Scotland and its falling population

Scotland’s population growth has slowed and net migration decreased over the past two years, according to the latest official estimates.

The number of non-British nationals residing north of the Border remains stable but years of continuous growth, caused largely by the expansion of the EU in the mid-2000s, is now coming to an end, a report from the National Records of Scotland noted.

The Scottish Government, external affairs secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “This slowing of migration growth in is extremely concerning. All of Scotland’s population growth over the next 25 years – including our working age population - is projected to come from migration, yet these latest population statistics illustrate the significant demographic challenges that we are facing. We want Scotland to continue to be a welcoming, internationalist, progressive, diverse country. People from all over the world who choose to settle in Scotland make valuable contributions to our economy, public services and communities. They are vital to the growth of Scotland’s working age population and in turn, our future prosperity. Instead, the UK Government is pursuing policies which are projected to reduce net migration to Scotland by between 30-50% over the next two decades, completely disregarding our distinct needs."

Yet despite this we have many who declare that we face a population problem. 

Many factors affect population growth and the magnitude of the Earth’s carrying capacity over time, among them is a positive feedback loop between demographic growth and technological development. Human knowledge (e.g., science) and technological development (e.g., machines, drugs) improve over time and boost human survival, which helps accelerate population growth. Talented individuals, who can devise intellectual and technological improvements, are statistically more likely to arise from and survive to maturity in larger populations living at more advanced levels of development. The intellectual and technological innovations of inventive individuals make it possible to amplify the Earth’s carrying capacity as the population grows, for example by tamping down the incidence and virulence of diseases, and by increasing agricultural yields. However, there is no guarantee that such a positive feedback can cycle forever, and current trends would seem to indicate that this feedback loop is losing its momentum.

We homo sapiens could as a species choose to cooperate globally to simultaneously raise the living standards of the most impoverished — and majority — of Earth’s people, and reformulate our civilization’s manner of energy generation and economic operation, from its highly inequitable feudal capitalism to a highly equalised world eco-socialism: to halt the poisoning of our global environment with waste heat and carbon dioxide from combustion; waste methane from industrialised meat consumption and a melting degradation of the biosphere; and waste chemicals and plastics from industrialised farming and the detritus of industrialised consumerism. In other words, we could unite to share out the Earth equitably while also maximising the efficiency of the global use of natural resources by quickly reforming our civilisation — our methods of finding, extracting and using energy, and the forms and purposes of our economics — so as to be in sustainable balance with natural processes and cycles, all for the purpose of allowing Lifeboat Earth to row or drift for as long as possible with a minimal sacrifice of human decency and human life.

Capitalism is the ideology of parasites. The people of such an idealised world, eco-socialist society, would be committed individuals who would take it as a given that if human extinction were imminent and unavoidable, they would all share the same fate in solidarity: honour till the end, whenever that would be whether sooner or later.

Human history up to the present suggests that this “all in till the end” type of world socialism is a very unlikely future for us globally, though small isolated pockets of it might develop within the much larger drama of human civilisation.

We might even live to see American and European navies shelling refugee ships at sea, and troops of their militarised police summarily executing undocumented aliens breaching their borders, to thwart the arrival of waves of destitute and desperate migrants. Such atrocities would be manifestations of extreme “them or us” end-times panic by the power-clinging wicked.

Adapted

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/15/too-many-people-or-too-much-greed/

Study Socialism

Abundant evidence in various forms presses itself upon us in the media to prove our contention, that, as the capitalist system develops, the gulf between the working’ class and the capitalist class must ever become wider and deeper. At one end of the social scale we have opulent luxury, at the other sordid and sickening misery.

