This is the way forward

 The Socialist Party declares itself to be the only genuine socialist organisation in the UK, and acting on that belief, it opposes every other party, and fights them at every election. The Socialist Party state clearly that society is made up of only two classes — that of the workers and that of the bosses. It clearly demands that the land, the instruments of production (machines, factories, etc.), and the products of labour become the common property of the whole people. Socialism properly implies the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only state capitalism. 

The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new ruling class of government officials substituting the capitalists. State ownership takes all control away from the workers and leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic civil servants and irresponsible cabinet ministers. As Engels explained, “State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution...neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital...The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished.”

State capitalism emphasises the fact of the state, of government, being an economic agency of the ruling class. State and capitalist industry, government and ruling class, become one and indivisible.  State capitalism is not an abandonment of capitalism. It is not socialism by the “instalment plan.” State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism.

Socialism is not state ownership or management of industry, but the opposite: Socialism dissolves the state. Industry is not transformed into the state.  Socialism rejects the policy of state ownership, rejects state capitalism as a phase of socialism, and insists upon social democracy through common ownership. We need to understand that complete emancipation of men and women will come only with the abolition of private property.

The “progressive left” are openly committed to the support of capitalism and the rule of the capitalists. They are openly committed to the appeasement policy of the “lesser evil.” 

The Socialist Party, part of the world-wide movement appeals to you to join it in the noble fight for working-class emancipation and socialist freedom. We claim the right to call upon you to enter our Party, for we have never flinched from the struggle against capitalism and never forsaken the principles, of socialism.

Capitalism Must Be Abolished

 

The Socialist Party is the only political organisation that today comes before the workers and advocates the abolition of leadership, of control of the organisation by its members, the only organisation that correctly understands the message that the working class cannot be led. If the workers can be led anywhere not knowing the why and wherefore, by any particular brand of leaders, they certainly can be led anywhere else by any particular brand of leaders. A blind leadership leading the blind will get us nowhere. When the working class desires socialism, we will have socialism.

Few can deny that the world today is in a state of chaos.  The Socialist Party has repeatedly demonstrated the cause is that the capitalist system  does not and cannot work in the interests of the majority. It is a social system in which society is divided into two classes—a capitalist class and a working class. The capitalist class consists of a tiny minority—the wealthy few who own and control the instruments of production and distribution. The working class consists of the vast majority who own no productive property and must, therefore, seek to work for the class that owns and controls the means of life in order to survive. The relationship between the two classes forms the basis for an economic tyranny under which the workers as a class are robbed of the major portion of the social wealth that they produce. Against this insane capitalist system the Socialist Party raises its voice in emphatic protest and unqualified condemnation. It declares that if our society is to be rid of the host of economic, political and social ills that for so long have plagued it, the outmoded capitalist system of private ownership of the socially operated means of life and production for the profit of a few must be replaced by a new social order. That new social order must be organised on the same basis of social ownership and democratic management of all the instruments of social production, all means of distribution and all of the social services. It must be one in which production is carried on to satisfy human needs and wants. In short, it must be genuine socialism. Accordingly, the Socialist Party  calls upon the workers to rally under its banner for the purpose of advocating this revolutionary change, building class consciousness among workers and projecting a programme of organisation that the workers could implement toward this end. 

Despite the many threats to workers’ lives, liberty and happiness today, despite the growing poverty and misery that workers are subjected to, a world of peace, liberty, security, health and abundance for all stands within our grasp. The potential to create such a society exists, but that potential can be realised only if workers act to gain control of their own lives by organising, politically and industrially, for socialism.

Join us in this effort to put an end to the existing class conflict and all its malevolent results by placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society. Help us build a world in which everyone will enjoy the free exercise and full benefit of their individual faculties, multiplied by all the technological and other factors of modern civilisation.

Workers Can Build a Better World

Capitalist Crises

 

Society is always in crisis. Capitalism cannot reform itself; it cannot be reformed. Humanity can be saved only by the socialist revolution. Production must be under common ownership. If an industry is municipal-wide, the municipality is possessed of the ownership of that industry. If an industry is state wide, in its nature, the state is going to be possessed of that industry. If socialism means that the capitalist state is to acquire all the industries — municipal, and national — thus establishing a bureaucracy with its with its oppression, with its obligation to the investors and the banks, it would be nothing short of State Industrial Feudalism, against which every socialist should fight, and fight hard. But socialism does not mean that.

End the Power of Capital

 

The Socialist Party stands for a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. We are told that this is a “Utopian dream.” The Socialist Party is accused of being incapable of providing  details as to daily life  inside socialism. The accusation is unreasonable. No person can give with any degree of certainty the details of the future under a new order of things. And no-one who has read history ought to expect this. The latin saying solvitur ambulando, translates as “it is solved as we walk along.” The Socialist Party suggests that if we take care of our principles, then the details will take care of themselves.

