Social Revolution and Socialism

 

We’re fighting an information war. Arm yourself with knowledge to be free. The Socialist Party came into existence in 1904. Since that time the Socialist Party has expanded and has become firmly established. The principles upon which it was founded, and has consistently adhered to, have won it the recognition of being the only genuine socialist party in Great Britain.

The Labour Party and the other left-wing organisations are parties of social reformism. Their election platforms are made up of capitalistic reforms, calculated to catch the votes of the petty bourgeoisie and the capitalistic-minded workers. Although they claim to have for their object the ultimate establishment of a new social order, their immediate aim is reforming the present social system. Their appeals are mainly made to those workers who desire to improve their lot within the confines of the capitalist system.

The Socialist Party is not a reform party. Its purpose is the abolition of the present social order, the ending of the exploitation of workers by a parasitic class. It appeals for the support of the workers as propertyless wage slaves. It points to the necessity for the conquest of political power from the capitalists and the reorganisation of society upon a class-free basis. The Socialist Party has pursued the policy of reaching as large numbers as possible with a sound education of socialist principles.

The economic principles, or laws, as laid out by  Marx, furnish the workers with the requisite knowledge to fight effectively. In a capitalist society, that which the worker sells — labour-power — his or her physical and mental skill, takes on the character of a commodity. Certain economic laws govern the capitalist system, which is a commodity-producing one. A knowledge of those laws is imperative if the workers are going to participate in the struggles against their exploiters. A knowledge of history is useful to the worker. The mode of interpreting history, as taught by the Socialist Party, the materialistic conception, the Marxian mode, clarifies historical research. It is only through studying history from an economic and class viewpoint that the real facts reveal themselves.

The State upholds the power of the owning class, the capitalists, and represses (when necessary) the producing class, the workers when they resist the rule and robbery of their masters. The State, or government, is the real organized force that confronts the masses of the people, the exploited.

The internationalism of socialism is much more than the globalisation we hear so much of in the present day. There are many forms of internationalism such as world trade agreements. Ours will the harmony of humanity towards which all mankind should strive, developing solidarity and mutual aid, ending borders, recognizing our shared fate and committing ourselves to work together for the common good.

Global warming is accelerating, bringing the world close to the edge of the abyss.  Record-breaking extreme weather events caused by a climate catastrophe are happening with a regular frequency that, until recently, even the pessimistic climatologists believed were still two or three decades away in the future.  

It appears that the world is losing the battle against global warming.  We are in deep trouble and it is time to panic. Irreversible tipping points are ominously closer than the experts thought. Is it conceivable to what we are already experiencing will shock and awaken people to a recognition of the horrors that capitalism is creating?  Is what we are seeing happening right before our eyes going to trigger people to take the logical course of action and jettison the capitalist economic system. Perhaps there is a clue in how the politicians responded to the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Too little, too late. Preventative measures were politically inexpedient and effective actions were backed away from. Scientific advice was either rejected or twisted. There will no doubt be similar denialism regards the worsening environmental destruction. Responsibility will be shifted and a better world rejected. It is overlooked that it is the small, very affluent minority, most of them in the rich countries, who are overwhelming the culprits in the criminal environmental crisis. They divert the blame onto the lifestyles of the rest of us.

Men and women, as free equals, must work together to achieve our goal: the abolition of wage slavery and thus prepare the ground on which better and happier humanity can and will grow. In the socialist social system, the production and education of healthy and capable people will take precedence over the production of dead goods. 

War is not due to the arbitrary actions of certain sociopath personalities nor the racial hatred of the peoples, but rather due to world economic, i.e. world capitalist profit needs. Class-conscious working people fight capitalism as the mortal enemy of the socialist liberation of the working class.

One Law for the Rich and one for the Poor.

 A tenant, in Toronto, who took her landlord to court two years ago, was awarded $50,000 dollars in damages. This was after a year and a half of bedbugs, raccoons, frozen toilets and even a break-in. 

The court’s decision was the good news, the bad news is she still hasn't been paid. 

To quote, ''I am in awe of how there is so little enforcement in terms of tenants’ rights. If I owed my landlord $50,000 in rent I would have been evicted in an instant.''

 One law for the rich and one for the poor.

S.P.C. Members.

The Fiery Effects of Capitalism

On June 30 a fire propelled by 50 km. an hour winds swept through the village of Lytton, B.C. leaving a trail of devastation. 

Lytton, home to 250 people and 2,000 indigenous in the surrounding area, had to be immediately evacuated. 

One resident said, ''I was relaxing in my living room when I looked out the window and saw my lawn on fire. Fortunately, in view of the speed of the fire, only 2 people died. 

At the time of writing, it hasn't been determined what caused the fire, but we do know if the effects of capitalism, had not caused global warming, hence the excessive heat in western Canada it would not have happened.

S.P.C. Members.

