Friday, May 17, 2019

The SPGB Vision

The Socialist Party holds a vision of a new world for which the process of social evolution has been maturing over the centuries, a system of common ownership and administration by a majority of the people, where no one set of human beings could any longer exploit and abuse others for profit, ending all the poverty, vices and disease generated by capitalism — a vicious system of every man for himself and devil take the innocent, helpless and the vulnerable. There would be no longer shameful seizure of the land and wealth of indigenous peoples in socialism. Peace would triumph over war which capitalism uses as a profitable investment. Socialism which is the next stage in social progress can and will create a new era of good living and happiness for the peoples of all countries who unite to fulfill the highest destiny of mankind.

The Socialist Party has always insisted that the worldwide problems of capitalism will lead workers quite independently of ourselves to grasp the need for a rationally organised society where mankind as a whole can plan production without being hampered by class or national limitations. To those workers arriving at these conclusions we want to extend the hand of socialist fraternity. And above all we want to work with them as comrades in the struggle to establish a socialist world.

The Socialist Party maintains that there can be no fundamental change in the living conditions of the people while a belligerent  minority holds economic power over the natural resources and keeps the right to exploit the majority for individual gain.

The Socialist Party insist that the basis of exploitation — the use of men and women for personal profits and power — lie in the capitalist system. Reforms do not remove the villain of the piece from the scene of action. While he holds economic power the people will bear the weight of any measures of partial reform.

The Socialist Party believe that the fundamental basis of a true socialist society must be change from a capitalist system of ownership, exploitation and control to one of common ownership, democratic administration and control of the affairs of a nation by the men and women who produce its wealth.

The Socialist Party does not want a bloody revolution. Revolution means change. There have been revolutions in art, industry and social relations which have not caused bloodshed. The Socialist Party declares that they have the right to organise and educate the people so that they will be able to bring about the change in the basis of the State and of our social system. By so doing, we believe they reduce the dangers of “bloody” revolution, which do not come from us in any case. The Socialist Party believes that the new system of social ownership and administration can be introduced by parliamentary measures which express the will of the people. Socialism can be introduced by constitutional means.

Ask yourselves this question, who opposes this vision of a new social system: this plan for a social system based on justice and peace?

You know who? the multi-billionaires who profit by ignorance and the fear they impose. Socialists threaten their profits, their right to exploit and subjugate workers to their greed for wealth and power. Socialists consider it necessary to provide for material needs in order that men and women may develop their highest mental facilities. A plant grows to its most perfect flowering and finest fruit in good soil.

Socialism, sooner or later


As more people involve themselves in political questions and look for real causes and solutions, much more will be expected and needed from the Socialist Party. Socialism places its hope in the ability of people to reach high levels of political consciousness and to substitute its rule for the authority of a propertied class. Few topics are being more widely discussed these days than the rebuilding of the socialist movement. All sorts of people are talking to each other who previously would have found themselves in the same room. Left-wing scholars of widely divergent views have shared platforms with a whole new library of books, each author working to achieve a fresh understanding of contemporary capitalism which are turning into debates periodicals which call themselves socialist. Many thousands of radicals are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Socialist Party holds to the conviction of the soundness of principles and trust in our fellow-workers class. Pessimism is not permissible in the Socialist Party, although we do admit to impatience. The Socialist Party knows that social evolution will make the working class revolutionary. Our arguments are too powerful to be withstood; our reasoning is too strong to be denied. Socialism can only be brought in by active men and women. It is not passive agreement that is wanted, but organised workers. It is possible to carry on our propaganda without funds, but without workers never. The working class must proceed to its emancipation as a class. Individual acts and individual effort can never throw off the capitalist oppressor. . Every step must be taken as a class; every battle must be fought on class lines; every activity, no matter whether on the industrial field or in the political arena, must be carried through as part of the class plan of action. What does this mean? What can it mean but organisation —organisation on the industrial field and organisation in the political arena. The unity of aim which is essential. Without principles there can be no sound organisation.

