Socialism - Questions and Answers

What is The Socialist Party?


It is a political party separate from all others. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a global system of society in which there will be common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources. We advocate a world social system in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation and an equal say in how their society is run; a world in which production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all.

What is Socialism?

To elaborate slightly on the above – Socialism is yet to exist. When it is established it must be on a global basis, as a real alternative to the present system. In a socialist society there will be common ownership of the earth by its inhabitants and no minority will dictate to us that production must give priority to profit. There will be no owners. The people of the world will share the world. Production will be for use, not sale. The only questions we will need to ask about production are what do people need and can these needs be met. Science and technology will at last be used to their fullest potential and in the service of humanity. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their needs. There will be no buying or selling, as money will have been abolished and will not be necessary in a world of free access. Socialism will mean a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments, force or coercion.

How does this differ from Capitalism?

Capitalism is the social system that now exists in all the countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution are monopolised by a small, wealthy elite. All wealth is produced by us, the working class who sell our physical and mental abilities for a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold profitably. Not only do capitalists live off the profits they obtain by exploiting us, they reinvest their profits with a view to accumulating more wealth. Because of the logic of their system, if goods cannot be sold at a profit, they are either destroyed or not produced at all. Because of capitalist competition, wars break our fairly regularly, being fought over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets and mineral resources – all sources of profit for capitalists.

So how will Socialism solve the problems of society?

Capitalism, with its endless drive to make profits, throws up an endless stream of problems. Many workers feel insecure about their future and work related stress is on the increase. Crime, homelessness, poverty – these are all ongoing problems. A society based on production for use will end these problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. Abolishing the money system will mean food will not have to be destroyed it can’t be sold. Wars will no longer be fought if there are no more borders or frontiers and the source of their cause has been removed. At present it is not ‘economically viable’ to solve many of the problems that plague us – it eats into profits. Socialism will mean nothing but the best for every human being.

Surely it is easier just to reform the present system?

No. As long as capitalism exists, profits will always take priority over our real needs. Some workers welcome reforms; some reforms have improved working class conditions, but no reform can abolish that basic contradiction between profits and need. No matter how well meaning the politicians, nor how colourful their promises, they are bound to fail because they do not control the system – it controls them. The governments of the world may well introduce 1000 reforms, but we would still continue to live in a world ravaged by starvation, war, homelessness, unemployment, poverty and every other social ill. We would still live in a two class society, with our real needs subordinated to the wishes of a minority. Why campaign for crumbs when the whole bakery is there to be taken?

Is Nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?

No. Although the old Labour Party used to think so, and many leftists still do, there is nothing progressive in nationalisation. It simply means the workers are exploited by the state in the interests of capitalists. There were once many nationalised industries in Britain. This did not stop the government closing them down and making hundreds of thousands of workers redundant when they ceased being profitable – and these nationalised industries supposedly ‘belonged’ to us.

What about kibbutzim?

Is this not akin to Socialism? Socialism can only exist, as capitalism does, on a global scale. It cannot be established in one country, let alone one farm. The kibbutzim do show that humans can live without money and work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so young people tend to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and some have themselves become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

Have there ever been Socialist countries?

What about the former Soviet Union? No. Those countries which claimed they were socialist were in reality state capitalist. Power was monopolised by a privileged elite who became the new ruling and controlling class. Countries like Russia and China and Yugoslavia still had money and buying and selling. They still had wage slavery, exploitation and commodity production. They still traded with capitalist states and according to the dictates of international capital and were ever ready to go to war to defend their economic interests.

Socialism has been tried? Aw, Gawd, here we go again!!

Sent to the local Shields Gazette

My anonymous detractor, A. Patriot (Gazette 5th April), perhaps thinks he is being unique in his criticism. In truth he regurgitates the hackneyed old anti-socialst sentiments I've been countering in this paper for over 15 years.

