nineteenth-century Europe, under the harsh and brutalising conditions of the industrial revolution.  The era we live in today is an age of inhumanity.  The Socialist Party continue to hold the basic democratic socialist values of freedom, egalitarianism and the solidarity of mankind. Socialism can be called the society of the free and equal, and its democracy defined as the rule of the people. We cannot build a strong socialist movement until we overcome confusion in the minds of our fellow-workers about the real meaning of socialism.  

Its misrepresentation has been facilitated for the capitalists but aided to a considerable extent by those describing themselves as “socialists”. Many people who self-style themselves radicals have reconciled with capitalist society and come to the defence of capitalism as a lesser evil and the best that can be hoped for.  The progress  of the socialist movement will not be overcome unless and until we find a way to break down this misunderstanding and prejudice against socialism, and convince workers that we socialists are the most consistent advocates of democracy in all fields and that, in fact, we are completely devoted to the idea that socialism cannot be realised otherwise than by democracy.  socialism as a class-free society—with abundance, freedom, and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a supposed peoples' democracy workers’ state.

This restatement of basic aims and principles cannot wait; it is, in fact, the burning necessity of the hour. There is no room for misunderstanding among us as to what such a restatement of our position means and requires.  It requires a clean break with all the distortions of the real meaning of socialism and a return to the original formulations and definitions. Nothing short of this will do. 

The authentic socialist movement has been the most democratic movement in all history. The Communist Manifesto said:
 “All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority...The first step”, said the Manifesto, “in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” 

A socialist revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class. Forecasting the socialist future, the Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” Mark that: “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” 
Capitalism, under any kind of government, is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. Marxists have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have utilised them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether.  The Socialist Party in the past have used a shorthand definition of socialism as “industrial democracy,”  the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated.  

Today’s widespread illusions in the reform of capitalism solutions will in time give way to the realisation by the working class that they can only rely on their own power to defend their living conditions. Struggles against capitalist exploitation will arise in protests, strikes, and rebellions, and the class war will return with a fury. Those mass struggles will put on the agenda the only possible solution to capitalism’s descent toward barbarism: working-class revolutions that seize state power from the capitalists, overturn the system’s drive for profit and set about building a socialist world of abundance and freedom for all. The Socialist Party oppose any kind of support to capitalist parties no matter how “progressive” or “left-wing” they style themselves. They actually fail to offer any real challenge to capitalism.  It is a tragedy that the working class is confronted yet again and again by a choice between anti-working class parties with no revolutionary working-class alternative. Our goal is the creation of a  world party of socialist revolution which would not promote illusions in reforming the system.   

The only road is the socialist road

Capitalism is the system of production in which capital prevails. Capital essentially is the investment of money in the expectation of making a profit,  money that is invested in order to make more money. Capitalism is and was from the start, a global system but it has different institutional forms in different countries due to their specific historical and political circumstances. Marx did not believe that capitalism would end in some huge economic collapse. It would come to an end only when overthrown by the workers it exploited. It is the task of the Socialist Party to help create that consciousness rather than assume that socialism will come automatically.  As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, that system – capitalism – will continue to go from crisis to crisis, with increasing misery for the people. The bosses have a small army of economists and experts on their payroll, but all their schemes just add up to more exploitation for us.  

What the Socialist Party seeks is primarily a society where people are socially equal, have an equal say in how things are run, and feel, and are, part of a genuine community with a common interest, where equality, democracy, and community exist, arguing that this can only happen on the basis of the common ownership by all of the means for producing wealth. Socialism involves constructing an egalitarian system based on the values of solidarity and co-operation. Such a system is not incompatible with human nature and that it can be brought about by conscious human action.  We in the Socialist Party are convinced that a real socialist society is practicable and will actually solve the problems of mankind 

