Buy the Socialist Standard

On Saturday 8th February at mid-day a few comrades from Glasgow Branch will be at Buchanan St. Bus Station selling our journal, the Socialist Standard. 

Later at around 2pm, they will enjoy some liquid refreshment at the nearby Atholl Arms to discuss future promotions of our magazine. 

All members and sympathisers are warmly welcome to become involved.

Vision of a socialist world

“Revolution”. The one word that expresses the  hopes and aspirations of the great majority of mankind. The one word our class enemies fear and hate the most because it means the end of their rule. It is a word we inscribe on our red banners because it points the way to the socialist future. The Socialist Party will excite the people with a vision of a world of plenty. New technology provides better products with less and less labour. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all. Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organised. The capitalist class cannot convince working people to believe in their system while it is destroying their hopes and dreams. Capitalists disarm the victims of capitalism by turning people against one another. The Socialist Party will inspire people with a society organised for the benefit of all, a society built on cooperation which puts the well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. When working people who  have no place in the capitalist system take control of all productive property and transforms it into common property, they can reorganise society so that the abundance is distributed according to need.

 The Socialist Party  empowers people with the understanding of their role in striving for this new society and with the confidence that it’s possible to win. We take this message out to politicise and organise the revolution. We call on you to join us in this cause. We seek the political awakening of the people so that they can take their destiny into their own hands.

The whole world is in a crisis from which many fear it cannot recover. The clock is ticking. Everywhere society is in chaos and ferment. War and global warming threaten global starvation; and are shaking up the thinking of millions of workers, impelling them to take the road of struggle against the capitalist system which oppresses them. Socialism is our only hope and which supplies the key to the direction to travel if we are to survive. It is the theory and practice of working class revolution.

Profit is derived from unpaid labour time. Workers’ labour power is purchased on the market by the owners of capital. Put to work on average in half the working week, it produces values sufficient to cover wages to maintain a worker and family. The value produced in the remainder of the working week constitutes surplus value, the source of profit. The commodities produced by workers’ socialised labour are privately appropriated by capitalists. They will continue to be produced so long as they can be sold for profit on the market. It is inevitable that sooner or later these social conditions will impel people to organise to end the conflict between the socialised labour process and private ownership of the decisive means of production, the big factories, mines and corporate farms by the establishment of socialism. With socialism, production takes place for people’s use.

Ideas matter. A problem with socialism is the differences in the meaning of socialism where a majority of its people label themselves “socialist” in one sense or another; but the label is not very informative. Hypocrisy abounds. Much of the content of the various “socialisms” is a negative: anti-capitalism. Understanding the nature of capitalism is essential. We must name and define the system. Capitalist society remains a system for pursuing profits and limitless accumulation, amidst wage-labour. Capitalism is a system in which class exploitation is mediated by the market. Capitalists have an interest in promoting the highest rate of exploitation possible. It is through exploitation that they maximize their profits and maximization of profits is the basis of capitalist production. Thus, businessmen have an interest in paying the lowest wages consistent with capitalist reproduction (they cannot kill off their working class). They have an interest in a longer working day, poorer working conditions. In other words, they have an objective interest in promoting a situation that makes the life of the worker increasingly intolerable.

Workers, on the other hand, have the opposite point of view. They prefer higher wages to lower; safer working conditions to unsafe; a shorter working day to a longer one. Hence the two classes have conflicting interests and, as they are conflicting, they must be resolved through a fight, sometimes open, sometimes concealed, but a fight nonetheless. In this fight, the capitalists have the state to assist them. 

Capitalists cannot exist without workers, but workers can exist without capitalists. As it is workers who actually do the producing, they are quite capable of undertaking this activity in their own interests. Hence, the logical conclusion to the struggle under capitalism is the elimination of capitalism and the transformation to socialism. This cannot be accomplished unless workers are aware of their objective interests and are organised to achieve this goal.

Socialism is Ours for the Taking

Under capitalism goods are produced for the market, that is, they are commodities. Included in commodities is a special commodity, labour power, which is also bought and sold in the open market. The price of labour power takes the form of wages. These wages are supposed to be enough to allow the labourer to purchase the necessities of life which can reproduce the labour power lost at work. 

Under capitalism there are private owners of the factories, mills, mines and other means of production, and workers must sell their labour power to the capitalists for wages. However, when the workers in the factories and other places of production work for the capitalists, they produce much more value than they receive in the form of wages. This surplus value included in the whole product of the factory is the property of the capitalist and becomes his profit.