Perhaps you think that the Socialist Party is a group of selfish people who are envious of the wealth of others. You and I, and others like us, go to work. Some are employed in one way, some in another. Between us we produce and distribute the things we eat, the things we wear, the buildings we live in, and those we work in; the planes, ships and train that carry the things we make are made and worked by people like us, even the most luxurious, are made by people like us. If you and I and people like us were to die to-morrow, all production and distribution of goods would cease. We are those who go to work. But why do we go to work when there are others who do not go to work? We go to work to get wages to buy the things we need; our bosses do not go to work for wages because they have the means to get the things they need without having to wait for wages. From whom do we obtain the wages that are so necessary for our present existence? From capitalists. But where do they get the means to pay us our wages? The capitalists employ us, pay us wages, for producing all these necessary goods. With the wages we receive we buy back a portion of the goods we have produced. We buy back some of the goods we produce. The rest of the goods we produce is either taken by our employers for their personal use, or is used, like new machinery and new factories, to enlarge the capacity for future production, to carry on wars, and for other similar purposes. It is because we work, but do not consume all we produce, that oligarchs can live without working. They are able to take what we produce because they own all the means for producing and distributing wealth. The employers are in one special class and we are in another. They belong to the class of property-owners, we belong to the class of propertyless. They look at things in a different way from what we do. When we apply for work we endeavour to obtain as high a wage as we can; they endeavour to pay as low a wage as we will take. The lower the wages they pay us, the greater, as a rule, will be the wealth going to them. You will see that this arises from the nature of the system in which we live.

Subjugated and subjected people are slaves; those people who dominate slaves are their masters. Wage slaves are people who have been robbed of their means of living; therefore, they possess no property: neither do their masters feed, clothe nor house them. In order to live, these slaves must sell their labour power to their masters, the capitalists, who, in return give them a wage on the average only sufficient to buy the means of subsistence whilst working. Thus it will be seen, if the wage slaves cannot find work they will get no money; without money they cannot get the means of subsistence, therefore, they must slowly starve to death. Yet, the wage slaves can free themselves from slavery! This power can be obtained through the vote; chattel and feudal slaves were not allowed to vote, but the wage slaves are. The different sections of the capitalist class beg for the votes of the workers in order to get into power. It is a strange thing, that the working class have the means at hand to gain their freedom and yet they use those means to put their masters into Parliament. By such action the wage slaves of to-day tighten the bonds of their slavery. Of course, it is obvious, the working class would not return their masters to power if they understood their slave position. How then can the workers overcome their political ignorance? By studying socialism. Through studying the history of humanity socialists understand the cause of the unhappy lot of their class and know that the only remedy for the ills of their class is socialism. 

You are sometimes told that we are poor because of unjust taxation or because we do not work hard enough. Do not accept such a view. We are poor because, as I mentioned above, we are robbed of the greater part of the goods we produce. We are robbed when we receive our wages because we are given back as wages only a fraction of the wealth we have produced. Our wages, as you must know so well, represent little more than will keep us and our families alive. We have nothing to spare which can be robbed from us afterwards. They who rob us are the people who own the means of wealth production and distribution. To-day with the assistance of nature you produce what is necessary for society’s existence, but this wealth is owned by your masters, as they own the means by which wealth is produced. They own these things first of all because they stole them from you, and secondly because you give them the power to retain this ownership by voting them into Parliament. Police, Army, Navy, Air Force, Courts of Justice, and so forth, are all controlled through Parliament, and they are all used to help your master to keep his hold of the means of wealth production.

What then, you may ask, is the remedy for such an evil state of affairs. In one word, socialism. To-morrow, if you wish, you can obtain control of the means of production, and arrange the affairs of society so that all those who are able shall take an equal part in producing wealth and all who live shall have an equal right to receive the best that society can give. This is socialism. if the majority of working men make up their minds that it shall be, then socialism will be here as soon as you have appointed delegates and sent them to Parliament with instructions to take the necessary steps to bring in socialism.

The purpose of the Socialist Party is not to arouse a sentimental sympathy, useless by itself, but to urge the non-socialists to study our position in order that he or she may join with us to help achieve our object, a system, in which the enjoyment of life will not be based upon the misery of others. They are not free who mock their chains even if those chains be the invisible ones of wage slavery.

A Planet to Save, A World to Win

Another day of protests by schoolchildren over climate change has taken place in Scotland.

A number of gatherings were held, with two of the largest at the Scottish parliament and Glasgow's George Square. Protests also took place in Aberdeen, Fort William, Skelmorlie, Aboyne, Peebles, Nairn, Stirling and Ullapool.