The basis of society to-day is a commercial one — the reason for the production and distribution of goods is to make profits and the evils of our present day society are, in the main, due to this exchange economy. The evils of to-day depend on the way in which goods are made and goods are distributed. The only efficient remedy for these evils is a revolution in the method of producing and distributing goods, transforming the purpose into satisfying peoples needs. Socialism is an endeavour to substitute organised co-operation for present day competition and commercial throat-cutting.  Socialists propose to do away with the power of capital, in the hands of a private individual, to buy labour-power — i.e., to purchase wage-slaves. Socialism replaces a system of oppressors and oppressed. Class struggle is a unifying force. It is the one thing that all workers have in common, whatever their country, their industry, their gender, colour or sectional interests. Recognising that only through socialism, the common ownership and control of the means of producing wealth, can the people be freed from misery, we declare ourselves a socialist movement, and undertake to conduct propaganda among the people to win them to the need to establish socialism. Only socialism, which ends capitalist exploitation and which endorses the liberation and equality of all can improve the lives of the people.

Today the whole world is in the grip of capitalism.  It is an astonishing paradox that, in a world where science and technology have advanced to the stage where there could be plenty for all, there is a growing amount of want and hunger. Not only are untold millions unnecessarily materially deprived but the great majority of the people of the world are oppressed in various ways. Capitalists oppress workers, states oppress whole classes. Working people suffer the worst excesses of oppression and exploitation and often find that their lives are empty and meaningless; enduring severe alienation. Wherever one looks in the world people are turned away from each other and thrown into all manner of antagonistic conflicts. The human species is also developing an antagonistic relationship with its environment. Slowly but surely by poisoning the atmosphere, polluting the oceans and ravaging the land, nature is being turned against us. None of these things is an isolated accident: rather these are all interconnected in one way or another. To make revolution is to put an end to capitalism. Our future must be wrested from the hands of those who, at the cost of unspeakable misery and destruction for the people of the world, are determined to preserve–and chain humanity to–the past.

Capitalism, under any kind of government—whether bourgeois democracy or police state is still a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slave-owners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of the Athenian democracy. To be sure, the workers in the United States have a right to vote periodically for one of two sets of candidates selected for them by the two capitalist parties. And if they can dodge the witch-hunters, they can exercise the right of free speech and free press. But this formal right of free speech and free press is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the mass media  and of all other means of communication and information. But even so, with all that, a little democracy is better than none. 

Capitalism and socialism are irreconcilable. One or the other must ultimately triumph. 

Internecine Divides

 

Capitalism everywhere is incapable of solving social problems which itself has created. The State is an organised power of oppression. The capitalists have control of the government and that government grants them the right of ownership. The curse and the tragedy of the workers’ movement consists in this, that the ruling class have been able to create divisions between workers of different nations and so called 'races'. The Socialist Party explain to our fellow workers the nature of the struggle in. which they are participating and tells them of the principles for which we hold to. We reveal why we are confident of the way out for our class from the horrid nightmare of the competitive struggle which sets nation against nation, class against class, and individual against individual.

The struggle between individual capitalists to realise profits sets employer against employer. The conflict between national groups of financiers sets nation against nation, and produces war. But despite their individual and national conflicts the whole capitalist class stands united in their common desire to exploit working people. Hence under capitalism the freedom of the working class consists in the freedom to starve or accept such conditions as are imposed upon them by the employing class. But the freedom of the master class consists in their untrammelled freedom to buy labour-power to create profit. Thus the workers are not free. Neither owning nor controlling the means of life, they are wage slaves of their employers, and are but mere commodities. We affirm that so long as one section of the community own and control the means of production, and the rest of the community are compelled to work for that section in order to obtain the means of life, there can be no peace between them.

 

While there are differences among  capitalists on the tactics to be deployed, they are united in their central aim of maintaining their ownership and control. While the worker is generally not class-conscious – that is, knowing and understanding his or her class subjection and its cause, and therefore knowing and understanding overthrowing the institutions which subjugates us – it is not so with the capitalists. They, as a rule, are thoroughly class-conscious. They understand it clearly and all the capitalists are lined up accordingly. The political parties accordingly follow a common line on the central issues. The Labour Party is committed to an all-out effort to make capitalism work indefinitely and prevent any collapse of capitalism.

There are kind bosses and tough bosses. There were kind slave-masters and cruel ones. The working class wants NO slave-masters and NO bosses. The Socialist Party wages war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation. until that war is ended we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave. The Socialist Party is opposed to every war but one and that is the worldwide war of the social revolution. It is its  purpose to wipe out, root and branch, all capitalist institutions of present-day society. It is distinctly revolutionary, and in scope and depth is vastly more tremendous than any revolution that has ever occurred in the history of the world.

The Socialist Party does not tolerate any cult of leaders. The reputation of a person as a member of a party may not be compatible with his or her character in personal relations. We have in our mind instances of persons who have been for years hard workers for the cause, whose party activities have been unimpeachable, but who are nevertheless sometimes awkward to get on with in private life. It is why we built the party where all power rest in its collective membership.