The capitalist is in business for the profit and does his best to increase the mass of profit and the rate of profit. He can do this either by winning more markets or by reducing the cost of production or by speeding up the circulation of his capital, or all these. In short, in order to increase his profit the capitalist must expand his business and produce more stuff at lower cost. To do this he must accumulate capital and reinvest part of his profits back into the business. This accumulation of capital is the basic law of capitalism. Because of it, the factories grow larger, the industries become greater, little business turns into big business in this in turn develops into huge multinationals and corporate conglomerates. The chief method by which the capitalist can lower the cost of his production is through cheapening the value of labour power. This is done by introducing new machinery which can enable the worker to produce an ever-increasing quantity of goods in less and less time and with the same effort. Thus the introduction of machinery which increased not only the actual production but also the productive capacity of industry had two effects: if the market did not expand as rapidly as production increased, then workers were thrown out of work.

It is plain that poverty and inequality will never end so long as there is capitalism, and that to fight the misery means to fight to overthrow the capitalist system. Let the workers unite their mighty strength together to get rid of the parasitic system that condemns them in the midst of plenty to hunger like beggars for a crust of bread. Let us not hesitate to organise our strength together and take what belongs to us. Only the end of capitalism will give any degree of security or comfort. The workers can accomplish that mighty job, the biggest job any class of people ever tackled, only if they prepare themselves.

All economic obstacles to development will be abolished under the new system. Thus, the application of machinery, which under capitalism is determined by considerations of profit, under the new system will depend entirely upon productivity, sustainability and environmentally friendly. Technology which may be very useful for saving labour is very frequently useless from the standpoint of capitalist profits. In socialist society such a point of view will not prevail and there will therefore be no obstacles to the application of labour-saving machinery.

We stand for socialism: a new system in which the people own in common and collectively control the economy, through various social institutions of the widest democracy. We stand completely  opposed to the reactionary systems of exploitation of man by man. Capitalism is an outlived system whose life-blood is private profit and oppression, whether or not represented as free-enterprise or the “welfare state” administered by liberals or self-styled “socialists.” It perpetuates poverty, unemployment, racism, and national conflict. Socialism is our opportunity for a new world of freedom, peace and security. Socialism is liberty.

It’s them or us!

Our ideas about society, our consciousness, reflect the social environment. Capitalist society never stands still, and so the ideas about it also never stand still. Planning for use would require a tremendous increase in the forces of production whereas fascism is tearing down these forces at an unprecedented rate. There is utter confusion concerning the meaning of planning and the distinction between production inside the factory walls and in society as a whole. Marx drew a distinction between the orderly planning of production inside the factory and the resulting anarchy of production in the whole of society despite this factory planning. True enough, within the sphere of its control, the global corporations introduces some order. As Engels wrote :

“When we pass from joint stock companies to trusts which control and monopolise whole branches of industry, not only private production comes to an end at that point, but also planlessness.”

Capitalism introduces planning of production in an entire sector of economy (each in its own sector), but this still does not and cannot mean control of all economy. Monopolies can in some sense control production for the market (for their own bloated profits), but they cannot control the market itself. The proof of this was the last crisis and the one before that one – and the next one and the one after that. Reformists cannot abolish exchange, the market, competition, crises.

No matter what workers believe or what politicians  whether on the right or the left, say our wellbeing is inconsequential to capitalism’s pursuit of profits. The working class must sacrifice its welfare and the welfare of future generations in order to ensure the comfort and security of the ruling class. Workers,get paid only as much as is necessary for our survival or as much as we can extract (i.e., win through trade union struggles) from the bosses. Our strength lies in the fact that, in spite of all our superficial differences, we all really want the same things — to live happy, productive lives with the goal of providing an even better future for our children. The capitalists try to convince workers that we have to compete amongst ourselves to gain improvements in our lives. That we have to win out over others of our class to rise to the top. But that’s only true as long as we continue to believe we have no right to the full amount of wealth that we produce. And as long as they can continue to blind us to our strength as a unified force with the power to claim all the wealth we produce for ourselves to be shared by all, and for the good of future generations.

The fundamental problem with capitalism is that it can’t increase their profits and our standard of living and protect the planet all at the same time. It’s one or another! Or, more accurately, it’s them or us! The only way capitalism can maintain or increase their profit-margins is to plunder the planet for more resources as cheaply as possible while forcing workers to sacrifice their well-being, the well-being of their children and future generations, for basic survival today. As long as capitalism survives, the Earth’s natural habitat will continue to suffer from capitalism’s toxic and wasteful production practices, endangering the future for all of us. The truth is, we can put an end to this capitalist insanity.

There is a real alternative — an independent, self-organised, democratically-run revolution to ensure the happiness and well-being for all. We can put an end, once and for all, to the system of capitalism because it’s an insane way to use the world’s resources, and inhumane manner to treat the world’s people. In fact, it’s barbaric. And it simply doesn’t have to be this way.

The ruling class wants us to believe that they can do what they want; and that we are powerless over them. The truth is, they are only as powerful as we allow them to be because we massively outnumber them. We all want the same thing, to share the wonders of the Earth, and preserve its bounty for the future. Our hope for the future lies in massive, organised resistance to capitalism’s brutality. Capitalism is all that’s standing in our way of choosing Paradise over Hell.