Is it possible to modify and reform the present system by eliminating its bad features? That is what many reformers have been trying to do for many years without the slightest success. The future is full of uncertainties. The fact is that all of us are compelled to work for some employer in order to make a living. Why should that be? There isn't a single one of us who would not prefer to work for ourselves or with our friends provided, of course, we could make a decent living without working too many hours. Why is it necessary for us to go to a factory belonging to someone else and ask to be employed? It is because we have no machinery and no raw materials. The man to whom we apply for a job has all those, and that is why we are compelled to seek employment from him. He, on the other hand, needs us because we have something without which his machinery and raw material would be valueless: we possess have the brain and the muscle the capacity to work, or in other words, the labour power to set production into motion and to transform the raw material into finished products ready to be sold. the employer is interested in only one thing: profits. The sole reason why any owner of a factory hires workers and produces goods is that he can make a profit by selling the goods that he produces and as soon as he is unable to make a profit he closes the factory and the workers are dismissed. Since the capitalists are in business because they want to make a profit and not because they are charitable people, and since the lower the wages, the higher the profits, it is only natural for the employers to pay as low a wage as they can possibly get away with. Should anyone capitalist be so different as to pay high wages, he would soon find himself in bankruptcy because his business would be taken away by his competitors. The desire for profits plus the keen competition between the capitalists guarantees the lowest possible wage to the workers, as long as the workers do not starve to death and leave the capitalists without anyone to do the work for them.

Fortunately, the workers do not submit passively. If they did, their condition would be a thousand times worse than it is now. They organise themselves into unions so that they can sell the only thing they possess, their labour power, at a higher price and under better conditions than the capitalist is willing to give them of his own will. But history has shown that, although the standard of living of sections of the working class has tended to rise, it has not risen proportionately to the growth of industry. In spite of the unbelievably enormous increase in production the vast majority of the workers still lead an existence that is far from comfortable or secure. So long as the profit system exists, so long will the few people who own the means of production will cream off the profits for themselves and leave the working class in deprivation. 

 The means of production are already socialised in the sense that they can only be operated by social, co-operative labour. This has already been done by capitalism; what socialism will do is to end the class monopoly of these means, to establish social or common ownership as well.  When the means of production are socially owned, wealth will be produced purely and simply to satisfy human needs. Production for the market, or exchange, will disappear and along with this banks and other commercial and financial institutions. 

Socialism is the logical evolutionary successor of capitalism. Many say that there are different sort of socialists and different kinds of socialism. But the idea of socialism rests on one fundamental principle, the collective ownership and democratic administration of the social tools of production and distribution of wealth. A socialist is one who believes that the wage system is slavery; that competition is wasteful; that special privilege of any kind is unsocial. Socialists hold we have found a remedy in the common ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth. 

Looking for socialist answers

Capitalism is full of problems, and of slick, smooth-talking politicians who say they can solve them. The tragedy is that so many people believe their promises, and fail to see the nonsense for what it is. Words are cheap. Any organisation can label itself socialist. Generations of reformers have voiced complaints about capitalism and have dignified their futile efforts to humanise it by dubbing them ‘socialism’.  What is more difficult is to develop a body of socialist theory and to stick to it. The old cliché about the ‘unity of theory and practice’ holds true. A party is only as good as its theoretical platform. The Socialist Party often reveals the impotence of the those who say they can control capitalism and can tame it. Capitalism continually produces unrest and insecurity. It is a society which cannot be at peace nor bring prosperity for all. Capitalism is a mass of conflicting interests, treachery, and coercion. 

It is possible to create a world of peace and prosperity where people actually care about the future of the world and the welfare of humanity. What is required is a change in the basis of society. The people of the world cannot use the resources of the world to satisfy their needs unless they own and control them. It is only on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production that a world of peace and prosperity can be created. For this, men and women need only apply their existing capacity to reason to the problem and then act to change society. As long as people are content that it should be so,  capitalism will continue to map out their future.  They acquiesce because they are misled into believing that capitalism, with its property rights, its economic rivalries, its wars, is the best of all possible human societies. No capitalist party—certainly not the Labour Party—ever does anything to end this massive and fundamental deception. The political ignorance and apathy which supports the system are still there, encouraged by the Labour Party, by its members honest and dishonest, its leaders and its “rebels.” No one will ever know the extent of the confusion and the cynicism the left-wing has caused. 

Socialism cannot be established by general strikes or insurrections. It can only be established when the working class, not only of Britain but throughout the world, understanding what socialism is, are willing to co-operate to establish it. It is much easier to vote and work for socialism than to die uselessly on some stricken barricade or street battle. Such ideas are not only foolish but dangerous as it would leave the powers of State, the armed forces in the hands of the ruling class which has still control of the machinery of government could crush any attempt to seize the factories and the means of production and distribution. That is why we claim, as laid down in our Declaration of Principles, in Section 6, that the working class must organise consciously and politically to obtain control of this machinery of government, to dispossess the ruling class of their ownership of the land and means of wealth production and distribution. Socialism cannot be established by a minority group trying to impose it upon the working class against their will and understanding. 

