The Appeal of the Socialist Party

We are on the threshold of a remarkable leap in the productive process. Automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence is not merely ‘a little more of the same.’ It will have consequences upon economy. Like all technical innovations worthy of the name, automation is a way of producing more, better, with less labour-time. That can spell trouble for our economic system. For capitalism tends to reverse the normal ways of thinking about economic problems. What comes to everybody’s mind when he hears that we are piling up large inventories of goods, if not ‘trouble ahead’? And if we are very low on goods, that is taken to mean that we are in good shape. Because it is an economy of production for profit rather than for use, it thrives on scarcity, and collapses as a result of the very situation that men should be happiest about: what is called a ‘glut’ of the things we consume.

Political democracy is only one feature of complete democracy. Complete democracy necessarily includes industrial democracy. Without industrial democracy, political democracy is merely a preparation for democracy. Industrial democracy involves the collective ownership and democratic management of the socially necessary industries. The existing political parties are owned by the capitalist class and stand for the interests of the capitalist class. They stand for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation ol the workers, and for wage-slavery. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers. Against these corrupt capitalist parties is the Socialist Party, the party of the awakening working class, whose red banners, inscribed with the inspiring class-conscious solidarity, proclaiming the coming triumph of international socialism and the emancipation of the workers of the world. The Socialist Party is positive and constructive. It stands for complete political and industrial democracy. 

On one side are the corporations, the banks, the plutocrats, the politicians, the bribe-givers, the oligarchs, the parasites, retainers and lackeys of the filth, and slime of ruling class politics, glorifying in its plundering and profligate regime.

On the other side are the workers, the producers, coming into consciousness of their interests and their power as a class, filled with the spirit of solidarity and with the confidence that throbs within them; scorning the capitalist parties that promoted industrial robbery and political rottenness. We are not here to play the filthy game of capitalist politics. Capitalism, having its foundation in the slavery and exploitation of the masses, can only rule by corrupt means. 

The Socialist Party as the party of the working class stands squarely upon its principles in making its appeal to the workers. It is not begging for votes, nor seeking for votes, nor bargaining for votes. It is not in the vote market. It wants votes, but only of those who want it - those who recognise it as their party and come to it of their own free will. we want all the votes we can get but only as a means of developing the political power of the working class in the struggle for industrial freedom, and not that we may revel in the spoils of office. The workers have never yet developed or made use of their political power. They have played the game of their masters for the benefit of the master class - and now many of them, disgusted with their own blind and stupid performance, are renouncing politics and refusing to see any difference between the capitalist parties financed by the ruling class to perpetuate class rule and the Socialist Party organised by the workers themselves as a means of wresting the control of government and of industry from the capitalists and making the working class the ruling class of the world. We are united and enthusiastic as never before. There is but one issue - the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. It proclaims the identity of interests of all workers and appeals to them to unite for their emancipation. It points out the class struggle and emphasises the need of the economic and political unity of the workers to wage that struggle to a successful end. It declares relentless war upon the entire capitalist regime in the name of the working class and demands in uncompromising terms the overthrow of wage-slavery and the inauguration of industrial democracy.

To this end the Socialist Party has been organised; to this end it is devoting all its energy and resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers. The Socialist Party has no blueprints to offer the world. Its task is to mobilise the workers for the destruction of the system which robs them of the fruits of their labour. That is our only purpose in calling upon them to organise for the conquest of political power.

Homelessness In Canada

Stats-Canada recently created its first survey on wait times for affordable housing. It showed that there is someone on the waiting list in about 283,000 households across the country, and 176,600 households have been waiting for at least two years. Of all those, one fifth are already in a subsidized unit and waiting to move to a new home. There are about 1.7 million households who live in ''core housing need,'' meaning they live in a home which is too small or they can’t afford it.

 Tim Richter, head of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said they were some of the best numbers he has seen, though he did not define what he meant by “best.'' He also said, ''It points to the urgency of a federal government response, and that we should be doing as much as we can as soon as we can.'' 