Ideas do not stand still. For example, we have seen important changes in attitude towards sexuality, marriage, gender and the family. These changes—which have happened worldwide—are the process of the working class feeling their way towards the conclusion that a fundamental social change is the only way to harmonise relationships within society.

In other words, there is every reason to think that the socialist revolution will be, to all intents and purposes, simultaneous throughout the world. For a time it may gather greater momentum in one country than in another, but this will quickly adjust itself. As socialism becomes a more possible reality is there will be a rush toward it.

We are asked to believe that the working class intelligence is not capable of solving the simple problem of distributing that wealth among the people who produce it. We say it is a lie; the solution is ridiculously easy. We have simply to sweep away those who stand between us and all that is good under the sun. We have to take away from them all the sources of wealth and all the means of producing wealth, and to use them for the satisfaction of our own needs.

The Socialist Party has no illusions. We recognise that the fight will be long and hard. The industrial barons and the lords of capital and their political pawns have made it clear they will use every form of force in their desperation to hold onto their stolen billions. Socialism has been attacked and incriminated at all times, with every kind of wickedness. But with socialism, solidarity will be the basis of society. The reformists say that capitalism isn’t what it used to be. Marx was no doubt right in his time, they say... but that was well over a century ago. But can these people tell us what exactly has changed in terms of the exploitation of the working class? Has capitalism changed its spots? There is still the exploitative capitalist system.

Socialists seek a better world founded on common ownership, equality and democracy, where the means to meet all mankind’s material needs is raised to the greatest possible height. Capitalism has resulted in a worldwide rise in social inequality, poverty, disease and threats to the environment. What socialism is all about is the conquest of human freedom for the greatest possible number to decide their own fate.

To fight against capitalism in which human beings are despised, alienated, exploited, oppressed or denied basic human dignity, to dedicated your life to defend the exploited, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the despised.
There is no better way to be a good human being in this world than to dedicate your life to this cause.

Socialism can prove itself a superior system as it brings about a far better livelihood for the masses of people than capitalism. Capitalism makes true democracy unachievable for the majority. Behind the facade of formal democratic institutions, the real power is exercised by and for the capitalist class. The capitalists, through their powerful lobbies and campaign funding, dominate the political process, insuring that candidates favourable to their interests are elected. An elaborate powerful civil and military bureaucracy, which is materially and ideologically tied to the capitalist class, forms the core of the state. This bureaucracy remains wedded to the capitalist class. In its infancy, the capitalist class championed democracy in its fight to displace feudalism. But now, it is democracy’s implacable enemy. While capitalism engenders democratic illusions, it makes their realisation impossible. While the working class recognises that no amount of democracy can abolish class oppression, it also recognises that the greater the democracy, the more direct, the more open and the broader the class struggle. And the more the working class has the freedom to organise and struggle, the more it will see that its oppression stems from capitalism.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

The co-operative commonwealth, a world socialist community,

The wages workers receive represent wealth that they have themselves produced; the profits that the capitalist pockets represent wealth that the wage workers produced, and that the capitalist, that the capitalist steals from them. Labour alone produces all wealth. Wages are that part of labor’s own product that the workingman is allowed to keep. Profits are the present and running theft perpetrated by the capitalist upon the workingman from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year. Capital is the accumulated past theft of the capitalist, corner-stoned upon his “original accumulation.” The capitalist class in general, may perform some “work,” they do perform some “work,” but that “work” is not of a sort that directly or indirectly aids production. It is not the capitalist who supports the worker, but the worker supports the capitalist.