The Socialist Party was founded with one purpose, that of achieving socialism. Socialism is not something akin to reformists' efforts to improve capitalism, but an alternative social system. One in which class ownership of the means of production and distribution would be replaced by common ownership, buying and selling, profit-making and the wages system would disappear, and with them the wars that are caused by capitalism's commercial rivalries. The Socialist Party has campaigned all these years to increase the understanding and acceptance of the socialist message, and from time to time have contested elections. The Socialist Party seeks to shorten the day when we, the workers, will recognise that our shared interests, and demand the abolition of capitalism and establishment of socialism through the intelligent use of the vote by a world working class. 

YOU ARE REALLY TOO MANY

“Fresh air and freedom, everyone should taste it.”

While the Nackin people, who first appear in official records in the twelfth century in Scotland, have adapted their lives to keep up with economic change over the centuries, this commitment to a life on the road has remained resolute. The word ‘Gypsy’ comes from English medieval references to the Roma people, who scholars believed came from Egypt. In fact, DNA testing and linguistic studies show that the Roma originated in the Punjab, and many words in the Romanis language have their roots in Sanskrit. The Scottish Nackin, meanwhile, speak Cant, which has Scots, Gaelic and Norse roots, with some Romani influences from when the Roma reached the British Isles. One such word, ‘gadgie’, is a commonly used Scots slang word and is the Cant word for man. In Romani, the word ‘gaji’ is from the ancient Sanskrit word for civilian.

Most of the Roma in Scotland now are immigrants from Europe, alongside English Gypsies and Welsh Kali, both of whom have Romani roots.

Irish Travellers, usually called Pavees or Minkiers, also settle in Scotland and, like the Nackin, have their own history and language.Finally, there are also professionally nomadic folk, like show people, with their own communities. 

We’ve always lived on the margins of society. And we’ve always tended to do something to get by and survive,” 20-year-old Traveller advocate and activist Davie Donaldson tells Holyrood.

The commitment to stay mobile has meant the Nackin have valued self-employment, first as tin and silversmiths, making and repairing weapons for the clans, then in more recent years at seasonal agricultural work, he says. 

When farms grew, consolidated and turned to migrant labour, many travellers then picked up trades such as landscaping and roofing.

“There’s always that want to be self-employed, in control of yourself,” says Donaldson.

 The travelling community tends to experience poorer health and education outcomes than almost any other minority group in Scotland.  Put bluntly, travellers can expect shorter lives, with only four per cent of the community aged 70 or over, compared to 12 per cent of the population as a whole.

A huge distrust of social work, for example, stems from an era when Traveller children were frequently taken into care, he says.

Religious institutions forcibly took traveller children in the first half of the 20th century after an 1895 report had called for them to be saved from their “vagrant” parents. Other children were deported to be servants in Australia and Canada.

Full article can be read here

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/scotlands-travelling-communities-right-roam

This what socialism means

Rosa Luxemburg said, “We shall hardly make any progress without a clear understanding of the work of proletarian self-education.” 

 Would-be dictators and admirers of dictatorship consider the earth’s people pawns, to be used for the profit of some few controlling rulers. 

Socialism is a system of society in which the land, the means of production, and distribution are held in common. Production is for use, as and when required, not for profit, exchange or sale. The organisation of production and distribution is by those who do the work. Each work-place is an autonomous unit working in unison with others and in mutual harmony with other enterprises. Socialism is a class-free society in which all shall have leisure and culture, and all shall be secured from want. We shall be cultured, equal co-workers for the commonweal. Our goal is a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the industries and services to be administered in the interests of all society. Achieving this revolutionary change from capitalism to socialism can only be through the class-conscious action of the working-class itself. The issue, literally, is survival. The harm and damage already done to all of us and to our environment by capitalism’s existence is beyond exact calculation. If it is not abolished and replaced with a socialist cooperative commonwealth by the organised working class, there is the distinct possibility that capitalism may destroy humanity and the world in the process. That need not happen. And it won’t happen if all who realise the need for a socialist reconstruction of society join us to appeal to our brothers and sisters of every race, of every colour, to accomplish the revolutionary change to socialism and thus guarantee the future safety and well-being of the humanity. 