Such are the principles of the Socialist Party. Vote for their candidates and you vote and work for the building of the world anew. For the sweeping away of ignorance, for the full physical and mental development of men and women free from class exploitation, and the degradations of poverty. Decline, and by your apathy you stand for misery, exploitation, greed and war. The hour is great. The eyes of the world are upon you. The choice is yours.

The Scottish Pulse Potential

 Scotland could grow 15 times more peas, beans and lentils than it currently does.

Pulses are healthy and nutritious, and offer a substantial benefit to the environment through their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and thrive without artificial fertilisers.

James Hutton Institute researcher Dr Pete Iannetta has been evangelical about pulses for some time: “The irony is our feed and food systems are legume-dependent, yet we import most of our high-protein legume grains, and almost all are for animal and aquaculture feed. That means we forfeit the potential soil benefits from cultivation, and human-health benefits from direct consumption.

“By using pulses in cropping rotations we can improve soil and increase the range of crops grown, plus reduce disease and pest incidence, lowering pesticide dependency. Currently, only 1% of Scottish arable cropped land accommodates pulses – this could be fifteen times higher," he claimed. “If you want to protect environmental, human health, and have truly sustainable economics, then legumes are the vehicle..."

Soil Association Scotland's Ana Allamand, said: “This is an industry that could be developed with benefits for everyone. 

Meanwhile it is tatties galore. Almost half  of the Scottish potato crop was still in grower-held storage.

Pulse crops are a 'no-brainer' for Scotland | The Scottish Farmer

Capitalism — Your Days Are Numbered

The Socialist  Party, unfurling the red banner from the hour of its birth, has no rival. It is the only revolutionary party, the heir of the rich traditions of the past and the herald of the future. 

The Socialist Party shows that today’s society is based on the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class and that all the evils of this society arise from that. It explains how the working class in abolishing capitalism will put an end to the division of society into classes and bring about a completely new era in human history – a world commonwealth – where mankind as a whole, through it cooperative efforts and conscious planning, can to advance to heights undreamed of in the past. 

The Socialist Party is destined to usher in a new epoch of freedom — freedom from the grind of poverty; freedom from the ownership of government by big business; freedom from the slave-driving of workers by profiteers; and freedom of the men and women from exploitation at the hands of the money kings. This cannot be accomplished by compromising longer with the old parties. The only way in which you can put an end to this profit system which keeps you in poverty, misery, and degradation, and gives all the good things of life to the rich, is to conquer political power for your class. We cannot abolish the capitalist system by seizing the factories without at the same time capturing the political power of the State. A political party cannot reorganise and reconstruct the industrial organisations of the working class, and that that is the task of the economic organisations themselves

The Socialist Party must teaches and agitates exclusively for the overthrown of capitalism, and the establishment of socialism. Let us resolve to break the chains of wage slavery. Let us be clear that the system must be changed. Let us tell our fellow-workers that we will change it by REVOLUTION! That is the only way — there is no other. Too long we have stood the misery the bosses have forced on us. We have not forgotten all the wars, which killed and crippled for life millions of workers and filled the bosses’ pockets with gold! We have not forgotten the employers fake promises! We have not forgotten and we will not forget! We, workers, will no more stand the tyranny of the bosses and of their government. We have had enough.

The capitalist system is based upon the production of commodities for profit — for the profit of a small group who own the means of production, and who do no useful work. This means exploitation, wage-slavery, and misery for the masses who do all the useful and necessary work. The only way out is to introduce a system of society in which production is carried on for use, for the benefit of all. The present government of the United States is a capitalist government upholding the right of a few men to own all the transport and communications networks, shops, factories, mills, mines, land, etc., as their private property. Capitalist governments  protects the rich and assists them to rob the poor and toilers. It is the age-long class war. Look ahead. What are the prospects which confront us if the capitalist slave drivers remain in power? Nothing but new wars, slavery, poverty, starvation, and perpetual oppression.

As Covid-19 spread you are lucky if you’ve still got a job. But how long will it last? You may not have it tomorrow. The bosses are laying off hands by the thousands. They say there isn’t any business. So we can go out there and starve! What do they care? They have plenty to eat. It isn’t THEIR business that we can’t earn enough for a decent living. It isn’t THEIR business that our children have to go to school hungry. They are trying to make bigger profits now. We workers piled up billions for them during the pandemic. They are trying to keep up the record. So they are throwing us into the street and taking us back at their own price. Now the bosses see their chance to break up the unions. They intend forcing lower wages and longer hours on us.

There is only one way that all the suffering caused by capitalism can be finally ended – by wiping out its source, capitalism. And there is only one force in society that can bring this about–the working class, leading and uniting against the capitalists all those who suffer under their rule. This is why the aim of the working class, through all its daily battles against the capitalists, must not only be to win whatever concessions. can be wrung from them today, but to build the strength and unity of the working class and build for the day when it will be able to overthrow the capitalists altogether. Let us proclaim our solidarity with the workers of the entire world.