One thing's for sure and that is life under capitalism isn't getting any better

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Financial Wellness Crisis.

The Manulife of Canada debt survey, published on Nov.22, revealed that two in five Canadian's don't expect to get out of debt on their lifetimes. Also 94 per cent of respondents said the average household has too much debt, while 67 per cent of those in debt assumed that everyone else was. In the spring, 33 per cent said their spending was increasing faster than their income, but now 45 per cent said it. More than half of Canadians reported considerable non-mortgage debt and 60 per cent said their credit cards were carrying a large balance, which is up from 48 per cent in the spring. "There is a financial wellness crisis and it's affecting Canadians of all demographics'', said Rick Lunny, president and CEO of Manulife Bank. 

When people of Mr. Lunny’s brilliance don't attempt to sugar coat things, you know they're really bad.

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Student Debt

The student loan debt burden in Scotland has more than doubled over the past decade to hit £5.5bn, with those from the poorest backgrounds borrowing more to get by.

Total student loan debt has increased from £2.4bn in 2010-11 to £5.5bn at the end of 2018-19, according to a report by the nation's public spending watchdog.

Audit Scotland said the amount of money being given out in loans had also nearly tripled over around the same time frame, rising from £187m in 2008-9 to £533m now.

 Its report added that students from the most deprived areas typically borrowed more than their richer peers, although this is partly explained by the fact that they are entitled to higher loans.

Under the current system, Scottish students receive free university tuition if they stay in the country to study, but can borrow money towards their living expenses.

The average loan in 2008-9 was only £2,420 but by 2018-19 it had reached £5,300, with students from the poorest areas claiming an average of £840 more than those from the richest.

The National Union of Students (NUS) said the level of debt was at an “unacceptable” level. NUS Scotland president Liam McCabe said the report made “stark reading” and showed that student debt “continues to sky-rocket”.

“It is Scotland’s poorest students that are carrying most of this burden, at an unacceptable average of £23,200 [over a four-year degree] in student loans,” he added. “Whilst free tuition helps mitigate Scottish student debt levels, this cannot be used as an excuse for continued levels of increased student debt.”

Audit Scotland said a total of 505,800 students still had loans to repay as of April last year, out of 654,000 who were provided with funding.

It added that £7m of debt was written off in 2018-19, which happens when a person becomes permanently unable to work or exceeds the time limit for paying the money back.

https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/scotlands-student-loan-debt-soars-poorest-borrowing-more-1371710

Slave in Scotland

In 1778, Joseph Knight successfully challenged his status as a slave in court in Edinburgh - not only defeating his master and winning his freedom, but ensuring that slavery was ruled illegal in Scotland.

Knight had been taken from Jamaica to Scotland as the personal servant of sugar plantation owner Sir John Wedderburn. It was, for the period, a more "nurturing" relationship than that experienced by most slaves, according to May Sumbwanyambe, who tells the story in the National Theatre of Scotland's play Enough of Him.

"This was a young black man who wanted his freedom but at the same time felt such a degree of loyalty towards his 'master and father' - somebody who had actually been very loving and caring towards him," the writer says.

"This was a master and slave owner who genuinely felt anguish and felt betrayed that this young man wanted to be free of him."

Sumbwanyambe was born in Edinburgh but grew up in Grimsby, working night shifts on the docks to earn money during the university holidays while studying for a law degree.

He wrote the play against the backdrop of debate about Brexit. "You kept hearing this thing - 'We want our country back.'

"And it was constantly linked to immigration. The thing that I struggled with is that it was based on this idea that, if only you could just go back 70 years, back to the glory days when Britain still just had an empire but was all completely white. I knew that was a myth."

The point that immigration was happening long before Windrush underpins his play.

Sumbwanyambe was surprised to learn that there were thought to have been between 10,000 and 20,000 black people in mid-18th Century London, out of a population of around 700,000.

