Neither Westminster or Holyrood, Neither Sturgeon or Salmond

 

So Scotland in its quest for national unity now has another independence party to add to the SNP, the Scottish Socialist Party and Sheridan's vanity party, Solidarity. It now has acquitted and exonerated Alex Salmond's Alba Party, with two defected MPs, Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey.

Such political goings-on in no way changes the attitude of the Socialist Party members in our Scottish branches who still treat the separatist campaign for a sovereign Scotland as an anathema. We still view our goal as to end economic  exploitation, to join together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the planet will have become the heritage of all, so that there can be production to meet needs and not for profit. One world, one people, where cultural differences will still be celebrated, but where we’ll all be citizens of the world. World socialists reject allegiance to any State.

An independent Scotland, no matter who governs, would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other  countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same capitalisic laws as the existing London-based government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits. There is no truly independent country in the world, because international capitalism has made sure of this.

It was disappointing that our fellow-workers should still be wasting time over a question like nationalism and secession. It has of no consequence to the working class. While capitalism continues the workers will not be any better off even if national sovereignty is achieved. Independence will simply mean a transfer of power to a new group of politicians, while the structure of state and society is but little changed.

Socialism and the Pandemic

 

The whole aim of socialism is that every human being, white, black, brown, or yellow, shall have equal opportunity to have access to the natural resources which nature has supplied and to the technology which mankind has created. The Socialist Party assert the equality of sex and 'race'. We say, “All people are born equal,” and accordingly strain all our efforts towards the abolition of the existing social regime. As socialists we recognise, of course, that the real freedom  cannot be achieved before the entire social problem is solved. We in the Socialist Party do not believe in forcing our ideas on anyone. We wish others to do their own thinking, and of course form their own conclusions.

 We socialists have always contended that capitalism should be abolished because it mismanaged the means of production so that a very few – those who own the means of production – reaped great profits while the masses of the people were deprived of a secure standard of living. We would often prove this assertion by demonstrating the tremendous capacities which the modern technology has; how it could satisfy the needs of everyone if it were run for that purpose; and how capitalism, instead, run the industrial machine for profits. We socialists say, if only the working people could run these industries themselves, they could produce enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. It remains the great and tragic paradox of our age – poverty in the midst of plenty. That is the greatest indictment of world capitalism. We are, for the moment, interested in the inefficiency which capitalism demonstrates, a situation has been brought to a climax by the recent dramatic events of the Covid pandemic. The capitalists have remained loyal to one all-important objective – they have continued in old, inefficient ways, in what is called “Business as Usual.” They continue to resist what is the inevitable necessity, the transition to an equitable economy in order to continue their tremendous intake of profits. It has enabled the capitalists to make more profits; and within the framework of the pandemic they are all determined to make as much profit as they can. Vaccine nationalism has been a grand opportunity for more profits. The undeveloped nations have been deprived of the use of vaccinations not because of the lack of foresight but rather the selfish profiteering interests and the competitive machinations of capitalism. Many  have said that this means that the pharmaceutical  corporations  are not really interested in winning the war against coronavirus but seek to create future customers for annual booster shots. The primary interest of the capitalist, we have said, is profit. As a result, the given group of capitalists – say, the drug manufacturers – are primarily interested in the profits for their group and, within their group, for their company. The capitalists cannot conceive of innovation and invention without profiteering. The acquisition of profits for the capitalist class is the main purpose of production (albeit, if the requirements of victory for the capitalist class as a whole dictates the subordination of the interests of a particular industry within capitalism, it may be expected that sooner or later such subordination will take place.)

Capitalism is a wasteful and inefficient system. It cannot plan on either a national or an international scale. It deprives the mass of the people of products because of its selfish profiteering. It causes workers to lose their jobs because of this selfish profiteering. And the very existence of disease in the world today is a damning indictment of capitalism  when most of the world’s resources are used for the mass murder of warfare instead of constructive purposes. Socialism could plan better, provide the people with all necessities  where there would be no shortages created by the greed of a few owners of the means of production, because the people would collectively own the means of production. Socialism would take the vast resources which are available and use them for constructive purposes. The inefficiency and economic inequality due to the impossibility of constructive economic planning under capitalism – all would be things of the past. In their place could arise the new society of peace and plenty. That is why socialism is the burning need of the hour.