Socialists argue that a system of ownership of the means of life by individuals, corporations and states directly causes the problems of climate change. Therefore your political support of such a system will necessarily and inevitably lead to the continuation of global warming, and the unthinkable consequences that accompanies it. it is not mankind but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems. The environment is not under threat from humanity as such, but from profit-seeking.

The Socialist Party is not urging the Friday for Climate school strikers to believe us uncritically. We are confident that overwhelming evidence will be found in day-to-day experience to support our claim that the major environmentalist problems are the results not of inefficient politicians or ineffectual policies, but rather of the global capitalist system. To understand the economics of our society as a system that operates by certain laws is not an academic pursuit but a way of empowering ourselves. It is easy to feel angered at our society, to hold that there is little we can do to make a better world for ourselves and for our children. But fully comprehending how things are run for the benefit of the enrichment of the few generates an unbridled determination to fight for the better world now, for a different system which works in our favour. 

End the capitalist system!

We are all one

Social friction is not caused by the influx of workers from abroad. The cause of that friction is in the inadequacies of the capitalist system in its housing problems, its unplanned economy, in its inherent poverty. Migrants may highlight these problems but the problems are with us all the time. The Socialist Party condemns racial persecution and the exploitation of race hatred by politicians. The Socialist Party does not think that unrestricted immigration nor open borders would solve any working class problems, any more than draconian immigration controls has done. We stand for a social system in which human beings would be able to move freely all over the earth and in which there will be none of the national barriers of capitalism. The problems associated with large scale migration of workers are problems of capitalism, which always needs a mobile pool of unemployed, sometimes national and sometimes international. And we should not forget that while some problems may be associated with large scale immigration, others are associated with large scale emigration. The main task before all workers of all skin colours and nationalities is to abolish capitalism but while capitalism lasts they must defend, and struggle to improve, their living standards. These tasks can only be done in unity. when "indigenous" and "newcomer" workers all recognise that their interests are one against their common enemy, the capitalist class. This fact may be obscured for some workers by "patriotic loyalty" — a euphemism for prejudice — but it is nevertheless valid. Capitalism has always exploited its workers as best it can and its competition has always been cut-throat — what other type can there be?

Not everyone opposing immigration and deportation of “illegal” migrants are racists. Many are but most of our co-workers aren’t but rather confusion and angry. Demagogues are using the immigration issue for political gain as they always have, tapping real fears among native-born working people because of concerns about future jobs and personal security. People change country for one primary purpose – to work and earn a better living than is possible in their home countries. This is true whether for the lowest paid worker or the highly paid skilled worker. The driver is economics. Employers seek cheaper labour. The employers are not those promoting more restrictions. Stopping immigration is not the objective. It is controlling the flow of immigration. The expansion of legal visas provides a more reliable and stable workforce. Another way to look at the immigration debate is to see it as the flip side of outsourcing. Both allow employers to get the skills they desire at the lowest cost – outside the borders and domestically. Those industries that can’t send the work abroad, however, must rely on importation of immigrants to drive down costs. The drive for ever higher profits has led to a higher level of exploitation of domestic worker, the increased use of exploited workers globally.

All immigrants should have the right to work anywhere to earn a living and feed their families. Labour should have the right to cross borders in a similar manner that workers can freely travel across the European Union. Once workers are able to migrate freely it is up to unions to organise them, as they seek to organise all unorganised workers. The realities of exploitation creates the openings for organising and press for demands that are beneficial to all workers whatever their status. We support the basic democratic right of any individual to emigrate to any country in the world. Yet we do not countenance the incursionist policies of Israeli West Bank settlements (unless the Palestinian exiles are given the same facility to relocate within Israel) or Han Chinese expansionism into Tibet or Xinjiang. World socialist revolution, not mass migration, is the socialist solution to the misery and destitution of the majority of mankind under capitalism. What is needed is the emergence of independent organisations to represent the interests of the working class.

Child poverty in the news again

A classroom of children a day could fall into poverty unless benefits changes are brought in sooner, IPPR Scotland, an independent think thank has claimed. It also cited "UK benefits cuts" leading to falling living standards.

If family income supplement measures were not introduced quickly, 50,000 more youngsters would be affected by 2023-24. That is the equivalent of 25 children a day entering relative poverty.

