Thursday, February 20, 2020

One Socialist World

For the Socialist Party socialism will be a world without frontiers; a world in which there will be no such thing as nations or national boundaries. 

Nationalism is skilfully masked by socialist phrases, but it is all the more harmful for that reason. Protected by the language of socialism, it is less vulnerable and more tenacious. It spreads mutual distrust among the workers of the different nationalities.

The Socialist Party does not see secession as a way to liberation. It is not a cure for the economic social problems of Scotland and Wales. The remedy can only be socialism. Neither Welsh or Scottish sovereignty would not aid the class struggle against capitalism. Nationalism is altogether a mirage. Nationalism ties the working people to their own ruling class. Socialism unites the working people of the world against the capitalists. That is why many capitalists promote nationalism.

The Socialist Party has always held that socialism could not be established just within the framework of a single state, but only on a world basis. This was not because "socialism in one country" was necessarily a bad aim in itself, but because the development of a world economy under capitalism had made it a practical impossibility. Once capitalism had become an economic system dominating the whole world — as it did in the age of imperialism that culminated in the significantly named first world war — then the only kind of socialism that was possible was a world socialism.

Within the context of world socialism we still do not see a role for states, certainly not as coercive political institutions but not in the economic sphere either. There would indeed be a need for administrative and decision-making bodies at what today is called the national level, but these would not be "states” in the sense of a body exerting coercive political authority over a territory and its inhabitants. They would not be institutions ruling over people with the coercive force to impose their own will, but would be part of the institutional structure that would allow people to participate on an equal basis in the democratic running of their common affairs including the production and distribution of wealth. In short, genuine democratic control would replace rule by states.

As long as workers think in terms of “the country,” it is logical for them to be prepared to defend it. Thus all the horror weapons become “necessary” in the name of “defence,” because if “they have got them we have to have them.”

No ruling class is willingly going to “set any example” which would mean saying—“these are our oil-fields, markets and vested interests, but you, our rivals, can move in at will because we have no military might to support our claims.” It only has to be put like that to show how futile the peace movements are.

The present owners of the oil-fields, the land, investments etc., only came by them through robbery, plunder and force of arms. They realise that what they took by force can only be held by force; no national capitalist class is going to contract out of the rat-race in order to make way for their rivals. And if one ruling group did contract out, their loot would soon be snatched by whoever got in first and was militarily strong enough to hold it. Nothing basic would be changed. There would be one rival less and those remaining would be a little fatter. The capitalist classes of the major power blocs maintain their military machines for the purpose of protecting or expanding their spheres of profitable influence, nationally and internationally. This minority of people own the factories, the land and all those assets which go to make up the country. At the same time that the majority of people—the working-class—own nothing to fight about. Workers in all parts of the world have a common interest to get rid of the social system which condemns them to exploitation. They cannot do this in ignorance; they must realise what capitalism means and how to change it.


Our Purpose is Socialism

The aim of the Socialist Party is to build a socialist society. Our party is the party of revolution. The revolution is the only solution. Our revolutionary goal shapes our principles and policy. We stand up and fight for the true interests of the working class as a whole, at every turn of the road. The Socialist Party is not afraid to take an unpopular stand when it is necessary in order to combat the prejudices of our fellow-workers. We would not be worthy of the name of socialist if we evaded such a fight. The conscious support of the workers is what we want. We are fighting for their minds and hearts. Our party is a party of revolutionary workers, a party of political struggle against capitalism and all its works. We are not liberal nor are we progressives, but revolutionists. The workers will understand that the overthrow of capitalism is the only road to social justice. Socialism cannot arrive from nowhere.

Capitalist society is a society divided into two main classes: the capitalists, (or bourgeoisie); and the working class, (or proletariat). The former own the land, the factories and the machines, and all the means by which wealth is produced (the means of production), and are therefore the ruling class, though they do no productive work themselves. The latter though they do all the real productive work of society, own neither the means of production nor the wealth they create; and, therefore, are forced to sell to the capitalists their ability to work and produce. Numerically, the capitalists are an insignificant minority, while the workers constitute the vast majority of the people.