Their agenda or ours

"For most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective but the noun." - George Monbiot

Only with world socialism, a society without borders will human beings be able to deal with the damage that has been done to the planet by capitalism. The heart of the matter is that capitalism does not produce things to satisfy human needs. It produces “commodities” to be sold in order to make a profit for the capitalists. It is an eternal infernal cycle of endless growth for the accumulation of capital. No matter how many people change their lifestyle and declare consumer boycotts there is no way forward to a sustainable steady-state system without first getting rid of capitalism and that will happen the working people end wage slavery, organising production communally to directly provide for human needs. Private property will disappear and money made redundant.

Capitalism gives us waste production for the pursuit of profit at all costs, no matter the social price paid, and today we all experience the consequences. we have to get rid of capitalism, abolish national frontiers and create a system of world governance that starts from people’s real needs and not the quick fix of some immediate palliative reforms enacted by corporate-friendly governments. It’s time to abolish the long-expired system of world capitalism. Of all the numerous capitalist projects which claim to be a solution, none of them has worked. We must overthrow the very law that is the basis of capitalism — the law of value. Capitalism does not produce things to satisfy human needs. It produces “commodities”, things that can be sold. Indeed capitalism’s whole history has been about inventing needs which it turns into commodities. If a product can be commodified/monetised then it becomes a priority for the system, but if it fails to meet that criteria, it is ignored and neglected. The only solution is to abandon the law of value. It is the root of the climate problem.

"Our choice comes down to this. Do we stop life to allow capitalism to continue, or stop capitalism to allow life to continue?" - George Monbiot

Socialism - The Do-It-Yourself Movement

 

In these times of disease pandemics and economic and political plagues, there is fear, dread and anxiety that is triggering discontent and unrest among both right and left wings.

 

Unlike many Catholic theologians in regard to the Pope, the Socialist Party claim no infallibility for Marx. We claim only that he discovered a set of laws in the materialist philosophy which describes the changes which have occurred and will occur in man’s evolution. Marxism is not laid down only in the books and writings of Marx and Engels but is above all incorporated in the movement of the class-conscious workers’ movement. Mankind has been transformed many times in the course of history. From barbarism to conditions that existed under feudal society, to what we can see today. 

 

 Socialism is not a dogma but is a system of ideas that tells of world society without classes, a society of abundance. The changes in the mode of production, and with it the change in the relationships of men, will eliminate greed and the other driving motive forces under present-day society and replace them with entirely different ones. With that, man will begin to undergo a great transformation.

 

In practically every country, city and community, there are people involved in issues and struggles to improve their situation or stop injustices that they face. These struggles involve not just socialists or political activists but many different people, ordinary working people. These various struggles are important and can make a big difference. While reforms are important, we believe that no amount of reform of the present system can offer any lasting improvements, security or stability for the working peoples or fundamentally alter their position in society. While some fight for the immediate improvement of the people’s well-being, the Socialist Party has the long-term interests of the people and the long-range goal in mind which is to build towards revolution.

 

By revolution, we mean the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class and the basic economic system of society. We believe a revolution is necessary because the problems of this society – the economic problems of inflation and recession, social ills – are all the product of the capitalist system itself. The basic nature of capitalism is that while the vast majority of people work and produce the wealth of society, a handful of owners control all the wealth – the factories, mines, transport and farm fields, and all the profits that are produced. The ruling class prosper at the expense of the vast majority of the people, and their constant drive for profit and more profit results in only more problems and suffering for the people.

 The socialist revolution will take the basic means of production from the hands of the capitalists, and turn these into common property. Working people will hold economic power and political power, and will use it for the benefit of the working people and not their detriment. Exploitation will be eliminated and production will serve the needs of the people. The profit motive of the capitalists will no longer determine everything, problems can be handled in a rational way according to the actual interests of the majority.

What does socialism mean? Among the many written and spoken statements and explanations about socialism, one encounters very different answers, each according to the attitude which the author takes to the socialist movement.

The people who oppose socialism attempt to imprint on it all possible folly and horror, in order to scare people away from any serious study of socialism. Covering up capitalist exploitation is precisely the main job of reformism. They slander the advocates and adherents, to the best of their ability.  If you meet someone, who is anti-union, who is anti-worker and anti-socialist, you can guarantee, that person will turn out to be racist,  turn out to be an anti-semite, and turn out to be anti-foreigner. 

They depict a distorted picture of the socialists and their aim, socialism. It is pointless to quarrel over who invented the word other than very quickly it entered the language as the name for a certain form of human economic activity, for a particular mode of production.

To business owners, working people must sell their labour-power. To these business owners belong the products which are produced by the propertyless wage earner and which in the end will be consumed by those who are in a position to buy the commodities. So today it is precisely the private ownership of the means of production that gives to the owner the possibility to take hold of and turn to account the product of others' labour namely that of the actual producer. 

The means of production have become capital and their owners' capitalists. Hence the powerful class divisions in the world: the class of wage earners, who to maintain their poverty-stricken existence have to produce, day in and day out, for the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production, who with the growth of the productive powers of human labour accumulate ever greater wealth. The accumulation of capital must, out of an inner necessity, drive capitalism into its crises.