IPPR Scotland director Russell Gunson said: "It's not right that almost a quarter of children in Scotland are locked into poverty. And without action that figure is due to rise dramatically."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48380558

FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!

Today, another Friday Strike for Climate takes place as the younger generation try to focus political attention upon the looming environmentalist crises. Many in the environmentalist and social justice movements hold anti-system politics, but do not consciously seek to overthrow capitalism itself. They fail to understand the nature of the system they oppose nor comprehend the political strategies necessary to end it. There even appears a reluctance about using the term capitalism and seeks to see the problem not as the system that runs our lives, but merely the policies pursued by those in government. These movements can be better understood not as being anti-capitalism but anti-corporations in outlook. As long as profit for the few is the basis of the economic system, capitalism will continue to flounder from one crisis to another, piling on more misery for the people. The Socialist Party declares that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism, they mean, firstly, that socialism is the next higher stage in society’s evolution; and, secondly, that it provides the only progressive solution of capitalism’s contradictions. Capitalism is not an eternal system which has existed from the beginning and will prevail to the end. On the contrary, it is only one system in an historical series (primitive communism – slave owning society – feudalism – capitalism), each of which evolved out of its predecessor, and each of which constituted a higher social stage than its predecessor inasmuch as each carried the development of society’s productive forces, and therewith also production which is the material basis of life and civilisation, forward to a higher level. In this series, capitalism was the last and highest: in a comparatively brief historical period it developed society’s productive forces and production itself to a pitch unprecedented in human history. Like all preceding social systems, however, capitalism too must die.

The very production relations which enabled capitalism to develop the productive forces of society to the highest level in human history are today strangling those productive forces, and therewith society itself. Production relations, i.e. the relations of men to each other in the productive process, find their social expression in property relations, e. the relation of men to things, and the characteristic feature of capitalist property relations is private ownership of the means of production. This relation of men to things reflects itself socially in the emergence, or rather existence, of two opposed classes at the two poles of capitalist society: the capitalist owners of property, i.e. the capitalist class on the one hand, and the propertyless owners of labour power, i.e. the working class on the other. The capitalist property relation described above has this important consequence, viz, that the actual producer, i.e. the worker, cannot have access to the means of production, i.e. cannot produce, except through the capitalist. That is to say, the worker has to hire himself out, i.e. sell his labour power, to the capitalist. And the capitalist buys this labour power of the worker only if he (the capitalist) can make a profit out of the transaction. No profits; no employment.

How can this profit be made by the capitalist? Only in one way. Only by compelling the worker to produce, in the course of the production process, more values than those he receives in the form of wages. The worker is compelled to produce surplus value for the capitalist; which is only another way of saying that he is compelled to do a certain proportion of unpaid labour for the capitalist. The capitalist relation is thus an exploitative relation. Which is why the Socialist Party repeatedly points out that if you preserve private profits, you are bound to preserve exploitation. What enables the capitalist to exploit the worker is precisely private ownership of the means of production. Which, is why we point out that the only way to abolish capitalist exploitation is to abolish private property which is but the capitalist means to private profit. No profits; no production: that is the capitalist law. For, the whole purpose of the capitalist production process is – private profit, which is but another name for the self-expansion of capital. The capitalist throws into the productive process a certain quantity of capital as a means to expanding it. That is the whole point in the process – for the capitalist. If at the end of the process the capital thus thrown in has not expanded, i.e. increased in quantity, the whole process is, from his point of view, useless. Which is why we say that capitalist production is but a means to capitalist profit. Production, which is essential to society, is only incidental to the process; profit is its motive, and profit its purpose.

The basic contradiction of the capitalist system is that between the associated labour process and the individual appropriation of the product. The socialisation of the means of production, a progressive solution inasmuch as it would preserve the associated labour process while freeing the productive forces from the fetter of private profit. Marxists say socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism, the only solution of the contradictions of capitalism which can carry mankind to a higher stage of social organisation. For, this solution alone preserves the technical gains of capitalism and enables them to be used as a basis for further development of the productive forces in the service of mankind. Socialism is thus the road forward from capitalism, the next higher stage of progressive social evolution. The economic basis for socialism has been created under capitalism. The world has been ripening under capitalism itself for socialism.