The Socialist Party vision is one of the co-operative commonwealth or the industrial democracy. The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the workers, for it is evidently the only class able to safeguard humanity by means of a new society. The Socialist Party is revolutionary in aim because it will be out for the abolition of the wages system, and for securing to the workers the full fruits of their labour, thereby seeking to change the system of society from capitalist to socialist. It is revolutionary in method, because it will refuse to enter into any agreement with the masters or its State backing. The curse of capitalism consists in this — that a handful of capitalists can compel workers to work in such manner and for such wage as will please the capitalists. Reformism serves the ruling class because it fights to protect the foundation of capitalism, the “right” of the capitalist to exploit the labour power of the working class. Whoever tries to reconcile the exploited to their condition, objectively serves the interests of the exploiter. If you do not put forward a clear class perspective on all struggles and do not warn people that these issues cannot be resolved under the present capitalist system, then you have adopted reformist politics: i.e. the capitalist system is basically okay but in need of serious reform and new management. Programmes of “public” ownership is not socialism. Socialism, however, leads the struggle of the working class not only for better terms for the sale of labour power, but for the abolition of the social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves to the rich.

The slogans "an injury to one is an injury to all" and "workingmen of all countries—unite," means something when said by the Socialist Party. The mutual economic interests, the daily association, the common experiences of the social conflict, must surely develop that solidarity
without which workers may struggle in vain. Worldwide in the scope of its activities, socialism points to a new civilisation where the forces of production and distribution will be adjusted and co-ordinated—where those who labour will enjoy—where childhood will be free—where adulthood will be secure—where mankind shall be in harmony with the world about it. The Socialist Party believes that advances of human society so far in economy, science, technology and standards of civil life have already created the material conditions necessary to set up a free society without classes, exploitation and oppression, i.e.
The wages workers receive represent wealth that they have themselves produced; the profits that the capitalist pockets represent wealth that the wage workers produced, and that the capitalist, that the capitalist steals from them. Labor alone produces all wealth. Wages are that part of labor’s own product that the workingman is allowed to keep. Profits are the present and running theft perpetrated by the capitalist upon the workingman from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year. Capital is the accumulated past stealings of the capitalist, cornerstoned upon his “original accumulation.” The capitalist class in general, may perform some “work,” they do perform some “work,” but that “work” is not of a sort that directly or indirectly aids production. It is not the capitalist who supports the worker, but the worker supports the capitalist.

The Socialist Party vision is one of the co-operative commonwealth or the industrial democracy. The future society comes only at the desire and with the consent of the workers, for it is evidently the only class able to safeguard humanity by means of a new society. The Socialist Party is revolutionary in aim because it will be out for the abolition of the wages system, and for securing to the workers the full fruits of their labour, thereby seeking to change the system of society from capitalist to socialist. It is revolutionary in method, because it will refuse to enter into any agreement with the masters or its State backing. The curse of capitalism consists in this — that a handful of capitalists can compel workers to work in such manner and for such wage as will please the capitalists. Reformism serves the ruling class because it fights to protect the foundation of capitalism, the “right” of the capitalist to exploit the labour power of the working class. Whoever tries to reconcile the exploited to their condition, objectively serves the interests of the exploiter. If you do not put forward a clear class perspective on all struggles and do not warn people that these issues cannot be resolved under the present capitalist system, then you have adopted reformist politics: i.e. the capitalist system is basically okay but in need of serious reform and new management. Programmes of “public” ownership is not socialism. Socialism, however, leads the struggle of the working class not only for better terms for the sale of labour power, but for the abolition of the social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves to the rich.

The slogans "an injury to one is an injury to all" and "workers of all countries—unite," means something when said by the Socialist Party. The mutual economic interests, the daily association, the common experiences of the social conflict, must surely develop that solidarity without which workers may struggle in vain. Worldwide in the scope of its activities, socialism points to a new civilisation where the forces of production and distribution will be adjusted and co-ordinated—where those who labour will enjoy—where childhood will be free—where adulthood will be secure—where mankind shall be in harmony with the world about it. The Socialist Party believes that advances of human society so far in economy, science, technology and standards of civil life have already created the material conditions necessary to set up a free society without classes, exploitation and oppression, i.e. a world socialist community.

We march towards the future.