Burying Capitalism

 Capitalism is utterly incapable of assuring the well being of the majority of people. In the midst of abundance, with a productive apparatus which could, well organised and directed, cover more than all the present requirements of humanity, capitalism dooms millions to misery. All the ruling classes of all countries are bandits no matter what the pretentious and hypocritical slogans they spout. Poverty continues to increase in the middle of abundance. Capitalist social relations, its national boundaries, are strangling the economic and social development of man. It is more than ripe for socialist reorganisation. Its prolonged existence can only add to unending horror and misery. 

Humanity can only be saved from the new barbarism that menaces it by socialism. The great tragedy is the fact that they themselves prevent the realisation of its mission of emancipation. Instead of dispatching the putrefied corpse of capitalism into the limbo of history, our fellow-workers unite to patch it up and preserve it. They have long since abandoned the class struggle and concentrate all their efforts toward bringing the working class into the service of capitalism through class collaboration. The world’s workers cannot advance without breaking the wage-slave chains that shackles them to capitalism.

The Socialist Party does not hide its aims. It makes known is principles to our fellow-workers irreconcilable opposition to the capitalists and class struggle against injustice, against exploitation, and against oppression. We want a new system based on economic prosperity for everyone. Innovations and inventions have resulted in an achievement of production without precedent in the history of mankind. Where abundance should prevail capitalism has caused poverty; people die of the cold and of hunger; women suffer, children  succumb to preventable illnesses. How is it that people have to undergo such tremendous sufferings in spite of the fact that we have abundance of natural resources - a very fertile soil producing rich harvests; below the soil great quantities of ores and minerals and above all, the labour power of millions of people? The capitalist economy that is responsible for the present exploitation and oppression of the people. It is the capitalist relation of production that is at work; everywhere the production is being governed by the capitalist owner and wage-labourer relationship. The fundamental law of capitalism is capital accumulation by investing capital either in land or in industry, that is, investment of capital for production and raising further capital by selling the produce in the market. In the capitalist system the capitalists invest capital in mills and factories and produce commodities which they sell in the market at a price higher than the money invested to earn profit. They earn this profit by exploiting the workers, by appropriating the surplus value created by the labour power. whatever be the condition of capitalism, advanced or backward, capitalist exploitation is the principal cause of all misery, it is the main enemy of the people. Under capitalism, the anarchy of production is determined by the fact that goods are produced for the market and not for use. The market is the regulator of production.

Under socialism, production and distribution will be determined by democratic social planning. Technology has the power to prevent poverty and privation but who holds the key to this technology? The capitalists and they are motivated solely by profit.

If the working class fails to destroy capitalism, it will suffer the penalty of its own destruction. We can see today the heavy penalty the working class pays when it fails in its task.

A society of abundance

A PLANET OF PLENTY

 We know enough about the great productive capacity of this planet to believe that there is an abundance of food and natural resources. All the material resources for a socialist economy are present, in our world in abundance–raw materials, industrial plants, power-producing enterprises, transportation, highly developed agricultural resources. All the productive social forces are present for a socialist economy to administer. Socialist society  will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society. It will abolish competition and replace it with association. Private property will be abolished and in its place must come the collective utilisation of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to communal agreement – in a word, what is called the common ownership of goods. Society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society. In this way, most important of all, the evil consequences which are now associated with the conduct of big corporations will be abolished. Existing improvements and scientific procedures will be put into practice, with a resulting leap forward which will assure to society all the products it needs. In this way, such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members. The division of society into different, mutually hostile classes will then become unnecessary. Indeed, it will be not only unnecessary but intolerable.

Only in a society which can ensure to humanity an abundance of goods can a new social consciousness be born and offer to the world  free access, not only to certain health or educational services, but to all basic needs. Such abundance of goods is in no way utopia. Freed from the constraints of competition, emancipated from private enrichment, and liberated from the manipulation by advertising intended to create a state of permanent dissatisfaction we could proceed to where products could be freely distributed, without the intervention of money. The logic of free access is the  elimination of monetary relations and the rationalisation of human needs.

The capitalists have reaped a lucrative harvest with record dividends have flowed into its coffers. These fabulous profits have not been gained in an era of well-being and prosperity for all but when the rest of us were suffering the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.  Now the promises of of the politicians to  the stricken are prolific. But the pledges lack real substance. Employed workers have fared little better than those laid off.

Our goal is to reorganise the world socially on the orderly foundations of fraternity, abundance, security, prosperity and peace for the people. The opponents of the Socialist Party call for capitalism to be reformed. They expect to reform such a system. We ask you: How? You cannot reform rottenness. The only reform of the capitalist system which is possible is its overthrow. The Socialist Party do not propose to mend it; we plan to put an end to it. The system under which the working-person is simply a bit of labour-power will be abolished. We call upon fellow- workers to take  to take into their own hands the direction and administration of production and distribution and thus to realise the association of free and equal producers, for a world of abundance where everybody has only to take according to ones needs. 