The final agent of social change is mankind. For, on the manner in which humanity acts on social forces depends the pace and outcome of their development. When Marx spoke of the “inevitability” of socialism, he meant, on the one hand, that, given correct human action it could come into being, and, on the other, that he anticipated that this human action would be taken. He did not mean that socialism was bound to come, mechanically of itself, independent of human action. On the contrary, he expressly stated that the destruction of capitalism could lead to socialism – or barbarism. That the latter could come out the world has proof of already of capitalism’s probable disintegration if the climate emergency is not mended. Should the socialist solution fail to be applied, capitalism is doomed to accelerated disintegration. One thing is impossible – the stabilisation of global warming through capitalism.

Marx did not say or imply that if you somehow destroy capitalism socialism must dawn. That is a fatalist and mechanistic conception with which Marxism has nothing in common. What Marx did teach and demonstrate was that if you destroy capitalism in a certain way, that is, by a certain form of social action, the road to socialism would be opened. If socialism is to be the outcome of capitalism’s downfall, it is necessary that mankind take conscious action in that direction. The basic classes of capitalist society are the capitalist class and the working class. Between them there is already a struggle going on; the struggle by the capitalist class to maintain its system of exploitation, and the struggle by the working class to overthrow it. Marx taught and demonstrated that the road to socialism lay through the carrying forward to its logical conclusion of this struggle by the working class against the capitalist class. Why did he teach this? Not out of “selfishness” or “hate” but by reason of necessity. Marx showed that the successful carrying forward of the struggle of the working class to free itself from capitalist exploitation would open the road to socialism by demonstrating that the working class could not emancipate itself without also emancipating all society. In order to emancipate itself, the working class would have to expropriate the capitalists and socialise their property. But the process of socialising the means of production and distribution is also the process of bringing in the worldwide, class-free democratic society. The process of the working class emancipating itself from capitalism is therefore also the process of emancipating all mankind from exploitation. The carrying forward of the class struggle to success means the overthrow of the capitalist state power and the expropriation of the capitalist class. You cannot keep the capitalist state power and expropriate the capitalist class. You cannot, because the capitalist state power is precisely the instrument for the defence of capitalist property. Marx saw and demonstrated that socialism is the only progressive alternative to capitalism and that the bringing of the socialist society into being demands the carrying forward of the revolutionary class struggle to its logical conclusion, i.e. the overthrow of the capitalist class and its state. Abandon the end, and you abandon the means. Abandon socialism and you abandon all hope for civilisation's survival.

Join us in the Socialist Party

There are those who live in the dream world of a happy society of a peaceful, ever-progressing capitalism having lost the ability to think clearly and logically on what has happened in recent years and why. They blissfully and blindly continue to watch Fox News, content in their belief that they are the opposition to the globalist elite intent upon taking over and ruling the world. But if they were genuinely against the oligarchs and the plutocrats of Wall St, it would be impossible to explain why capitalists support them.

The spectre of system collapse is haunting the world. Bankers, bosses, politicians and economists talk about it but none of them know what to do. World capitalism is on the edge of an abyss and the ruling class is seeking a way out of the various crises by reversing all the hard-won gains of the working class who are left powerless and lacking any credible alternative to the politicians who betray them at every turn., yet still hoping against hope that an economic upswing will bring relief. The real solution to the impending disasters, the only real deterrent to the attack on working people by capitalism, is the socialist revolution because capitalists will yield minimal sops and reforms only out of fear of mass resistance that they cannot control. Capitalism has tried to strip us of our humanity and our longing for community. But it has not entirely succeeded. There is a road forward: the rediscovery of Marxism. If you want to learn the truth, if you want to fight the only battle worth fighting, for the socialist revolution – join us in the Socialist Party. Our socialism means a feeling of kindred toward all humanity, a wish to help those in misery and to find a way to make them happy and joyful.

Although world political and financial leaders may at times seem to be running scared, they are still running the world. The challenge for the workers' movement is to move beyond mass campaigning and demonstrating, in the propaganda war, which will all be necessary in the future. We need to try to stop capitalism in its tracks. In the final analysis, capitalism depends on workers for its continued development. Workers move the goods, build the factories, produce the goods and services of the system. If we cease to do so, we’re unlikely to see an army of sweating billionaire CEOs erecting the scaffolding, or slaving away on the production lines to keep their system working.