Socialism is a subject of importance to all working people. If it is socialism we wish to attain our tactics will have to be developed accordingly. Socialism, as the Socialist Party understands it, means common ownership of the means of production, and their democratic management by the workers. Our aim is to put an end to the capitalism, a putrid, stinking system long ago fit for the grave. The last gasps of capitalism becomes shorter, and more choked. The Socialist Party believes that the basic problem of our time resides in society. We believe that humanity can develop a healthy society of plenty and peace. As socialists we affirm the possibility and necessity for men and women to work together to build a new and decent society, and that means primarily the class which has most to gain from and can alone construct socialism: the working class. The “Welfare State” serves to camouflage the true nature of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system of unremitting expansion, of the ceaseless search for new markets for production, new fields for investment, and new sources of raw materials. Increasing trade, international investment, and the rise of the multinationals have all served to exacerbate competition. Capitalists have substantial foreign holdings.

History is not some automatic process in which men are merely puppets; history is the activity of men functioning within the limits of their situation. And today that situation cries for a socialist solution. Capitalism is at a loss to reconstruct the world, it cannot achieve the most simple reorganisation of production and distribution to harmonise it with Nature. The gigantic productive facilities which it unleashed for war cannot be used for peace. Starvation and poverty in the midst of plenty; uprooting of millions of people; renewed totalitarianism; diplomatic hypocrisy; destruction of the environment are part of the catalogue of the capitalist society so it can continue indefinitely. The society is sick, moribund, overripe for change. It is beyond redemption, beyond reform. No alternative exists except a thorough socialist reconstruction. And that is the program to which the working class, for all its present confusion and political immaturity, will have to turn if it is not to sink completely into a new era of barbarism. Struggle is an inescapable condition of existence for the working class under capitalism; it will continue until there is a triumphant ending. There is no other road. Either chaos and destruction – or socialist reconstruction. The socialist perspective is more valid, more essential than ever because it alone meets the problems of our times. It alone proposes a program that is realisable and which is a comprehensive solution to all of our social problems. the realisation of this program depends upon the people who believe in it and fight for it. What we do will help determine the future. We stand together with our comrades throughout the world.

Socialism is the realisation of the abolition of all forms of exploitation of man, by man, of all forms of oppression and injustice. The leading force in transforming society from capitalism to socialism is the working class i.e. wage workers who earn their livelihood through the sale of their labour power and have no other means of support. By working people is meant all who work for a livelihood and do not exploit the labour of others. The Socialist Party proposes a “guide to action” for the working class in the struggle to achieve political power and to build socialism. The Socialist Party maintains that the interests of the working class and the interests of the capitalist class are irreconcilable and that therefore, the interests of the working class can not be served through collaboration or alliance with the capitalists but in opposition to them. From these conflicting interests of the two basic classes capitalists and workers, arises an antagonism, a struggle, between the two classes: the class struggle. The solution to the basic problems of our people in the United States can only come as the result of a profound revolutionary transformation of our society That is, only socialism can provide the context to build a society free from exploitation, racism, oppression and war. It is only the working class which has the capacity to overthrow capitalism, in the struggle for the abolition of all classes.

The coming years will undoubtedly be even more decisive for the future of socialism in the world. Being Marxists those in the Socialist Party are optimists. The cooperative commonwealth is an inevitable evolution of capitalist society. 



Wednesday, May 15, 2019

We don't know everything, but we don't know nothing.

Glasgow has unveiled plans to become the first UK city to reduce its greenhouse emissions to net-zero. The city wants to reach the target before 2045, beating the Scotland-wide ambition announced by the Scottish government earlier this month.
 The plans include mass charging points for electric vehicles.  Net-zero is the point where the same volume of greenhouse gases is being emitted as is being absorbed through offsetting techniques like forestry. Perhaps an even better term would be "climate neutral".
A commendable aspiration but will it have any significant effect on global warming?
Capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the earth. Tragically, the future could be even worse for a simple reason: capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic to expand, is doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms all around the planet. Rosa Luxemburg famously said that humanity had a choice, “socialism or barbarism.” In these days of climate change, her warning has even more meaning. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. 

Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Unless we radically change our methods of production and pattern of consumption, we will reach the point where the harmful effects to the environment will become irreversible. Even the most modest measures of environmental reform are resisted by sections of the capitalist class. The goal of the big corporations is to secure the greatest possible profits for their super-rich owners — regardless of the consequences to the planet and its people. This makes the establishment of a socialist society all the more imperative.
One way or another, the coming decades will be decisive for the fate of human civilisation. Unless greenhouse emissions are swiftly and drastically curbed the result will be environmental catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale, threatening civilisation as we know it. The reality of climate change is already manifesting itself in an increasing number of extreme weather events, such as heat-waves, droughts, floods and typhoons. Melting ice sheets are resulting in rising sea levels and increased flooding of low-lying areas. Some islands will soon be totally submerged, turning their inhabitants into climate refugees.

Many environmentalist campaigners include over-population as a contributory factor to the global warming crisis. Where children die and women are repressed, population booms. Where children thrive, and women are empowered, population growth stops. As people become more prosperous, which includes being better fed and having lower child mortality, the fewer children women want. Providing they then have access to family planning methods, the fertility rates will drop and the population will cease to grow. Therefore, what those environmentalists have to do is, first and foremost, engage and campaign for social justice. 
Imagine an alternative, a society where each individual has the means to live a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated. This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society.



The goal is revolution

Socialism has been grossly distorted, both by open opponents and by alleged adherents. This situation necessitates peeling away of entrenched myths to rediscover its authentic revolutionary teachings. Marx's writings cannot be treated as Holy Scripture. (To do so is a gross insult to a thinker whose motto for his own work was "Doubt everything.") What a socialist society would look like is not drawn in detail. Marx analysed the capitalist society he lived in and projected his vision of socialism from the clues he found in capitalist society. Because he was scientific, he refused to engage in any elaborate pictures of the socialist future but kept to a minimum outline. 

Workers’ control of production can’t be a partial matter. To be more than self-administration within the confines of Capital, workers’ control must be total, that is, it must take over all production decisions. Capitalism cannot “grow into” socialism. Socialists must overthrow the capitalists class antagonisms and the class struggle must be emphasised; instead of compromise with capitalism, relentless attack upon the whole capitalist regime as determined by conditions. Socialism aims at giving a meaning to the life and work of people; at enabling their freedom, their creativity and the most positive aspects of their personality to flourish. It is about creating links between the individual and those around him, and between the group and society; at ending the barriers between manual and mental work; at reconciling people with their roots and with nature. These are not longings relating to some hazy and distant future. They are feelings and tendencies existing and manifesting themselves today. To grasp this is to perceive that socialism is not "nationalisation" or even an "increase in living standards". It is to transform one's vision of society and of the world. Socialism is the system where means of production are owned by society as a whole, not private persons.

To make revolution and put an end to capitalism, people must have a clear plan. The alternative to capitalism is socialism but even if capitalism is detestable isn't socialism just as detestable too? It was socialism that the people of Russia and Eastern Europe rejected. On their evidence, socialism as a system of society was even more bureaucratic, unjust and inefficient than capitalism? Capitalism is here to stay, so let's try to reform it a little. 

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to restore to socialism its true essence; and to present a real socialist alternative to the cynicism and apathy that now paralyses the progressives. Real socialism is the only alternative to capitalism.

To define a state as capitalist or socialist is to define it according to its nature, that is, its class nature. Of which class is it the instrument? The interests of which class does it protect and serve? These are the questions such a definition answers. To define a state as totalitarian is to define it not by its nature, but by its form; e.g. is it democratic or dictatorial? The Soviet Union and its satellite states were certainly one in which the bureaucrats who run the administration and the managers who run industry hold power in which“private property in the instruments of production was abolished but where the decisive sections of industry and economic enterprises were owned by the state and not controlled by the people but by a small clique of bureaucrats or managers.” All this prevailed in the Soviet Union. In other words, the apparatchiks and nomenklatura expropriated the working class.