Capitalism is not based on plenty. Though it has developed, for the first time in history, the possibility of providing enough for everybody, it has always condemned a great part of the people to live in poverty and insecurity. This is because the capitalist class, who decide what is to be produced, base their decisions not on what people need but upon how much profit they will make when the goods are sold in the market.

Capitalist society is not a peaceful, international society, but, on the contrary, nationalist in a narrow, selfish way. Just as within each capitalist country the various capitalists and groups of capitalists compete with each other in order to sell their goods at a greater profit, so capitalist countries as a whole enter into competition with other capitalist countries. This competition inevitably leads to wars: on the one hand to enslave more backward countries; and on the other, to redivide the countries which have been enslaved between the different capitalist countries. Such wars are not in the interests of the working class, but only of the capitalists.

Because capitalism is a class society, in which the small class of monopoly capitalists exploits the great majority of the people—not only the workers, but also the professional and technical workers, and the small farmers and shopkeepers—it is necessary for the capitalists to impose their will upon the people. It does this, partly by filling all the key posts in the armed forces, the Civil Service and all legal institutions (that is, in the State) with members of its own class; partly through its control of the Press, the films and so on, by which public opinion is influenced.

Thus, while in a capitalist democracy it is true that the majority of the people have the opportunity of taking part every few years in the election of the Government and of the local authorities, and in addition have won a number of democratic rights such as the right to organise in trade unions and political parties, freedom of the media etc., nevertheless the real power of the State remains in the hands of the capitalists.

Under capitalism, as we have seen, human society is condemned to a series of bitter struggles; class against class, nation against nation, and individual against individual. Inevitably, therefore, the great majority of the people, instead of being inspired by a common social purpose, are forced to struggle for their own individual and selfish interests. Moreover, since capitalism condemns the majority of people to poverty or insecurity, there is a continual waste of human talent and ability.

Socialist society will be a class-free society, in which all the means of producing wealth are owned in common. Instead of being divided into workers and employers, rich and poor, society will be an association of free people, all making their special contributions to the well-being of society, which in return will supply them with what they need in order to live full and happy lives. Such a society can be summed up in the slogan: “From each according to ability, to each according to needs.” For this to be possible, socialism must be based on abundance. Production will be organised in such a way that there is plenty of everything for everybody: not only food, houses, transport, and so on, to satisfy material needs; but also schools and theatres, playing-fields, books and concerts, so that people can lead full, physical and cultural lives. Socialism will be international. It is not something which can be fully completed in one country, isolated from the rest of the world. On the contrary it must eventually embrace all the peoples of the world; and in so doing it will put an end to war.

Socialism is a stage of human development where many institutions which we accept today as essential, such as policemen and prisons, employers and workers, armies and civil servants, will have disappeared. Because no wars can take place in a truly international society there will be no need for armies. Because it will be a community of plenty, where there is enough for all and therefore no advantage can be obtained by theft or other forms of crime, all need for courts of justice and police will have disappeared. In other words, the State, which is the sum of all these institutions and organisations, will itself disappear. Instead of one section of society ruling and oppressing another, men will have grown accustomed to living together in society without fear and compulsion. Thus, for the first time, mankind, united in a world-wide family, will be free to devote all its creative energies to becoming one with nature.

Such a society implies tremendous changes in people themselves; not only in their economic position, but also in their whole outlook on life itself. For instance, work, instead of being simply a means of earning a living, will have become the natural expression of men and women’s lives, freely given according to their abilities. Moreover, the nature of work will itself have changed. Through the development of science much of its drudgery will have disappeared and every man and woman wild develop their mental and physical capacities to the full; and this will inevitably bring about changes in their outlook.