We Serve the People

We live in an age, where the dominant mood is one of cynicism and despair, where horizons are narrow and aspirations low. The economy continues to crumble and poverty reaches new levels. Each day brings new revelations of corporate crime and corruption. Capitalism is as mired as ever in its own contradictions, yet any talk of an alternative society is dismissed with scepticism. Too many radicals have lost their sense of direction having rejected fundamental principles as ‘old fashioned’. There seems to be little hope for bringing about a society not dominated by the most voracious and destructive capitalist system ever known. Capitalism offers no solution but only one savagery after another, to make a genuinely human existence appear hopeless. We face a world of massive inequality.

We face a world in which we have been trained to obey those with money and power, and where it seems natural to spend many hours a day being bossed around while working for others so that they gain profits.

A human existence is possible. The productive forces have reached the point where life without starvation and homelessness is within reach, for all. Only the rule of one class over the rest prevents it. Capitalism exacerbates every social division to keep the working class divided. Clearly the world faces a choice between authentic socialism and an increasingly apparent barbarism. There is no room left for any alternative but socialist revolution. What does that mean? That all the problems of the world will need to be solved, and it will be the working people of the world who will have to develop ways to make decisions, ways to work together, and ways to protect ourselves and everyone from the damages that capitalism will have created.

The Socialist Party see the present time as one of opportunity to help with the rebirth of socialist thought, based unequivocally upon the concept of self-emancipation, centred on human freedom, and it is upon the richness and breadth of Marxist ideas that we wish to grow. The process of winning working people to the knowledge that life, work and culture can be more meaningful and fulfilling, as well as safer and more stable, with the socialist reorganisation of society, is long and difficult but can be exciting and rewarding. The working class does not need still more middle-class and bureaucratic “condescending saviours.” They have been a big part of the problem and not the solution. Come and help build and defend the society you want, a movement that is not built on sacrifice, anger, frustration and guilt. The gains of the past must be defended now. But the best way to do this is by understanding that unless the capitalist system itself is overthrown, those past gains and any temporary victories will be reversed by what drives of the bosses who own and control it. Trickery will not advance the cause of revolution. We call upon all workers everywhere to join us in the fight for humanity and a class-free world. Consciousness of the need for revolutionary change is growing.

By brutal means, capitalism has brought technology and the organisation of production to a point where the potential to adequately feed, clothe and house the entire world population is reachable. But the creation of abundance would end exploitation and destroy profits, so the capitalists themselves stand as a barrier to a society fit for human beings. Socialist revolution is the only solution. Our efforts are devoted to exposing, not hiding, the vacillations, capitulations and betrayals of the reformists. Many in the left have abandoned even the semblance of socialism and are disappearing into the ranks of the traditional reformists. Whichever road to reformism they choose, they use their new formations to promote class collaborationist populism with “Greens” and other reformers. They have taken up the role, virtually abandoned by the traditional parties, of left defenders of the capitalist system in the guise of its opponents and become a corrupted and gutted doctrine which passes as Marxism.

Given our different histories in different geographical areas we will have different conceptions of our immediate needs and interests, and of which problems it is most urgent to solve. We will also disagree over the best ways to organise decision-making at workplaces, in localities, and globally. All these disagreements will lead to differences within the working-class that we hope and expect will become united people of the world in solidarity through these struggles. If successful, we will create a world of freely associated labour where we decide what use values need to be produced, make them available to those who need or want them, and do this in an environmentally sustainable way in which we find ways to enjoy our lives and fulfil our potentials through actions that are sociable and helpful to ourselves and others as well.