Reformists sees socialism as something which comes ‘from above’. It is to be achieved, on workers’ behalf, by an enlightened minority – political leaders. ‘Leave it to us,’ they say. ‘All you need do is vote at election time’. Working people are expected to play a purely passive role, just looking on while others transform society for them. That's how capitalist society is organised. Working people are constantly told that the only people qualified to run society are the experts – the managers, civil servants, politicians, the technocrats. The Socialist Party utterly rejects this elitist approach. Only workers can liberate themselves. No one can do it for them. In Marx’s words, socialism is ‘the self-emancipation of the working class’.

By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the problems of this society – the economic problems of inflation and recession, national oppression, social ills – are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful of capitalists control all the wealth – the factories, mines, railroads and fields, and all the profits that are produced. The possessing class prosper at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people. The Socialist Party holds that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability for the majority of people, nor fundamentally alter their position in society. 

The ruling class always tries to limit or negate those concessions that have been won. The ruling class will always do this so long as it holds the power of society; it will try to milk everything it can from the working people to enrich or protect its own interests. The act of putting ideas into words should be a means of achieving greater clarity and understanding, for writer as well as reader. It should help to clear the way for action, but often smooth words and rounded phrases when used by the reformists serve only as a brake on action. They promised a world without war, without want and without insecurity but their palliative policies reflect not an advance towards socialism but an adaptation to capitalism. 

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Food Wasted Scotland

Food waste is a bigger cause of climate change than plastics, according to Zero Waste Scotland.
When food waste ends up in landfill it rots, producing methane gas, one of the most damaging greenhouse gases driving climate change.
Research by Zero Waste Scotland found that 456,000 tonnes of food waste was collected in Scotland in 2016. About 224,000 tonnes of plastic waste was collected that year.

Zero Waste Scotland Chief executive Iain Gulland said:"Food waste is actually a bigger cause of climate change than plastics."
However, he added it was still vital to reduce plastic waste, which remains an "extremely serious issue". It also causes damage to the environment and wildlife when discarded inappropriately.

Zero Waste Scotland calculated that the carbon footprint of food waste collected from Scottish households that year was nearly three times that of plastic waste collected from people's homes, at roughly 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) compared to 0.73MtCO2e.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48257019

Road Map to Socialism

The aim of the Socialist Party is to establish socialism and abolish the right of one person to rob another of the fruits of his or her labour. This is what makes the Socialist Party different from all others. Nowhere in the world has socialism been established. Socialism. in the old days was often called the society of the free and equal where democracy was defined as the rule of the people. In the old days, the socialist activists and the IWW used to give a shorthand definition of socialism as "industrial democracy," the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers them. selves, with private ownership eliminated. That socialist demand for real democracy was taken for granted in the time of Debs. These simple definitions still ring true. You never hear things like that said today.

When some people say it would be a fine idea for all of us to get together in the struggle for socialism and democracy, it is appropriate to ask: "Just what do you mean by socialism, and what do you mean by democracy? Do you mean what Marx and Engels said? Or do you mean what Lenin and Stalin did?" They are not the same thing as can be easily proved and it is necessary to choose between one set of definitions and the other. Our task, as socialists living and fighting in this day and hour, is simply to restate what socialism meant to the founders of our movement, and to bring their formulations up to date and apply them to present conditions. 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 correcting all the perversions and distortions of the real meaning of socialism and a return to the original formulations and definitions. Nothing short of this will do and no formulation can improve on the classic statement of the Communist Manifesto, which said: "All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, 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”, later reiterated that "the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves," a way of saying that the socialist reorganization of society requires a workers revolution and that such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class, who are the majority of the population. Nothing could be more democratic than that. No party has a right to call itself socialist, unless it stands four-square for the workers.

Marx and Engels never taught that the nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism. That's not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. All Marxists define 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 democratic workers' state. Capitalism under any kind of government, whether bourgeois democracy, or fascism or a police-state - under any kind of government, capitalism remains a system of minority rule, where the principal beneficiaries are the small minority of exploiting capitalists. The formal right of free speech and free press is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete ownership and control of all the main media.