This capitalist mode of production shall be replaced by the socialist model. With socialism, the means of production, land and soil, quarries and mines, raw materials, tools, machines, transport, will be transferred to the common ownership of society. They shall no longer serve individuals as a means of living off the labour of others, no longer be the means of the economic enslavement of the propertyless. Commodity production of independent private producers is changed into a planned social production by the people and for the people. And through it will be engendered the greatest possible wealth for the enjoyment of life and the cultural development of all members of society.

 Socialism will bring about the greatest possible good for all members of society, the most wonderful cultural blossoming. It makes impossible all forms of exploitation of man by man, but, on the contrary, secures for each individual the maximum all-round development of talent. So cannot socialists be described as the "true Christians" in the sense of the genuine brotherhood of mankind, loving thy neighbour as thyself?

Socialism today is in the main the description of a social order which is founded upon the common ownership of the means of production. Socialism is indeed that of a world outlook. Liberal intellectuals will at the most accept certain views from Marxism, yet treats Marxism as a patchwork, an isolated scientific phenomenon to cherry-pick particular passages. Marxism or socialism is a universal science. No cloud-cuckoo-land speculation over mystical and supernatural ideas, but rooted deep in the world outlook of historical materialism, by which mankind seeks clarity about nature and the development of the visible world around, not as fixed and unalterable, but as a process of change.  The liberation of the working class - is a distinctly political task and consequently, we have the doctrine of class struggle.

The Highland Clearances

 A socialist talks about the Highland Clearances

Alwyn Edgar, 16th July 2021

The Highland Clearances pt.1
The Highland Clearances pt.2

Ours to own and to control

The Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth

 Mankind is moving towards a showdown with all the forces of the old order. The patches and piecemeal remedies of the reformers have proved to do no good. An affluent society and prosperity for all is a myth. Although some workers may not be as materially impoverished as in the past, they are actually worse off in relation to the affluence surrounding them.

The great socialist thinkers failed to sketch out in any detail the new socialist society. Instead of blueprinting the new society, they analysed the society in which we now live — capitalist society - discovering the laws governing its motion. They saw the class struggle as the lever of social change, and the modern working class, created by capitalism, as the revolutionary force destined to establish the new social conditions necessary for the full development of mankind. These socialist pioneers foresaw the workers, out of the painful experience, overcoming their divisions and their hesitations, and out of necessity, taking the power from the hands of the capitalist class who now possess it, abolishing the whole state structure that they have developed to serve their interests and forming their own organs of workers’ power. With the disappearance of class antagonisms and the release of the capitalist fetters on the productive forces — the least of which is planned obsolescence, they predicted the availability of plenty for all.

The Socialist Party never thought that a socialist society could be built on the foundations of a backward underdeveloped economy. It saw socialism as the next stage of social evolution, where mankind has developed the means of production capable of supplying every human need. There is no doubt that the working people will prove able to build the democratic institutions necessary to their struggle,  building bodies representing every layer of the population — except the employers. 

Not only will the revolution itself be profoundly democratic, but with its success will come almost instantaneous benefits for all. We could therefore immediately cut out the tremendous wealth that has been wasted in the production of military hardware. Thanks to the tremendous productive capacity we have created, we will be quickly able to satisfy all the basic needs of everyone. There will be no real shortages that would require some kind of policeman to supervise who gets what and no bureaucrats with the possibility of providing special favours that would allow them to gather up connections that would frustrate the democratic process.  The administration of all the key and essential industries will be placed in the hands of those who operate them. For the first time, they would know that their skills and knowledge will be applied entirely for the benefit of mankind. We would see our wealth as part of humanity’s common heritage where the planet’s unparalleled natural resources and productivity, would be produced with no other thought than for the well-being of all peoples.

Racist and nationalist prejudice prejudices that deeply rooted fellow workers in the past were fostered and whipped up by the ruling class to divide the workers and pit them against one another and divert them away from their common enemy - the capitalists.

New technology and the use of artificial intelligence can integrate automation and robotics fully into production and we no longer need to dread redundancy and unemployment. Instead, we have a way to distribute goods and services free according to need.  There is no need for exploiters and exploited where the means of production are owned not by rapacious individuals but by society as a whole with workers cooperating to produce and deciding what they produced, and to whom and how it was distributed.

In such a cooperative commonwealth, production can be planned to fit everyone’s needs. Distribution and everything else in society could be organised socially. There would be more than enough for everyone, and it would be distributed not on the basis of who had the most money but on the basis of who needed it the most. The first requisite of socialism is that the wealth of society has to be taken over by the workers. Socialism will replace our hierarchical, bureaucratic and undemocratic society – capitalism – with a genuine democracy in which the working people control their own delegates who act accordingly. Socialism depends upon control from below and control from below can never be brought about from above. These elements – the self-emancipation of the working class through their own struggle and the democratic society which follows such emancipation – is the heart of socialism.

But the socialist revolution will not happen automatically –nor will the capitalist order despite all its failings going to fall on its own. Revolution must be made by working people. We believe the socialist movement at this time should consciously work toward the formation of a world party.