Thursday, January 09, 2020

Towards The New Cooperative Commonwealth

A world community without money, without prices, without wages, without classes and without countries has long been feasible. Capitalism itself created the material preconditions for such a society. Mankind has proclaimed the necessity and possibility of a superior economic and social system and even sketched its outlines: a society based on people’s complete equality and freedom, a society based on collective creative work to satisfy human needs, a society in which means of production belong to people collectively. The claim that capitalism is the best economic system is the biggest lie in human history.

 This system is drenched in blood. While hundreds of millions of people have no home, no healthcare, no education and even no food, the means to produce and satisfy these needs lie idle and unused. Economically, this society cannot stand on its two feet without children put to work while it discards the aged. It can’t produce without killing, maiming and wearing people out. It can’t carry on without dehumanising the majority of the people of the earth and without ignoring their basic needs. The basis of capitalist society is the despicable fact that the majority, in order to live must sell its bodily and intellectual powers to a minority. It is a society where the production of people’s essentials has been tied to the profitability of capital. 

Under capitalism, with its wage slavery, working people are nominally free; but the land, the tools and all the product of labour belong to the employing class. The workers are at liberty to change their individual masters, if they can, that is all.“Freesell their labour power, which is the only commodity they possess, to the capitalists who own or control all the means of producing wealth, including the tools, raw material, land and money. So long as wages are paid by one class to another class, so long will men and women remain slaves to the employing class. Goods, are produced, not directly for social needs, but in order to create a profit for the capitalists. The only way to solve the growing antagonism between the two great classes of modern society is, by substituting cooperation for competition, in all branches of production and distribution. This involves a social revolution.

We regard economic growth, technological progress, development of the productive capacities, and the raising of the level of consumption, welfare and leisure of human society as vital. Sharing scarcity is not our solution. The Socialist Party intends to build a system which is based on economic justice.

Socialism is a society in which human beings gain control over their economic lives, are freed from the chains of blind economic laws. Socialism is the movement for freeing human beings from economic necessity. A socialist society is an open and informed society. In socialism it will be a routine procedure to constantly inform people about the needs and problems in the various areas of human life worldwide. In the socialist system it is the citizens and their institutions that constantly inform each other of the economic, social and human needs, as well as of the scientific and technical advances of the different sectors. Given the present technology, the organisation of such information interchange and of everyone’s constant access to it is feasible even right now.

In a socialist society not only all are consumers, but all are also producers. Everyone works and everyone consumes. To carry on production "for the benefit of the community" means, in a socialist society, for the benefit of the community both as consumers and as producers. The wages system, under which workers has been reduced to a commodity is to be supplanted by the socialist system, the fraternal commonwealth. By uniting at the ballot box, political control of the State can be secured, and the cooperative commonwealth established. The common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new economic system ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. 

The socialist commonwealth, liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression and provides the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the person, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of all. 

The time has come for social regeneration, and this progress is only possible through a new and worldwide change of system, and to inaugurate that change will be the purpose of the Socialist Party. Can the day of change be hastened? Without a doubt. Every worker who helps the propaganda, votes the socialist platform, and encourages others to do likewise is speeding the day of the new commonwealth. 


Wednesday, January 08, 2020

The need is socialism

What is needed for socialism is first and foremost for conscious workers to realise that labourism and socialism have nothing whatsoever in common. The Labour Party in action has been making for state capitalism, not socialism. The path to socialism is not through nationalisation or workers’ councils or cooperatives but through a fundamental change in class relations, the superseding of the capitalism. It abandoned the class struggle, and became a reform movement occupied with legislation, not with the emancipation of the working class itself. Instead of rousing the consciousness of the workers, it has been silencing that consciousness. The demand for government ownership of industry and the extension of the functions of the state is not socialism. What nationalisation means is the State has been made responsible for the organisation of production. The workers remain just the same – sweating in the factories and in the fields and piling up the profits for their employers. The workers will have got new masters instead of the old ones. Perhaps, humane masters instead of the rapacious masters of today. Appointed by a government or at best chosen by workers themselves. But, once chosen, they must be obeyed. The workers are not masters over their workshops, they are not masters of the means of production. Above them stand the ministry’s bureaucrats and managers. Powerless against the power of the capitalists, impotent against the strength of the State. Nationalisation (or municipalisation) means new chains. Capitalism, indeed, cannot be annihilated by a change in the commanding personnel; but only by the abolition of commanding. The real freedom of the workers consists in their direct mastery over the means of production. The essence of the future free world community is they direct their work themselves, socially and collectively.