Many people believe that socialism means government or state ownership and control. Who can blame them when that is what is taught and repeated by the media, politicians and our schools? But worse, some people and organizations that label themselves “socialist” preach it, too —  not the Socialist Party which says that socialism means something entirely different. If nationalisation or state ownership is not socialism, what is?  In socialism, the workers who operate the industries and services would collectively own and democratically manage them. In each workplace, the producers would elect their own immediate management committees. They would also elect representatives to local and national assemblies of the industry or service in which they work, and to wider all-industrial congresses to coordinate production and distribution of all goods and services throughout the region and world. In short, socialism would replace the political government run by politicians with a democratic administration run by workers, their elected delegates and their communities. And when the Socialist Party uses the word “worker,” we mean everyone who sells his or her labor power, or ability to work, at so much per hour, or so much per week, to a capitalist employer. Coal miners are workers, but so are musicians, scientists, nurses, teachers, architects, inventors, and mathematicians. 

Socialism means not just political democracy but also economic democracy.  Under capitalism workers receive only a small fraction of the wealth that they alone produce, while the lion’s share goes to the capitalist owners and to the bankers, landlords, insurance companies, lawyers, politicians, and all the other parasites who live off the back of labour and perform no useful work. By ending this robbery of the working class, socialism will enable workers to share in the full fruit of their labour.

Socialism would also enable us to raise our living standards dramatically by ending the billions in resources thrown away on arms production and “defence,” by ending the waste, duplication, and inefficiency of capitalist industries, and by returning millions of soldiers and unemployed workers to useful occupations.

In socialist society, there would be no wage system. And since the people would collectively own the industries, anyone would be free to select any occupation in which he or she has an interest and aptitude. No longer would workers live under the fear of being laid off, or be compelled to spend their lives at some job they hate or are unsuited for. Also, since the people would collectively own the colleges and universities, no longer would workers be denied education or training because they lack the money to buy it.

Furthermore, with socialism, we would produce for use and to satisfy the needs of all the people. Under capitalism, the industries operate for one purpose—to make a profit for their owners. Under this system, food is not grown primarily to be eaten. It is grown to be sold. Cars are not manufactured primarily to be driven. They are made to be sold. If there are enough buyers here and abroad, then the capitalists will have their factories turn out cars or everything else for which buyers can be found and where a return can be made. But if people lack money, if the market cannot absorb them, then these factories shut down, no matter how much people need these commodities.

At the present time, Big-Ag knows that they can produce more than market conditions permit them to. Meanwhile, millions suffer from malnutrition and hunger.

Inside a socialist society industry and technology would be used to benefit all of us, not restricted to the creation of profits for the enrichment of a small group of capitalist owners. Our farmlands would yield an abundance without great toil; the factories, mines, and mills would be the safest, the most modern, the most efficient possible and productive beyond our wildest dreams—and without labourious work. Our natural resources would be intelligently conserved. Our schools would have the finest facilities and they would be devoted to developing complete human beings, not wages slaves who are trained to hire themselves out for someone else’s profit. Our hospitals and social services would create and maintain the finest health and recreational facilities. Under capitalism, new technology, robotics, automation and Artificial Intelligence is used to replace workers and increase profits. Instead of creating a society of abundance, capitalism uses our inventiveness to create unemployment and poverty.  It is not the technology that threatens us. By themselves, improved methods of production and distribution are not social evils. They could be a blessing, but under capitalism, technology is used for anti-social purpose in the interest of the few and not the many.

The Socialist Party, on the other hand, propose that should own in common the factories and means of production, where would have full and free access to the means of wealth production and distribution. We would collectively produce the things we want and need for full and happy lives. It would be to the benefit of all to find new inventions, new means of production, improved means of distribution. Society as a whole would have a vital interest in providing opportunity to each individual to find the work for which he or she is best suited and in which he or she will be happiest. There would be the fullest freedom and opportunity. There would be a complete and full democracy. Democracy that will truly be based on the broadest lines. Democracy in which the final and only power will be the great mass of our people, the useful producers, which in a socialist society would mean everybody. Society no longer would be split into two contending classes. Instead, we would all be useful producers, collectively owning the means of production and distribution, collectively concerned with producing the most with the least expenditure of human labour, and collectively jealous of the rights of the individual to a full, free and untrammeled life of happiness and accomplishment.

How can we get such a society? The answer is easy. It is within the power of the working class to establish such a society as soon as they recognise the need for it and organise to establish it. By learning about real socialism you will learn how to effectively demand the end of capitalism and to organise with your fellow-workers for the establishment of socialism.