Socialism cannot be anything but global. All attempts to make Socialism national have failed, because the economy is global and there cannot be a socio-economic solution of the problems within the narrow borders of a country. For most members of the Left socialism has been a chimera and reforming existing society by spreading its benefits around was their solution, no matter how militant the rhetoric or the means used to achieve the end. The Socialist Party has always attempted to project a more radical ambitious political and economic platform on these movements but it has never stuck because it was alien to them. They were solely concerned with eliminating the “glass ceiling” that deprives their constituency of the rewards due them under the rules that apply to others in this society. Socialists cannot expect a movement with such concerns to worry much about what a socialist society would look like, nor expect people who are trying to remove the glass ceiling to help you demolish the building. Their demands tend to split movements along lines of gender or race identity. They do not automatically lead to a progressive, class-based, inclusive movement but lead to the further fragmentation.
Socialism is not made, but it is grows out of the needs and struggles of organised labour. We can’t force consciousness upon our fellow-workers, we allow it to develop and to ripen. Let's start with understanding what it means to be truly Marxist. We cannot make a cult, as it has been done for Mao or Stalin. Being a Marxist today does not mean agreeing with everything that Marx wrote or said, but to know how to critique or exceed him.


Monday, May 13, 2019

Parasite's interference at Beauly.

A Scottish aristocrat has been accused of making "strenuous efforts" to stop people from using a popular riverside walk near his Highlands home.

Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser, has blocked off car parking areas at Lovat Bridge near Beauly, making the walking route inaccessible for many people.

"Unofficial" parking tickets have also been left on cars parked in the area.

A spokesman for Lovat estates said it welcomed walkers but asked that they used public parking.

Boulders and traffic cones have been used to block lay-bys and other areas used for parking, local residents have said.

Lord Lovat recently returned to live in his ancestral lands but has upset local people by the moves.

Walkers say he has removed a well-used car park and blocked up other areas.

A walking group for older people and families with young children are among those affected.

A local resident who has been walking in the area for the past 20 years and had enjoyed the previous access to her walk because of arthritis, told BBC Scotland: "They want you to park in Beauly but that would add on so much of a walk and it's a single track pavement with big lorries rushing past.

"This pavement is not good for either dog walkers or small children. A lot of people I know that used to walk there just can't now, including a friend who leads the Beauly Walking Group which is a walking group for older people who are trying to exercise to keep healthy and they can't park anywhere near.

"I'm very disappointed about the whole thing because it's a beautiful walk that people have used for years."

Lord Lovat is the son of Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat and his wife, Virginia (née Grose). He is the grandson of the 15th Lord Lovat. He has two older sisters, Violet (b. 1972) and Honor (b. 1973) and one younger brother, Jack (b. 1984). Honor Fraser is a former fashion model.

Simon attended Harrow School, and graduated from the University of Edinburgh.

Whilst still at Harrow, he assumed the title of Lord Lovat on the death of his grandfather in 1995. His father Simon (then Master of Lovat and heir to the title) had died the previous year whilst riding on a hunt at the family's Beaufort estate. Unfortunately, he had run up considerable debts, and in order to pay these as well as inheritance tax, his son was obliged to sell Beaufort Castle.

He lost his seat in the House of Lords in 1999, when the government excluded most hereditary peers from the House.

Later life

Lovat became a stockbroker, and worked for a time in Geneva before moving to London. He currently works as a commodities analyst.

He has voiced his determination to buy back his family's estate and ancestral home. He maintains a residence near his old ancestral seat, and over the past two decades he has been involved in opposition to development plans he considers unsympathetic to the local environment. This includes an attempt to redevelop the Beaufort estate into a luxury golf and housing development (a proposal withdrawn in 2006), as well as electricity pylons proposed for the area (which were subsequently built).