"Black people have been here and we've been living side-by-side in this country with white people for a very long time," the playwright says. "For all those glory days that people want to go back to - we were there too."

Joseph Knight was among those who left a legacy. "The journey towards this noble idea of justice and dignity and respect that we think of [as British] was contributed to by that young black man's actions."

Enough of Him is at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 17 October, then at Perth Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51177299

Something for Nothing

A Manifesto of World Socialism

There may still be room for some reforms for betterment of some sections of the working people in the present social system, but this is of minor consequence compared to the need for social revolution and radical reorganisation of society. We must achieve the socialisation of the means of production and distribution. Private property and the ownership industry and production by a minority for individual profit is not compatible with social evolution and has ceased to be progress. Despite its marvellous technology and invention this poor world of ours has not yet learned how to feed itself. That is the problem of problems now confronting us more and more insistently and until that is solved the world is halted and it will either resume its march toward industrial and social democracy or it will degenerate into chaos. There is no longer any excuse for a hungry person. All the material forces are available for the production of all things needed to provide food and shelter for every man, woman and child, putting an end to the poverty and misery. But these have to set into operation for the common good of all instead of the private profit of the few. A capitalist world can never be a free world.

The education of the people, not only the few, but the everyone is the task of the people and it must be emphasised that task can be performed only by themselves. To stir the people, to inspire them to think for themselves, to advocate the idea of mutual kindness and good will, based upon mutual interests, is the Socialist Party’s contribution to the cause of humanity. Its declared principle is that workers have no interests in common with capitalists; that, in fact, their material interests are in conflict, and it is its declared purpose to abolish the wage-system, and supplant it by a system of co-operation in which the workers themselves shall have full control for their own benefit, and to this end they recognise the necessity of organising the political as well as the economic power of the working class to attain industrial democracy, by, for and of the workers, first, last and all the time.

Every useful and beautiful thing in the world, made by the hand and brain of man, is the creation of the men and the women who work. In a capitalist society, however, where all the lands and the natural resources of the earth, and all the instruments of production and distribution (transport, mines, factories, etc.) are already privately owned and controlled, Labour, the world’s true magic-maker, is shut off from the productive processes and from the power of producing a living, or of earning a living, except upon the terms laid down by the capitalist class.This is true in spite of the fact that all the capital in all the world is incapable of producing one loaf of bread, one pair of shoes, one house, one suit of clothes. Not one wheel would ever turn productively, not one machine would ever operate, not one train would ever move without the hands and brains of labour. Capital is utterly incapable of increasing itself. Unless he is able to filch the swag from some other capitalist who has exploited labour, the only way a capitalist may force his capital to multiply and bear the fruit of still more capital, is by the employment of labour. Without the hands and brains of labour, capital would remain forever stationary. A million dollar investment would remain one million dollars. The increase on this capital is the product of labour alone. We are not discussing a situation in which another capitalist comes along and invests another hundred thousand dollars in the first capitalist’s plant. What we are trying to explain is how the first capitalist, who possessed a one million dollar investment, finds himself at the end of the year, with this same one million dollars AND fifty thousand dollars additional capital (or profit).The only possible increase in capital, in this instance, comes through the exploitation of wage-labour.

A landlord may double the rents he demands of his tenants for his flats or his houses. But this merely doubles the income of the landlord. This does not increase the total commodity, money, or the total capital existing in the world. It merely transfers money from the pockets of your employer (who has to pay you. higher wages in order that you may pay increased rents) INTO the pockets of the landlord. One man will be five hundred dollars “out” and the other will be five hundred ahead in the game. You wage-workers only get a bare living (when you get that) anyway. In this transaction of rent-paying there is no increase in the total capital. the power of one capitalist landlord to raise the rents of shacks inhabited by the employees of other capitalists, for example, is his arbitrary monopolistic power to levy a tribute from the employing capitalists, because the landlord is able to force these employers to pay higher wages to their workers to enable them to pay his increased rents. No value and no capital is added to the total general capital. The landlord forces the corporation capitalists to divide the surplus value they have already extracted from their own workers, with him.