Compromise and concession has been struck by the labourite left with socialist fundamentals and principles in order to secure the support of non-revolutionary voters. To avoid misunderstanding, it is necessary to define the fundamental terms. Socialism is the system where means of production are owned by society as a whole, not private persons, not the State. Socialism is where each individual contributes to society according to ability and receives a share of the social product according to needs. This implies a high degree of modern co-operative production before there can be more than a redistribution of poverty; but co-operative production is not by itself sufficient, for all factory production is possible only by the highest degree of social co-operation, Similarly, most societies recognise the needs of children, the ill, and the elderly; but that does not suffice to make those societies socialist. A socialist revolution is possible only when the productive capacity (surviving after the revolution) suffices for the needs of the whole population on the level that its citizens recognise as equitable. No socialist revolution today in a backward country has any chance of effectiveness, or even of survival

 The Socialist Party is not a reform party, but a revolutionary party. It does not propose to modify the competitive profit system, but abolish it. The Socialist Party stands squarely upon the principles of revolutionary world socialism. There will be not so much as a hint at compromise. It takes no backward step. The Socialist Party is necessarily a world party. It is as wide as the domain of capitalism. It is everywhere and always the same. The Socialist Party has no interest in any of the so-called issues over which capitalist politicians fight sham battles. It cares nothing about banking regulation, protectionist or free markets. It stands first, last, and always for the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution, and will press forward unceasingly until they secure them, thereby liberating humanity and resolving the ills of capitalism. Let there be no ambiguity about the use of socialisation. We mean by it the ownership and control by the community. Fundamental social problems involving antagonistic class interests cannot be settled fully and finally by mutual accommodation but must find their solution in a change in society’s structure.

Capitalism can continue only by beating down the workers. 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. We are the party of the socialist revolution in the United Kingdom. We maintain that capitalist governments do not represent the interests of the but acts on behalf of the few rich. We propose that the organised workers replace the capitalist regime with their own administration which shall administer on behalf of the majority instead of the exploiting minority of the plutocrats.


Tuesday, January 07, 2020

To Save the Planet

The 26th Conference of the Parties UN climate conference is taking place in Glasgow this November, the Guardian reminds us.

At COP 26, world leaders will be under huge pressure to come up with an international, united and effective response to the climate emergency. Those involved in the recent wave of climate action believe much can be done beforehand to ensure nations take effective action.

“There is no doubt 2020 is going to be a really big year,” says Kim Bryan, of the US group 350.org.“In Glasgow, nations will be expected to agree formal commitments to tackle climate change. And people pressure is really making a difference.”

A number of Scottish organisations are building their campaigns in the run-up to COP, including Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, a collection of more than 40 civil society organisations.

 But there have never been so many options for would-be activists, from traditional NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, to more radical groups such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) and its youth section, the school strikes movement, run by the UK Student Climate Network, and grassroots organisations such as Onca in Brighton or Clean Air for Southall and Hayes.

Clare Rodger of the UK Student Climate Network says: “There is more that we could be doing to make sure that everyone is equally valued and listened to. This includes encouraging more boys to get involved in the climate justice movement.”