Socialism will win

What is socialism? To answer in a single sentence, it means the common ownership by all the people of all the means of wealth production and distribution. The word has been so misused for so long that it is worth re-stating its basic principles. There has been a pressing need for explaining and advancing the socialist case as the reformists have preempted the field. There has always been the tendency to confuse socialism with reform of one sort or another, to make it acceptable and palatable, sapping it of its essence which compels the Socialist Party to repeatedly draw clear and true lines between socialism and social quackery, between reform and revolution. They want a capitalism without its economic laws as if we can have a universe without the law of gravity, or zoology with the law of evolution left out. What reformists advocate would not be socialism, any more than a house without foundation, walls, floors or roof would be a house. Socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private hands, and the turning over of the industries into the direct control of society. Socialism means that the tools of production are owned and controlled by society so that what is produced can be shared out according to people’s needs. 

Anything else is not socialism, and has no right to use that name.
Capitalism does not consist merely in the private ownership of the necessaries for production. If such ownership were the determining feature and quality of capitalism, then capitalism reigned in the days of serfdom. The serf owned his tools, the feudal lord owned the land, the two necessaries for production. Yet that was not capitalism. Capitalism is that social system under which the tool of production (capital) has grown to such mammoth size that the class that owns it rules land, sea and air like a despot, steadily swelling the number of its slaves, the wage slaves, thereby itself recruiting the forces that will overthrow it, and push civilization onward to the socialist society. That is capitalism, not any one or set of seemingly capitalist manifestations.

So with socialism. It does not consist merely in the overthrow of private ownership in any or all of the necessaries of life. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled, and administered by the people, for the people, and under which, accordingly, the cause of political and economic despotism having been abolished, class rule is at end. That is socialism, nothing short of that.

Therefore, while not opposing any reforms or improvements which may be secured under capitalism, the Socialist Party steadfastly sets its face against taking time away from its main battle, for revolution, in order to carry on the struggle for reform. It refuses to be maneuvered into abandoning its main demand that the means of production become common property in order to fritter away its energies chasing immediate demands. It turns away from the tempting baits to lead workers into side issues and blind alleys. The one demand of the Socialist Party is socialism, unadulterated and undiluted. It demands the unconditional surrender by the capitalist class of the machinery of industry.

The Socialist Party insists that it is the most humanitarian movement on earth. More so than all philanthropic ventures of Bill Gates, all the charitable societies, and associations; it, and it alone, carries within its programme the highest humanitarian hopes and possibilities of the humanity. All the other movements are based on aspiration alone. The the Socialist Party stands out unique as the only one based on the material programme which will make the realisation of those aspirations an accomplished fact. Socialism alone will supply the basis for any permanent improvement in the condition of mankind. the Socialist Party declares that economic freedom is the supreme question that confronts the people. The working class are dependent upon the capitalist class, who own the means of production; and the capitalist class, by virtue of their economic mastery, are the ruling class of the nation, and it is useless under such conditions to claim that men and women are equal and that they all are sovereign citizens. No person is free in any just sense who has to rely upon the arbitrary will of another for the opportunity to work. Such a person works, and therefore lives, by permission, and this is the present economic relation of the working class to the capitalist class.


Socialism is nothing other than people's conscious self-organisation of their own lives, the management of production by the producers themselves. State capitalism is capitalism by the state and for the state. It is capitalism by the government and for the government. It is state capitalism by the ruling classes and for the ruling classes. The idea that state ownership of the means of production constitutes socialism is wrong. Engels pointed out long ago in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific:
...the transformation, either into joint-stock companies or trusts, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalist nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious and the modern state, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of the individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution to the conflict...”

The kind of “socialism” that state capitalists envisage is not what the Socialist Party means by socialism. Not at all. What the state capitalists mean is that the capitalist governments will make themselves responsible for the organisation of production. The workers will remain just where they are – sweating in the factories and in the fields and piling up the profits for their masters. The ministerial functionaries are more capitalistic than the capitalists themselves in their unceasing struggle against the working class.
Socialist society represents the historical development of human society of a class-free system. The Socialist Party believes in the organisation of the working class for the overthrow of capitalist society as the only cure for the crimes of capitalism. For this reason we shall every day and everywhere and on all possible occasions carry on the most relentless struggle against those who mis-use the name socialist.