The Socialist Party is the party of the working class. The working class, the only class without which society could not exist and its emancipation, which will follow the abolition of the wage system, will mean the freedom of humanity, based upon cooperative industry; and it will also mean the end of the animal struggle for existence in human society and the beginning of the first real civilisation the world has ever known. A man or woman who wants his or her vote to count against the private ownership of the earth and the tyranny of class rule and for industrial democracy and the freedom of mankind will cast that vote for the Socialist Party. Any person who aspires to become free should join the Socialist Party, the only party that believes that the people have capacity for industrial as well as political self-government; the only party that proposes to make this in fact a government of and by and for the people.

The Socialist Party does not intend to “smash” those global corporations and the logistic networks of their worldwide supply chains. The Socialist Party, when it gets into power, will take control of the multinationals and have them owned and operated by all the people to produce wealth for all the people. In other words, the Socialist Party proposes to transfer the sources, means, and machinery of production and distribution from the private hands to the collective people, so that wealth may be produced in abundance, not to enrich a small class, but for the comfort and enjoyment of all. In every election campaign, this is the overshadowing issue, notwithstanding the capitalist attempts to obscure and to divert the attention of the people; and upon this great issue every first voter in the land who prefers freedom to slavery, peace to war, love to hate, plenty to poverty, happiness to wretchedness, man to mammon, should cast his or her vote for the Socialist Party. 

Whatever Does Happen Won't Be Good.

 On Dec.6 Stats-Canada informed us that the Canadian economy in

November had its biggest monthly job loss since the financial crisis. 71,200 jobs were lost, this was 38,400 full time jobs and 32,800 part time. Economists on average had predicted a gain of 10,000 jobs, according to the financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

This proves clearly that under a crazy, anarchistic system which capitalism is, nobody knows what will happen and even Warren Buffet has admitted neither does he. 
Of one thing we can be sure is that whatever does happen won’t be good, so why not abolish it?

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Some People Who Build Dams. Don't Give a Damm.

When looking through the TV guide I came across this little goodie - River Silence – a Rogerio Soares award winning 2019 documentary which paints a painfully vivid portrait of the more than 40,000 Indigenous residents of the Amazon Basin whose lives have been shattered by construction of the controversial Belo Monte, one of the world's largest dams. As a result of the project, the displaced people who used to live along the banks of the Xingu River saw their homes flooded, forcing them to relocate to nearby cities that are overrun by unemployment and increasing violence.

 For centuries the capitalist class have been forcing people off land they have lived for generations when they see a chance to make a buck. This though, as bad as it is, doesn't mean that all capitalists and their political stooges are mean and cruel.

 Take Henry Kissinger for instance. When the Nixon administration were discussing nuclear testing in Micronesia and the affect it would have on the locals, he said, ''There are only 90,000 people out there; who gives a damn?'' Quote from, How To Hide An Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y.C. 2019.

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think

Where are the jobs?

Students from Scotland's most disadvantaged areas are less likely to secure a professional job quickly, according to a new paper from the Commissioner for Fair Access to Universities. It suggests they may suffer "silent discrimination" in the jobs market.

One key point is that they are less likely to continue their studies on a postgraduate course such as a Master's course or a doctorate.

The paper says: "... even the students from more socially deprived backgrounds who do progress to postgraduate study are still significantly less likely to get professional jobs six months after leaving, which suggests that they continue to suffer perhaps silent but nevertheless powerful discrimination.

The commissioner Professor Sir Peter Scott said, "The gap is also explained, partly but again not wholly, by the fact that more socially deprived students are concentrated in universities with lower postgraduate progression rates - although, again, this begs the question of why they are under-represented in more prestigious institutions, notably the ancient universities, where many more students continue on to postgraduate courses."

As a general rule, Scotland's "ancient" universities and the institutions which became universities in the 1960s have fewer students from the most deprived parts of the country (SIMD 20 areas) than former polytechnics.

