Free with socialism

 

Voters do not understand that the real issue is not whether British capitalism should be run by the Conservative or the Labour Party but the urgency of replacing capitalism with socialism. One thing is certain: a proper understanding of what is at stake and how we can authentically change society can only be helped by the exposure of the contemptible creeps who tell us that under Keir Starmer things can only get better. The Labour Party. New ruses. New lies. The question of socialism—the abolition of private ownership of the means of life and the consequent ending of wage-labour and capital—is never mentioned.

The motor of history, according to socialists, is the struggle of classes. Today, in a capitalist society, it is the struggle of the working class of the world for security. Socialists seek to eradicate the basic causes of war, unemployment, poverty and fascism, which it knows are the products of capitalism. National boundaries are obsolete not only because they breed fear; they are obsolete because they choke and distort the inevitable need for political integration in a world where economic integration is already a fact in various ways. No nation can live within its borders alone. Each rival ruling class seeks to integrate the world for itself, for the economic necessities we have mentioned.

Capitalism is a society based on the exploitation of the many by the few. Because it is founded on massive inequality, it requires various means to oppress and keep down the working class and the poor. The ruling classes of the world know the value of “divide and rule,” both as a means to weaken any opposition against them, and as a means to squeeze more profits from the working class. The working class is not only an exploited class – it is also an oppressed class. Workers receive worse education, worse housing and worse job opportunities than the sons and daughters of the rich. Workers are constantly reminded that they do not possess the intelligence or the capabilities of those above them on the social ladder. Workers are disadvantaged at every step, stressed under financial and family constraints, forced to work in dangerous jobs and, therefore, more likely to suffer from various physical and mental ailments. In turn, they are then forced to accept the poorest quality health care. capitalism – a system based upon the exploitation of wage labour for profit – was founded on enslavement and oppression from its beginnings.

Everyone accepts the idea that the oppression of slaves was rooted in the class relations of exploitation of that system. Fewer recognise that under capitalism wage slavery is the pivot around which all other inequalities and oppressions turn. Capitalism used racism to justify plunder, conquest and slavery, but as Marx pointed out, it also used racism to divide and rule – to pit one section of the working class against another and thereby blunt class consciousness. The bosses consciously foster divisions among workers in order to weaken and defeat their struggles for better conditions. The very conditions of capitalist exploitation and competition also help to foster divisions among workers. While capitalism propels workers toward collective forms of struggle, it also forces them into competition. The unremitting pressure from a layer of unemployed workers, which exists in most economies even in times of ‘full employment,’ is a deterrent to struggle – a constant reminder that workers compete for limited jobs which afford a decent standard of living. By oppressing a section of the working class on the basis of its sex, race, sexual orientation, language or national origin and driving those workers’ conditions of existence down, capitalism is able to drive the conditions of all workers down. A white worker may perceive that their conditions of work and pay are better because of the lower pay received by Black workers. The reality, however, is that the bosses use the conditions of the lowest-paid workers to drive the conditions of all workers down. The worse the pay and conditions of the most oppressed workers, the more the bosses can lower the pay of all workers. Conversely, when the conditions of the most oppressed sections of the working class are improved, the conditions of all workers improve.

The working-class struggle cannot be successful unless workers are able to throw off the yoke of oppression that divides them. That is why, as a class, workers not only do not benefit from oppression but also have a common class interest in fighting oppression. Capitalism would have no need for dividing workers if there were not another dynamic at work – the tendency for capitalism to compel workers to collectively fight back against the various aspects of their oppression and exploitation. To engage in class struggle it is not necessary to “believe in” the class struggle. The interests of workers, as a group organised by capital, lead them to struggle.  The working class moves toward class struggle insofar as capitalism fails to satisfy its economic and social needs and aspirations. There is no evidence that workers like to struggle any more than anyone else; the evidence is that capitalism compels and accustoms them to do so. For any oppressed group to fight back there is a need for hope. And that is to be found, not in the isolation of oppression but in the collective strength of the working class. For the Socialist Party the notion that the working class, by liberating itself, will liberate the whole of humanity, is central. 