The future is ours

People on every continent have risen in resistance. Developments show in every way that the capitalist world system inevitably leads to crises and war. The goal – socialism and throughout the world – is a common one. And the need for consensus is great. The workers' movement in most countries is weak and involves a lack of “roots” within the our fellow workers. The has led to great discord, division and desolation. One might say that the situation of the working class is difficult. But the situation is not exclusively dark. We are capable of participation in active cooperation on different tasks of common interests. There is today an urgent need to strengthen workers solidarity across the borders. It will strengthen class struggle

Capitalism's enormous development of the powers of production, and an enormous technological revolution but under capitalist forms of production this development leads to ever deeper contradictions within the capitalist system, and between different states, and leads to enormous problems and suffering for the working class and the masses. No short-lived cyclical economic booms can stop this development. With socialism new labour saving technology could have led to a comprehensive liberation of human beings, and paved the ground for great social and political advances. It illustrates the need for an alternative future – socialism. The idea that reformism is radical and pro-working class movement is a myth. In fact, reformism is today one of the biggest barriers to the development of the forces of revolution. The tasks are so large reformism will not solve any of the fundamental problems.

We have recently seen many protests against the power of the corporations whether it is Monsanto, the oil companies, or the computer industry.

As long as the capitalist system remains unchallenged, why a corporation does what it does and the logic driving them is not questioned. Where the faults of the capitalists are attributed to “corporate greed” we are left with a moral argument of “good versus bad” corporations which encourages an assumption of capitalism’s potential to be kinder and gentler. The fight over pharmaceuticals, for example, is not just about monopoly pricing and mega-profits. It’s about private property rights (patents and intellectual ownership) and commodification—where access to essential medicines is not constituted as social rights, but as commodities bought and sold for profit. The corporations, as powerful as they are, are only vehicles for capitalists. In other words, they are a means to an end.

Anti-corporatism isn’t necessarily anti-capitalist. Small businesses tap into popular anger and resentment against corporations by pushing a populist agenda of breaking up monopolies and restoring competition and competitive pricing. Anti-corporate populism is based on the recognition that the capitalist system needs competition if it’s to be efficient, effective and constantly expanding. The end result is that while investors may suffer temporary losses from bad publicity that results in a fall in share-value and sometimes are obliged to restructure and reorganise their business empires, the capitalists are far from defeated. The protectors of capitalism recognise that unless anti-corporate populism is effectively contained and concessions are made, then there’s a real danger that discontent could escalate and actually transform into anti-capitalism. The Socialist Party seeks to engage in a struggle against capitalism itself and not restrict ourselves to attacking just specific corporations. The Socialist Party are not trust-busters, but system-breakers.

All for One, One for All, All for All

It is the division of society into property owners and propertyless people which lies at the root of the crisis of the capitalist world. One of the fundamental. truths which a study of socialism teaches, and it is a basic principle, is the existence of the class struggle. This class struggle is based upon the antagonism of interests between the propertyless working class, who are forced to sell their energy in order to live, and the property-owning master class.

Millions of workers extract raw material from the earth. They own neither the land nor the machinery they use, nor the products they raise. Millions of other workers manufacture the raw materials into finished products. They own neither the machinery they use nor the products they manufacture. These are the property of the capitalists and the landlords. The vast majority of people in society to-day are thus at the mercy of the private owners. They cannot organise the distribution of the wealth which they and their comrades have co-operated to produce, because they do not possess this wealth. It is the property of the private owners. 

Here is to be found the fundamental reason why the socially necessary goods are obtainable only in the market-place as commodities. The private property owners have no other means for the disposal of the goods others have made for them. They cannot give the goods to society, for that would be an abandonment of the right of private property to extract profit. They cannot distribute the goods according to the needs of the people, however vast and urgent those needs may be, because private property production is governed by the law of production for profit irrespective of the needs of the people. The criterion of all capitalist enterprise is—does it make a profit? When it ceases to make a profit it goes bankrupt—it is finished and the workers are cast on to the scrapheap of unemployment. Capitalism is one big gamble. Since its fortunes hang on the tail of its unpredictable market, it can never be sure of what to do to secure its own interests. The great tragedy is that the gambles are always paid off in working class lives and their insecurity.