Only two institutions currently have met their long-term target for admissions from SIMD 20 areas - Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the West of Scotland.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-51190188

It is tough being a girl

Dundee has been ranked as the worst city in Scotland, and one of the worst across the UK, for females to grow up in. The report’s analysis measured female rights and quality of life using indicators such as child poverty, life expectancy and their “neet” status — not in education, employment or training.

The Socialist Party is the Workers' Party

There is something more than a mere matter of wages. It is a question as to whether we have socialism or whether we living under an oligarchy or plutocracy. What we are aiming at, my friends, is to achieve economic freedom. What the Socialist Party is are aiming at is to achieve economic freedom. Under the present vicious system men have been robbed of the fruits of their toil. The Socialist Party proposes proposes absolute economic freedom for the individual and common ownership of all the means of production and distribution.  Every enterprise is to be carried out for the well-being of all and not for private profit.

The people must rid themselves of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and take  possession and control of the means of production so that they can ensure comfort and security. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative commonwealth.

The Socialist Party does not compromise. It has convictions and stands by them resolutely. We are on the eve of change. Men and women will soon free themselves from their industrial servitude. The day is dawning when humanity will unite in humanity’s interests, and when all shall work for the common good of all. There is but one way to relieve poverty and to free the people, and that is by making common property of all the machinery of the means of life. Socialism is  the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery, and every person with intelligence enough to understand their interests will once and for all time sever ties with the pro-capitalist parties; and cast his or her lot with the class-conscious, revolutionary Socialist Party, which is pledged not to compromise but remain committed to the principles and goal of economic freedom. It is a question of capitalism or socialism, of economic despotism or economic democracy, and those who are not with us are against us. 

If only all the working class could and would use their eyes and see; their ears and hear; their brains and think. How soon this Earth could be transformed into a place filled with beauty and joy. No sane person can be satisfied with the present system.

We live in the capitalist system, so-called because it is dominated by the capitalist class. In this system the capitalists are the rulers and the workers the subjects. The capitalists are in a decided minority and yet they rule because of the ignorance of the working class. So long as the workers are divided, economically and politically, they will remain in subjection, exploited of what they produce and treated with contempt by the parasites who live off their toil. So long as people are content with conditions as they are, so long as they are satisfied under the leadership of those who are far more interested in feathering their own nests than in the welfare of their followers, so long, in a word, as the workers are meek and submissive followers, mere sheep, they will be fleeced, and no one will hold them in greater contempt than the very grafters and parasites who get fat on the people’s misery. Working people must take the initiative in uniting for effective economic and political action; the self-appointed leaders will never do it for them. People should no longer be deceived by the  their betrayers, who blatantly boast of selling out the dupes who blindly follow them. Such “leaders” lead their victims into a shambles and deliver them over to the exploiters.

The struggle for more wages will ever continue while the wage system lasts, until a more enlightened conception of our relation to each other when we come to see that we are really brothers and sisters and live in harmonious unity.  People must not only make common cause with those of their own nationality and their colour, but with people of all lands and all colours. The interests of the millions of wage workers are identical, regardless of nationality, creed, or sex, and if they will only open their eyes to this simple, self-evident fact, the greatest obstacle will have been overcome and the day of victory will draw near.

The Socialist Party is the party of the workers, organised to express in political terms their determination to break their chains and rise to the dignity of free men and women. It is this party the workers will develop their political power to conquer and abolish the capitalist political state and clear the way for industrial and social democracy. The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of government or by violent revolution. No sane man prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the efficacy of a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end. The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party in the sense that its basic demand is the common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the operation of all industry in the interest of all the people. This will mean an economic democracy which can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaires and beggars, the other social equals. One gives us palaces and hovels, robes and rags, the other will secure to every man and woman comfort and luxury, abolish class rule, wipe out class distinction, secure the peace of society, and make of this Earth for the first time a habitable place.