Green Lairds

 In Scotland, the average price of land, according to research by the estate agent Strutt & Parker, jumped by 87% in the last year. Some estates have seen a 333% price increase since 2018. 

Many of the landowners are colloquially and pejoratively titled “green lairds”, echoing the Highland clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 In many cases, land is bought and trees are planted to “offset” the owner’s carbon emissions from elsewhere. The new Somerset-based venture Real Wild Estates recently said its business model was “making nature pay, by delivering sustainable business returns” for investors. The investment companies Aviva and Standard Life have also bought land to plant forests and restore peatland. The land bought for offsetting is often framed as derelict – an empty wilderness devoid of community. Rarely does corporate rewilding consider the displacement of communities living and working on the land. It is also having impacts on agriculture: threatening crofting in Scotland.

 Langholm Moor community buyout bought 5,300 acres of land to put back under communal ownership. Another inspiring initiative can be found on the Isle of Ulva, which was brought back into community ownership in 2018. In 2015, the population had fallen to just five people. Now they’re seeing the “repeopling” of the island.

 Rewilding should not be about profit and offsets, remote and alien from rural communities. The value of a real, democratic rewilding is that it doesn’t just to  sequester carbon dioxide – but for people too.

Rewilding, or just a greenwashed land grab? It all depends on who benefits | Eleanor Salter | The Guardian

A Message for Scottish Workers

 Let every socialist face the fact that ‘patriotism’ is not socialism, and that the achievement of independence nationality, even up to the highest professed ideals of patriotism, namely the complete political separation of Scotland from Britain, would not ‘free Scotland’ one iota in any sense satisfactory to the international socialist and absolutely demanded by socialist principles. This age-long struggle of  ‘patriots’ to ‘free Scotland’ is, therefore, from the Socialist Party's point of view, an utter chimera which, if it could be achieved, would be to the wretched wage-slaves of Scotland. The international socialist who happens to be a Scot can, and does feel profound sympathy for all the struggles of his or her countrymen and even their pathetic efforts to achieve the utter futility—from the strictly socialist point of view—of sovereignty, which can excite pity for their useless sufferings, even though he or she cannot take part in their misdirected exertions. 

In common with the rest of capitalism's half-baked left-wing. Nationalists  are utterly blind to the real problem. They see all evils only in the shape of private capitalism — the source of working class poverty is not to be found in the fact that we, as wage workers, are exploited by capital, but in the identity of capital's owners. Nationalists are concerned with the shadow of exploitation not its substance. Despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary, collected over the past century and more in every country in the world, they maintain that capital in the hands of the state performs the miraculous feat of transforming itself from the exploiter of wage labour into its servant.

Would the working class be worse or better off with independence? Would there be anything to choose between the two “solutions”? Surely, in both a sovereign Scotland  or a United Kingdom, the workers’ standard of living would be much the same. So would the slums, the unemployment and the other problems of capitalist society. And world socialism would remain the only solution to these problems. The only difference would be the colour of the flag that would fly over the government buildings in Edinburgh: Union Jack or Scottish Saltire?

The problems of the working class in Ireland were, and remain, the problems of the working class of the world and originate in the class stratification of capitalist society. Given capitalism, these problems were inevitable; they could not then, no more than they can now, be “planned” out of the system. They did not arise out of the “evil” intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, “home” or “foreign”, no more than they could be planned, prayed or fought away by brave, sincere or wise men. They were the facts of capitalism and would continue to exist for as long as the working class, the only class with an economic interest in bringing about a real change, accepted that system.

Our sincere urging to our fellow Scottish wage-slaves is, to let them use their remaining strength to shake off the leeches of capitalism, that are sucking their lifeblood, instead of hastening their destruction in a mad effort to set up Tweedledum in place of Tweedledee. 

