Saturday, October 03, 2020
The Church Says Sorry
We are the People
“Until the Burgh Reform Act of 1833 the landowners and the commercial bourgeois class controlled all burghal administration of the common lands, and controlled it in such a way that vast areas of common lands were quietly appropriated, trust funds wholly disappeared, and to such a length did the plunder and the corruption develop, that some ancient burghs with valuable patrimonies went bankrupt, some disappeared altogether from the map of Scotland, some had their charters confiscated, and those which survived to the middle of the nineteenth century were left mere miserable starved caricatures of their former greatness, their Common Good funds gone, their lands fenced in private ownership, and their treasurers faced often with crushing debts. As late as 1800 there were great common properties extant; many burghs, towns and villages owned lands and mosses; Forres engaged in municipal timbergrowing; Fortrose owned claypits; Glasgow owned quarries and coalfields; Hamilton owned a coal pit; Irvine had mills, farms and a loom shop ….”
“Wick had lost in the law courts its limited right of commonty over the hill of Wick, and owned no property; Abernethy owned nothing, nor did Alloa. Bathgate was the proud possessor of the site of a fountain and a right of servitude over four and a half acres of moorland. Beith had no local government of any kind; Bo’ness owned nothing; Castle-Douglas owned only a shop; Coldstream was stripped bare, not even possessing ‘rights in its street dung’; Crieff had two fields; Dalkeith nothing; Dunkeld nothing; and Dunoon, nothing””
“Looking over our country, the land held in common was of vast extent. In truth, the arable – the cultivated land of Scotland, the land early appropriated and held by charter – is a narrow strip on the river bank or beside the sea. The inland, the upland, the moor, the mountain were really not occupied at all for agricultural purposes, or served only to keep the poor and their cattle from starving. They were not thought of when charters were made and lands feudalised. Now as cultivation increased, the tendency in the agricultural mind was to occupy these wide commons, and our lawyers lent themselves to appropriate the poor man’s grazing to the neighbouring baron. They pointed to his charter with its clause of parts and pertinents, with its general clause of mosses and moors – clauses taken from the style book, not with any reference to the territory conveyed in that charter; and although the charter was hundreds of years old, and the lord had never possessed any of the common, when it came to be divided, the lord got the whole that was allocated to the estate, and the poor cottar none. The poor had no lawyers.”
The wage-slaves’ revolt
Socialism is built upon the common ownership of the means of production. Socialism is a real alternative. It is a a better system to the system we live under. History has shown that societies are not eternal and just as it succeeded feudalism, capitalism will inevitably be replaced by the superior system of socialism. We strive to replace capitalism with socialism. The enemy is capitalism. There is one, and only one, remedy. Help yourselves. Determine that you will not endure this abominable state of things any longer; act up to your determination, and it will vanish. We are many; our opponents are few. Then working men and women of all colours, nationalities and occupations claim your rights to conquer your own emancipation. If you want a thing done, and well done, do it yourself,” and this is precisely what we must do - we must take the work of liberation into our own hands in order to guard against deceitful friends. We proclaim that we no longer want deliverers, that we no longer wish to serve as instruments of others, and that we hold the knowledge to understand our interests.
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
Friday, October 02, 2020
No Reform - No State
Our lives are unnatural and horrible, and engender sins not due to natural depravity and wickedness but to an artificial and abnormal state of society. We produce not only the victims, the poor; we also manufacture the criminal men and women by the conditions in which we place them. So long as this accursed system of capitalist production holds, a curse alike and a demoralisation alike to all, so long must — it is no question of individual will — this condition that is just now shocking us all continue also. So long as the producers are the bond-slaves of the capitalist class, so long will these things go on. So long, indeed, as we have two classes face to face, the one literally in a position to buy, and actually buying, the bodies of the other, so long will the crimes that necessarily result from such a system continue.
There are those who accuse us of being, to say the least, "impractical," because instead of trying "to help where we can" we demand a revolution. I maintain that we socialists alone are truly practical, because we alone dare to go to the root of the ill. Ask a doctor to cure a patient living under absolutely unhealthy conditions in the midst of pestilential air and unsanitary surroundings. The doctor will tell you that you must change these surroundings if you would save the life of the individual. We but apply to many, to all individuals — i.e., to society — what the doctor applies to the one.
We say so long as human beings are the slaves they now are — whether they be the slaves of wealth or of poverty — this disease must continue. And so, instead of trying to do what is impossible, and seeking to make healthy individuals where the whole system is diseased, we say, do away with this unnatural state of things. Do not foster unnatural crime by unnatural conditions. Live free and healthy lives, and men and women will be free and healthy. Abolish the cause of the disease and the disease will disappear. And so long as there is a class that must sell its labour-power — and the labour-power of the poor takes many forms — so long must this iniquity continue.