People tell us, we will have socialism, but the world is not ready for it yet. They argue with us that they are being “realistic.” We say they’re not being realistic and their position isn’t coherent. Other critics of our position are merely cynics. The cynic thinks everyone is stupid. They accuse their fellow workers of never being ready for socialism because they’re mean spirited as well as stupid. They don’t want other people to have decent lives, they want people to suffer, they want it so much that they will allow that desire to over-ride their own individual self-interest. Most people don’t realise the socialist ideas they oppose are in their own interest. Believing that one day we will get socialism even though people who like the idea but nevertheless are unwilling to vote for socialists is not simply unrealistic – it’s fantastic. It’s downright delusional. For the proponents of lesser evilism, winning is everything. There is hardly anything more shameful after all, than losing. Even cheating is acceptable if the cheater manages to win. Lesser evil supporters are cowards, people who are incapable of seeing the incoherence in voting for someone who opposes things they profess to want, while persisting in believing that we will one day get these things anyway, without having to vote for the party who seeks them. If people want socialism, then they’re going to have to vote for candidates who advocate it, rather than for candidates who oppose it. It takes more than one person or one party to change the world.

There is no need to attach an adjective to the word "Capitalism", as in "Casino Capitalism" "Crony Capitalism", "Neo-Liberal Capitalism", "Financial Capitalism", "Disaster Capitalism", "Shock Capitalism", "Unregulated Capitalism", "Private-Equity Capitalism," or that old standby, "Greedy Capitalism". It is Capitalism, pure and simple. There is no such thing as “Compassionate Capitalism”. The vision of the world’s future appears completely dystopian and has descended into the dark abyss where the unimaginable has become imaginable. The politics of terror and the culture of fear legitimises the militarisation and regimentation of public life and society and fosters the criminalisation of social problems. Brutal modern-day capitalism has released corporate and military power and throughout the globe we witness particularly savage, cruel, and exploitative regimes of oppression. The planet itself is now under threat. Capitalism has made a virtue out of self-interest and the pursuit of material wealth. Capitalism is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to accumulate capital at all costs. Money now engulfs everything in this new age of disposability. 

Moreover, when coupled with a weakening of movements to counter the generated power of capitalists, the result has been a startling increase in the influence of predatory capitalism, along with inequities in wealth, income, power, and opportunity. Such power breeds anti-democratic tendencies.

In place of the present economic system based on the class ownership of the means of life and their consequent use to provide profits for the owners, we are suggesting that the means of life be vested in the community as a whole and be under its democratic management so that wealth can be produced solely to satisfy human wants. Freed from the barrier of profit, we shall be able to produce in abundance all the things we need. Gone will be the absurd paradoxes of poverty amid plenty, of food being burned while children starve, of building workers being unemployed while people live in hovels. Naturally. socialism can only exist on a world scale.

If the Socialist Party grew strong enough and a majority of voters backed us then we would not form a government, with a prime minister and cabinet, to administer a system where workers and millionaires would still exist. We do not seek political power in order to run capitalism, but to abolish it. So that, if there were a Socialist majority, steps would immediately be taken to end private property in the means of production and to put in its place common ownership and democratic control. The Socialist Party is made up of conscious socialists organised on a democratic basis and so has no leader or leaders.

We have seen that a socialist majority would use its power to change the basis of society from class to common ownership. This of course will amount to a social revolution. But this doesn’t mean we’ll be starling from scratch. Socialists have always maintained that capitalism paves the way for socialism by, for instance, developing the large-scale co-operative production that makes class ownership an anachronism. This large-scale co-operative productive system, including its administrative apparatus, will be the basis of socialist society. The basic function of the state is to be the public power of coercion and for this purpose it is organised as the police, the armed forces, and the prison service. A public power of coercion is necessary only in class society with its built-in class conflict. In Socialism the state will no longer he needed and will be dismantled. However, today the government has itself assumed other, purely technical and administrative, tasks and this aspect of its work is in fact part of the productive system. We have in mind the old Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, or the Ministry of Power. No doubt the administrative apparatus that is these and other ministries can be adapted for use as part of the socialist administration of industry. We can’t go into details (that’s something for the socialist majority) but we can say that the adaptions will be far-reaching— everything to do with finance will go, and the internal structure will have to be reorganised on a democratic basis. What we say about these technical ministries applies equally to the large corporations not part of the government machine. Obviously, there'll be a certain continuity in institutions between capitalism and socialism and at the start we'll have to make do with what we’ve inherited. Common ownership and democratic control will mean that everybody will be socially equal.