What Is and What Could Be

 

The obvious barrier to the socialist transformation of society is the simple fact that most workers are not socialists and indeed most accept capitalism and believe it can’t be changed. Businesses are run for profit and society is divided into classes so it is believed these things are ‘natural’. Most view socialists as utopian idealists. Even successful struggles in the class war do not automatically lead to those involved drawing socialist conclusions even though it provides fertile ground for this to happen. For this reason, the  Socialist Party need to advance the vision of how society can be transformed even as they engage in common struggles. The history and traditions of the working class must be commemorated for a new generation. 

The ruling class controls the formation and promotion of ideas, owning the media and being in charge of education and political institutions.  As Marx put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’. The generally-held ideas of society reflect the way society is organised. 

If socialism cannot be created on behalf of workers as we hold and must be the act of the working class itself, how can this happen when the working class is so dominated by capitalist ideas? We accept that our fellow worker's  ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by any campaign by the Socialist Party. The socialist intellectual may  be a miner or factory workers or an academic university professor. The socialist intellectual must keep his or her eye on the main task, the formation and circulation of revolutionary ideas.

It is often assumed that the more people suffer, the more revolutionary their resistance grows. But if this were so, then the revolution would have happened long ago. In fact, it is not suffering, but the experience and lessons of struggling against exploitation and oppression that is the basis for the growth of socialist ideas.

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The central tenet of socialism is the assertion that the working class is the sole historical agency for the achievement of socialism, and that it is upon its conscious practice that the possibility of revolution depends. For the Socialist Party, the possibility of revolution rests upon the conscious and free acceptance of socialism by the working class. If workers’ struggle results largely in defeat, then workers – with little control over their own working lives – feel that society cannot be changed. But if victory follows victory, then workers’ confidence in their ability to change their own lives increases, and they become more able to see that alternatives to capitalism are possible and then socialist ideas can spread like wildfire. The Socialist Party seeks liberty, equality, and fraternity for workers’ all human beings, regardless of race, religion or origin. 

None of this means that the attempt by the Socialist Party to spread our ideas is not necessary. Socialist ideas have to be present to be picked up, and an organisation is required to inform, articulate and generalise from these worker’s experiences to prove their relevance and point the way forward. A working-class not guided by socialist theory can play into the hands of its class enemies. If workers do not believe the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class, then they will look for salvation from above, or, worse still, come to the conclusion that no emancipation is possible at all. The struggles of those who see beyond the limitations of reformism are bound to be difficult. But the development of capitalism, with its inexorable laws, provided the foundation upon which the ideas of socialism must survive, no matter how weakly or what the setbacks. People want to develop a political consciousness, a sense of fellowship, and a satisfaction of human and cultural needs, within the present society and within a radical social movement that is possible.

No choice but socialism

 

The Socialist Party can understand why many want Boris and the Tories out. They’re an arrogant lot who think they’ve got some divine right to rule while grinding down the poor and lining their own pockets. But it is better to act on the basis of reason rather than such a gut reaction.

The question to ask is: will their replacement by another group of politicians make any difference in our lives?

The argument that it will is based on the illusion that governments have with power to improve economic and social conditions which they don’t actually possess and that all that is needed is to replace one set of politicians who accept inequality by another set who claim that they don’t. Our argument is that what happens in the economic and social field is determined not by what governments want but by the blind workings of the economic laws of the profit system. In other words, it is not governments that control the way the economy works but the way the economy works that places limits on what governments can do and indeed, in the end, virtually dictates what they do. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system but the profit system can only be run as a system in which priority has to be given to the profit-making. "Profits first” is a basic economic law that all governments must respect.

 

So any government, whatever its political colour or the promises and aspirations of its members, has to do this. This is why a Keir Starmer  government will be no different in practice from the Tory government that has just been voted out, not that the Labour Party is against the profit system even in words.

Maybe you are too young to remember the last Labour government but we can assure you that, if there is a need to maintain or increase profit levels, the new Starmer government will cut back spending on education and the NHS and will discourage trade-union action—just as the earlier Labour Party governments did. If you don’t believe us, just wait and see

 

The striking difference between our approach and the reformist approach is the contrast between our programme and campaigning and that of the various other parties calling themselves socialist. We advocated a fundamental change in the basis of society. They merely offered reforms. We stand for socialism and nothing else. We make no promises as to what “we” would do to make things better under capitalism. We simply say that capitalism can't be reformed to work in the interests of the majority and that the way-out is to get rid of the profit system and replace it by a system based on common ownership and democratic control geared to meeting needs not making profits.