Today ecological catastrophists project a dystopian future we must avoid, rather than an emancipatory future worth fighting for. Socialism is  about convincing  people that a far better future is possible. The Socialist Party does not seek a puritanical egalitarian austerity but what is called fully automated luxury communism. Our vision of freedom through social control over technological abundance. Take over the machine, not turn it off. If technology were under social control and not for private profit)  all of society could enjoy a realm of freedom—that is, free time not shaped by the urgency to meet society’s basic needs. Automation and robotics could massively reduce the labour needed in manufacturing and distribution with the least expenditure of energy, less waste and so safeguarding the environment from pillage and plunder.

Abolish Capitalism

 

The capitalist mode of production itself creates the basis of socialism. It formed the social nature  of production  and the  modern industrial complex capable of producing an abundance. It also built the working class, propertyless but the producing class.  The magic of the machine which sprang from the inventive genius of mankind has created fabulous abundance. But, alas, this wealth, instead of being a blessing, has been the means of enslaving working people. The few have come in possession of all, and the many have been reduced to the extremity of living by permission. Humanity has the potential to produce real abundance and put an end to endemic misery, starvation, wars and pestilence – all the inescapable consequences of the exchange economy. Socialism means nothing unless it means control of society by the associations of the producers.

Because of automation and Artificial Intelligence, society no longer needs to impose repetitive and meaningless (because unnecessary) toil upon the individual. Society can now set the citizen free to make their own choice of occupation and vocation from a wide range of activities. Gaining control of our future requires the conscious formation of the society we wish to have, applying technology rationally and humanely. The potential abundance of goods and services will be achieved only when it is understood that the major economic problem is not how to increase production but how to distribute the abundance to improve the conditions of the billions of impoverished people  in the world.

Socialism implies the common ownership of all natural resources and the application of all social forces in co-operation for the satisfaction of all material social needs. It, therefore, involves not merely co-operation between individuals and groups of individuals, but also global co-operation. In a system of universal co-operation for production for use, all destruction of wealth, all waste, would be sheer loss. Under the present system of capitalism – with its class ownership and control of all natural resources and all means of production – with universal competition and production for profit, waste means gain, and is not only inevitable but necessary.  War is wasteful but nevertheless indispensable to production for profit, inevitable and necessary. Under capitalism the horrors of peace would far transcend those of war because the competing capitalists come into conflict with each other for the mastery of markets and trade routes. No matter how sincere and well-intentioned humanitarian advocates of peace may be, their plans are foredoomed to failure, for  international peace cannot be established while capitalism exists. Peace-makers talk of universal disarmament but any  who has taken the trouble to understand the operations of the capitalist system must recognise that such proposals under capitalism is impossible. Although it is no idle and utopian to dream of the Socialist Party to establish the co-operative commonwealth by abolishing capitalism itself. 

 With this world we have vast regions of the richest and most fertile soil, mineral resources in  abundance, the most technological advance productive machinery , and millions of eager and educated workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child. Yet we still have vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from cradle to old age. It cannot be blamed on  nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished in the interest of all humanity. The Socialist Party understands that society as a whole ought to own and control its own industries, instead of being the private property of a few and instead of being operated for the enrichment of the privileged few, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. We are opposed to a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. We must reorganise society upon a mutual and cooperative basis. We in the Socialist Party have learned how to be patient and to bide our time. We feel that the time is coming, in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating idea will spread among all the peoples, and  become a triumphant majority to inaugurate the greatest social and economic change in history where we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious cooperation of every people in every land on earth.

A Green Scotland

 

The interim report from Scotland’s Climate Assembly, which has brought together people from all walks of life, age groups and regions across the country urges changes to the way we live, what we eat and grow, and how we travel and work in the future are necessary to help Scotland tackle climate change and achieve a greener society.

Measures include ending use of fossil fuels, reducing the amount of meat in our diets, switching to low-carbon transport, rolling out high-speed broadband, investing in innovative technologies and cutting the amount of new goods we buy.

The report states: “The climate emergency is a real and urgent issue that cannot be ignored. It requires immediate action at all levels of society. If we fail to act now we will fail our current and future generations, in Scotland and across the world.”

Citizens' assembly sets out vision for green and pleasant Scotland (msn.com)