We must work only with those who can really help us ; those who understand that the "salvation" of society means the revolution of society. The old biblical story may serve our turn. We need a "great flood" to wipe out the ills and evils of this society of ours. It is with those who would revolutionise society that our work as men and women lies. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any "reformers" or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause.
It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. Socialism will bring the largest possible measure of the amenities of life within the reach of all. In a socialist administration for all there are no employers, no superiors, as no oppression; all are equals, and enjoy equal rights. No leader can make socialism, and no would-be leader can unmake it. No leader can dictate its course. It is a party of men and women, and not of one person. The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. As we suffer together, we must work together so that we may all enjoy together. We offer justice for all. The truth of the matter is that this is a rich man’s State and a rich man’s government.
The State is there to act on behalf of the capitalists and to protect their interests against that of the people. There is war. It is class war. It is waged by the representatives of one class, the oppressors, against the oppressed. In this war, the State is always and invariably on the side of the oppressors. Some of its representatives may try to achieve the ends of capital by cajoling and wheedling. But they always keep the big stick ready. The State — that is the big stick of the owners of wealth, the big stick of the big corporations. Every one who tries to persuade you that the State is your friend, your defender, that the State is impartial is misleading you. When you protect “industry” you give it freedom to exploit “labour”. The reformists preach to the workers a reliance on this very State and its laws as prescribed for them by the ruling class.
Thursday, October 01, 2020
The future for humankind is socialism
Socialism means a class-free society, and a class-free society means that a privileged minority of the population are not in a position to enjoy the wealth the majority’s labour produce. It means especially that privileged individuals cannot invest it in the instruments of production with which others work, thus reducing them to a position of fixed subservience. It means an end of rent, profit, and interest on stocks and bonds, an end of “surplus value,” an end of the exploitation of labour. Socialism will solve the problem of poverty by abolishing it. Socialism will not make us angels upon earth; it will only encourage and nurture our better qualities instead of upon our baser, as is done by capitalism today. Bankrupt capitalism has survived beyond its time, and inflicted untold evil on the world.
Socialism will not fall from the skies, nor will it be gained by any appeals to the good will and compassion of the capitalist exploiters. Socialism will not come of its own accord. Socialism can be realised only by the class struggle of the workers. There is an irreconcilable conflict of class interests between the workers and their capitalist exploiters. There can be no greater crime than to miseducate or deceive this working class upon whom so much depends for the salvation of mankind. It is a crime to offer them a program of reformism under the label of socialism. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) today represents not a continuation of Eugene Debs’ tradition but a complete break with this tradition. While these “socialists” still talk a great deal about socialism and revolution, this talk merely serves to conceal their actual service to the capitalist class as a force for misleading and taming the revolutionary movement.
We believe that workers all over the world, no matter what their nationality, have common problems and common bonds, that the rich men who control General Motors, for example, robs all working peoples and that therefore we share common interests with the workers of other lands against the common enemy. We rejoice when we learn that the workers of other countries have had victories which improve their standard of living or widen their liberties, we sympathise with them in their defeats.
Of all political parties or groups the Socialist Party are the most open and frank about their aims and objectives. In 1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, declared: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.” This is still our position.
The system of profit-making, the ownership and control of industry by a few industrialists and bankers for their own gain and not for the benefit of the people. The solution for the ills of present day society is the social ownership of the industries and production for the common good, instead of profits for the few. We desire a happy contented life, which we think only socialism can bring. We know that socialism will succeed capitalism as sure as day follows night. This small minority is actually a dictatorship which decides, on the basis of whether it is profitable for them or not, whether a man will work or not and how he will work. The worker himself has no say whatsoever in this vital matter. We are not “prophets of gloom”. On the contrary, we have our eyes set on the future for mankind. To introduce a system of society where industries are run not for profit but for the good of mankind, a system of society where unemployment will be unknown, where children will be able to secure the maximum education irrespective of the financial position of their parents.
In socialism, the wealth will really belong to the people and be used for their benefit. Socialism will not only guarantee a more equitable distribution of the world’s goods but an enormous increase in the production of all that is necessary to make humankind happy.
Capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system which operates not on the basis of producing what is good for the people, but only what shows the biggest profit. Great inventions and new technologies are held back because they would affect the profits of the capitalists, while millions of pounds are spent every year to convince people to buy what they don’t want. It is impossible to estimate what genius is lost to our society today by the inability of the average working man to give his children advanced education, or allow them to develop their artistic talent. So once the shackles of private profit-making are removed our society will march ahead to unheard of production of goods and men and women’s talents, and this will provide plenty of everything for everyone. Human selfishness will disappear. We are working for such a society and although our numbers and our influence are growing, there are not enough of us yet to make the progress. The nurse, the doctor, the scientific research worker know the thrill of achievement for others and they will understand how we feel when we see socialism advancing with mighty strides, knowing that every little success brings closer the world socialist system which will benefit all humankind.
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