In a bid to get as many votes as possible the Left promised the moon. In other words, they play the game of conventional electioneering politics to the full. However, all their promises are pie-in-the-sky in the sense that capitalism could not afford them. This does not stop these parties entering into great detail about what they would do if elected. The Left are jokers, insulting people’s intelligence. They just pluck figures out of the air to make what they consider attractive promises—but which most people consider ridiculous—without even checking that their various promises are compatible with each other. People are not stupid and clearly do not take these promises seriously. Do they take us for fools? The answer is, yes, they do. As Leninists, they believe that ordinary workers are only capable of acquiring what they call a "trade union consciousness" means which mean wanting more under capitalism. So that’s what they offer to provide for workers, knowing full well that capitalism will be unable to deliver, in the hope that they can get the workers with themselves as the leaders to overthrow capitalism.

People are quite capable of understanding the idea of socialism. What could be easier to understand than a society where productive resources belong to no one but are democratically controlled and used to produce goods and services directly to meet people’s needs and not for profit? People certainly understand very well when someone is just dangling bait before them.

What do we mean by socialism?

 

Most people’s ideas of what socialism would be like have been formed wither by the tyranny in the former Soviet Union or the experiences of the Labour Party or other ‘left-wing’ governments, a view that socialism is a one-party bureaucracy or a mishmash of palliative reforms. The Socialist Party, however, has as its task to educate the millions of our fellow workers on how society can be reorganised to put an end to poverty and injustice once and for all. Once socialism has been achieved and capitalism has been ended worldwide, the immense resources of our planet will be harnessed for the peoples’ needs. The State will wither away and a  new era of true freedom and a united humanity. We face two choices – either accept capitalism or set out to overturn this system. 

A great unanswered question with far-reaching implications and consequences for the world is why the socialist movement has not made substantial progress. Socialism is not a complicated idea even if not widely understood. It has not gained significant support from the working class. The socialist movement is weak and uninfluential. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue? But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs, since mankind makes its own history and chooses what to do. The Socialist Party does not tell us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, and what course lies open to us. It is not here dismissing the importance of achieving reforms or protecting civil liberties, but rather correcting the misconception that socialism can be won through improving or democratising part of the system without getting rid of the capitalist system in its entirety. Socialism is about working people being willing and able to fight for a society free of exploitation a. If socialism is not about creating a society without exploitation then it is merely another word for capitalism. And if working people are not willing or able to fight for such a society then, no matter what meaning we give the word, socialism is unattainable.

It is time to act and show the power of the workers. Time to prove we are not pawns in a deathly game of chess. We have the power of the vote. Our power also lies in the factories, in the trade unions and outside in our communities and streets. It is time to develop the will to use that power. Unity of purpose and action can develop power and a fighting force that no other power can destroy. We have to prove we are free men and women. Working people, united and determined, are strong enough by their own actions to banish capitalism and pave the path toward a new, free socialist way of life.

Being a socialist consists not merely in recognising the trend of social evolution from capitalism to socialism, and to hasten the day. It consists not merely holding the vision that life will be an improvement with socialism; that human behaviour, crippled in the class society, will assert itself and change for the better. Being a socialist consists in not waiting for its actual realisation, but in striving, here and now, insofar as the circumstances of class society permit, to live like a socialist under capitalism according to the higher standards of the socialist future.

The economic foundation of capitalist class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State and its substitution in which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people. Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution is the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal. The objective of socialists is the abolition of man’s exploitation by man. Socialism can only come about when the working class itself takes control of the means of producing wealth and uses this to transform society.

You cannot build an island of socialism in a sea of capitalism. Attempts by small groups to cut themselves off and lead their lives according to socialistic ideas always fail  in the long term – for a start, the economic and ideological pressures are always there.