 “There is going to be a mixture of mobilisation for the coming year, and hopefully a lot of it will be led by grassroots groups,” says Guppi Bola of Wretched of the Earth, an activist coalition that supports the global south and people of colour seeking climate justice. Bola says that people of colour should join local groups where they feel comfortable doing so, and that many grassroots groups in metropolitan areas are more diverse and representative of society.

“The basic idea is to inform and inspire new people and then get them into groups to take on roles and jobs so the whole mobilisation can grow quickly,” says XR.


Daze Aghaji of XR youth recommends her own organisation, “because we are extremely diverse. We have really worked on this because we know that XR was coming under criticism over lack of diversity. We are creating bonds with activists in the global south, and we are taking on topics that are hard to talk about, like mental health and climate change.”

Craig Bennett, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, has warned of the environmental movement becoming stuck in “a white middle-class ghetto”.

A key month is April, when there will be three days of action across the world, including a global strike and a rebellion led by XR.

The Socialist Party has an important message for environment activists, no matter their age, ethnic origin or gender. 

The capitalist mode of production is the cause of climate change, the one thing that the politicians cannot go against. Only world socialism can overturn this mode of production. The campaign against climate change is the struggle against capitalism. Challenging climate change means demonstrating that the solution requires the reorganisation of society. It is also about battling capitalism to reshape our our economics to improve people’s quality of life and to reduce CO2 emissions. There is an alternative with a different vision. The solution is radical but the barriers are not technology but rather the the system of capital accumulation and its dominant economic vested interests. Stopping climate change requires a change more fundamental than a change of lifestyle choices or protests to make governments adopt effective policies. The vast extent of global warming is the result not of individuals at all, but by corporations driven by profit. Regulatory departments don’t do their jobs because they were bribed, or complacent, or powerless, or all three.

We urge all climate change campaigners to become active participants in the great struggle for a world of freedom from exploitation. The capitalist system is global so the devastation is global too. Business as usual means the suicide of civilisation and world socialism is vital for the survival of a society we can live in and unless we can clearly name the enemy as the capitalist system, and join and connect the worldwide struggles against it, achieving the political power to overthrow capitalism will elude us. Each of us have a responsibility not be drawn into meaningless games that maintain the power of the few over the many. If socialism to cure climate change is not the priority on your agenda, it ought to be, and you must act politically to make sure your voice counts. If not for for your community then at least for yourself and your own loved ones.


Protest and Survive

Climate activists boarded a gas mining rig in Dundee in an attempt to stop it from heading out to the North Sea. They came down about five hours later due to deteriorating weather conditions.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) Scotland  said three of its members had climbed aboard the Valaris 122 rig and intended to there for as long as possible to prevent it from operating. The group is demanding the Scottish and UK governments “tell the truth” about the impact of the fossil fuel industry and its effect on climate changeActivists have also urged politicians to decommission fossil fuel infrastructure, introduce a “just transition” for workers and communities, and establish a legally binding citizens’ assembly for environmental issues.
Protester, Fiona, said the world has “zero chance” of staying below the 2C global warming limit set by the Paris climate agreement with the current size of the fossil fuel industry.
“We are currently living in a world warmed by 1.1C – and we are seeing the catastrophic, heartbreaking and devastating effects every day,” she said.
Jo said she was taking part in the protest for her niece.
“I don’t want to say to her that I didn’t take a stand when I had the choice and left it to other people to sort it out,” she said. “I am going to give it my best shot and go down fighting because I can see the world through her eyes and I want to protect things for her.”
Police said four men and three women have been arrested in connection with the protest.
Regardless of  how sincere and dedicated environmental activists are, the truth of the matter is that if they do not work to replace the capitalist profit system then all their protests will be in vain. They have to set about dealing with the root causes of global warming and that is the economic structure of today's society.  UN climate conferences always fail and for the same reason — the inability of the various capitalist states to agree on what needs to be done as some would suffer economically more than others, especially countries with fossil fuel resources which they use either for export or for domestic use as the cheapest energy source available.