The first and fundamental contrast between socialist and capitalist society is that under socialism all the means of production and exchange—the land, factories, machines and transport—are owned in common. Thus the exploitation of one class by another is ended. Instead of one small class being able to live on the labour of the majority of the people, everybody is obliged to undertake some form of productive or administrative work on behalf of society as a whole. Socialism, production is organised to meet the needs of the people and not to provide profit for a single class. It will, therefore be possible to plan production; and so to increase enormously the amount produced.

We cannot begin to build socialism while the capitalist class can use the power of the State to maintain its private ownership of the means of production. It cannot take place unless it is the will of the majority of the people. No amount of reforms of capitalism bring socialism any nearer.


Wednesday, February 19, 2020

One World One People

Nicola Sturgeon condemned the United Kingdom's new post-Brexit border policy saying new rules barring people designated as "unskilled" and those who don't speak English will devastate a number of Scotland's industries and worsen the country's depopulation crisis.

The newly-unveiled "points system" dictating who can migrate to the U.K. spurred officials to reiterate their calls for a separate Scottish visa system which immigrants could use just for Scotland, which employs many people from overseas in its tourism, fishing, and healthcare industries. 

20%  tourism jobs in Scotland are held by people from overseas, according to The Guardian. Migrants hold 16% of healthcare jobs, while more than 70% of those employed at fish processing plants in north-eastern Scotland were born outside the country.

Under the new plan, it's estimated that 70% of the current E.U. workforce would not be awarded enough "points" to move to the United Kingdom. 

But in Scotland, which is projected to have more deaths than births over the next 25 years and whose population growth over the next two decades has been expected to come entirely from migration, industry leaders say people already in the country won't be able to fill roles that would otherwise go to migrants.


For World Peace and Permanent Economic Security for the Human Family.

All over the world capitalists try to reduce workers’ wages as the most direct way of increasing their profits. International competition and the mobility of capital have made this “cost-cutting” more ferocious. 

For several decades the world’s capacity to produce food, for instance, has far exceeded the entire human population’s need for nourishment. Yet the stockpiles of unused foodstuffs pile up unsold each year in producing nations while somewhere else in the world hundreds of millions of others are malnourished, if not actually starving to death. The paradox is explained away easily enough in market terms. Indeed, the market insists that feeding impoverished people would be harmful to them, indulging their backwardness and postponing their eventual self-sufficiency. That answer may satisfy the marketplace, but for humanity it constitutes another great, unanswered social question. Capitalism, for all its wondrous creativity and wealth, has not yet found a way to clothe the poor and feed the hungry unless they can pay for it. Capitalism is not about freedom; it’s about profits and costs. Socialism has come to be a dirty word. But it’s only once we establish a socialist society of production for use not profit that nobody will have to pay for travel, heating, food or water. It you are opposed to a system of society where the market plays no role and there is free access to goods and services

Socialism presupposes an abundance of goods so great that society could distribute them without payment and thus establish social equality, in this way social distinctions and money would ‘wither away’. A socialist society  needs no governmental coercion; and so the state, that machine of coercion, would also wither away. In order to have the label of socialism the ideas of equality, of a money-free economy, and of the withering away of the state has to prevail. According to needs’ is the sole formula for equality. That equality would be possible only after the supply of goods and services had become abundant. Ours is not an age in which it is enough for a small élite of technicians to possess technological secrets in order to develop the productive capacities of society. This is an age when many millions of workers, have to be skilled, trained, taught, educated, in order that the advance should become possible. What is involved is a thorough upheaval of society in every field of its life.

Under capitalism the workers are wage slaves, slaves of the bosses. The bosses run the factories in order to maximise profits. This means that they pay workers as little as possible, that they do not hesitate to maintain unsafe working conditions to save a buck, and that poor quality products are purposely produced in order to increase profits. History has shown that these conditions are always present under capitalism, and cannot be eliminated as long as there is boss rule of the country (i.e., the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie). A capitalist has to exploit his workers in order to survive as a capitalist. One of the most important contributions that Karl Marx made to socialist ideology was his description of the relationship between the economy of a country and the nature of its government. In a capitalist state the government must necessarily be run by and for the capitalists. It is meaningless to talk about socialism without discussing the class nature of the State.

With people working together to satisfy needs, there is no question that an abundant society could be built quite quickly. Then the need for manpower would diminish, the remnants of capitalist ideology could be wiped out and the society could function guided by the principle, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs”.

It is clear that the working class is the only social force to which humanity can turn to create a pathway through the chaos and anarchy of capitalism. The working class cannot brings its curative capacity to bear upon the situation. Go beyond the demands for freedom under capitalism. If you’re interested in FREE ACCESS FOR ALL to goods and services, then it’s time to go beyond pleading.


Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Tomorrow is Ours


Capitalism creates upheavals around world for investment and expansion, convulsing the world in pain and blood in order to accumulate capital and make increased profits. Only socialism, unhindered by the profit motive, would permit of the free development of the means of production and distribution with the object of use. Only socialism on a world scale can end war. Only socialism can bring self-management instead of bureaucratic regimentation. Only socialism can make administration the servants of men and women rather than capitalism being the master of mankind. Only the socialist reorganisation of society can be the answer. Socialism is the hope of humanity.

The Socialist Party shows not only that socialist society is possible and feasible, and above all in the interests of the people, in complete accord with a true civilisation but also that it is most necessary. Nothing is eternal and unchangeable. Everything is variable. 

Nowhere can the capitalist class offer working people a way out of the nightmare of their misery and suffering. The Socialist Party stands irreconcilably opposed to capitalism and works for the establishment of worldwide socialism. The power of the ruling class must be broken! It can be done; it must be done. Socialism is a call for sharing and caring. Socialists do not rape the earth nor worship efficiency at the expense of people and nature. It is not industrialization per se, but privately owned and controlled technology that destroys the earth. The real battle line lies between capitalists and the exploited.

The system must be changed from the capitalist system, a system based on the privilege of a few people, where the majority toils for the profit of a few, into a socialist system, where the majority produces for the use of the majority.

Despite lies and propaganda in the media, the people cannot be fooled about socialism any longer. They have learned that this capitalist system is a brutal barbaric system. With the capacity to feed the entire world, many endure hunger and starvation. With the possibility of peace, there has never been such bloodshed. With the need of housing, we have homelessness. Capitalism is a system that demands that working people submit to sociopaths. That is what must change and that is what the Socialist Party is all about.

Our goal is to imbue people with the burning desire and the will to fight for socialism, because the socialist system means real freedom and that can only come with socialism. The working class must end this capitalist system that is based and thrives upon murder, starvation and misery of the masses of the people. There is no need of a system that can only produce want and hunger for the many, and vast wealth for the few. That system must be swept away, and only the working class can do it. That is the message we take across the all lands. People everywhere must be motivated and organised. Everyone knows that it’s time for a change. But it must be made clear that if there’s going to be a change, it is the people themselves that must make it. Mankind makes its own history. Every time there’s been a change, it’s because somebody organised to do it. The goal is to mobilise the people, to instruct them–if you want freedom, you must fight for it. It was the working people of this world that built it; and they deserve to inherit it. It’s time for a change to transfer the world’s wealth into the hands of its rightful owners.

The world socialist movement has a great future. And if we face it with confidence, and put our trust in a new generation, the future will become the present all the sooner. Our task is to hold to principles and help the process along, provide some of the ideas, and make room for the new generation of socialists to take up the baton. Wherever you see a party anywhere that has few young people, you can say that its prospects are pessimistic. The road ahead may be rough but it is shorter than the road behind. Socialism, the cooperative commonwealth, is still an inspiration to the downtrodden and exploited. There still remains a fighting class spirit

Our duty remains the same, today like yesterday. It is to assemble together, ever more united, ever more ardent, in our class party, the Socialist Party. The future is ours.