He, like countless others, points his all-knowing finger to China and Cuba as 'proof' that socialism has failed. But nowhere have I ever claimed, or will claim, that these countries were socialist. Indeed, I'll gladly give anyone £1000 who can prove to me that socialism has existed anywhere. All I am ever offerred are examples of state capitalism (China, Cuba, the Soviet Union etc etc - all of which had a wages system, commodity production and every other trait we associate with capitalism).

My critic suggests that for socialism to be impemented would require "the coercion of everyone who disagrees with it and the death of democracy", which is the exact opposite of everything I have always argued.

I have always maintained that socialism will only come when a majority of the world's people understand what socialism means (and, no it has nothing to do with Lenin, or Mao or Castro), want it and are prepared to organise for it peacefully and democratically, without leaders and in their own interests."

A postcard from the front line (Lukes Lane Estate)

Socialists jumping on the environmentalist bandwagon?

Sent to tle local Shields Gazette

Mr MS (Gazette, 26th March) , criticising my letter on climatic change suggests Socialists are jumping on the environmentalist bandwagon. For the record socialist have been warning about the dangers capitalist production methods pose the environment for 130 years.

In 1875, in Dialectics of Nature, Fred Engels had this to say:

“At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing over nature – but that we, with flesh and blood and brain, belong to nature and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly. We are gradually learning to get a clear view of the indirect, more remote social effects of our productive activity, and so are afforded the opportunity to control and regulate these effects well. This regulation, however, requires a complete revolution in our existing mode of production…in our whole contemporary social order”

And, Mr MS, there has been no “shift in socialist priorities”, as you say, “from world peace and global poverty, to solar panels and energy-efficient light bulbs.” Our priority remains the same – abolition of the profit system and the establishment of a system of society where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled.

Socialists are no different from others in desiring an envirionment in which the safety of all animal and plant spieces is ensured. Where we differ from our poitical opponents is in recognising that their demands have to be set against a well entrenched economic and social system, based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding law of profits first.

It has long been our case that human needs can be satisfied without recourse to production methods that aversely effect the natural environment, which is exactly why we advocate the establishment of a system of society in which production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit. We are not talking about nationalisation or any other tinkering with the present system, but rather its entire abolition and replacement with a global system in which the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled; a society in which each production processes takes into consideration not only human need but any likely effect upon the environment.

Once the Earth’s natural and industrial resources have ben wrested from the master class and become the common heritage of all humanity, then production can be geared to meeting needs in an ecologically acceptable way, instead of making profits without consideration for the environment. This the only basis on which we can meet our needs whilst respecting the laws of nature and to at last begin to reverse the degradation of the environment caused by the profit system. The only effective strategy for achieving a free and democratic society and, moreover, one that is in harmony with nature, is to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as itsobjective.

Non-Violent Direct Action

I came across this piece while sorting out some old files from my pc - its the supporting statement I presented to the SP Conference several years ago for the discussion on Direct Action. Although there was some decent support for the item, Conference was generally agreed that NVDA was something socialists did not get involved in.

NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION (Supporting statement from North East Branch) Socialist Party Annual Conference 2001

Direct action, or rather non-violent direct action, refers to a variety of activities the party is yet to contemplate, activity that need not compromise our position and which is only limited by the imagination. We do not list them here – we leave that to the imagination of the reader.

NVDA is something the WSM does not advocate because we seek to maintain a mantel of respectability (albeit in the eyes of the state). We prefer to leave NVDA to the Reclaim the Streets people and anarchist types. We seem terrified to incur the wrath of the state less they ‘close us down’, less we’re given a bad press, less people are turned off us.

Well the state might close down our office, but would this mean the end of the case for socialism?
NVDA has certain qualities. It publicises injustice, expresses the anger of the aggrieved, publicises the WSM case and the futility of reformism. It intrudes upon the complacency of the passive majority, arousing awareness of global issues and our response to it and disturbs the status quo.

In addition to our present, limited and often non-visible activities, we need some other device, powerful but restrained, controlled and explosive, more visible and obtrusive to get our message across – a more organised use of the techniques of dissent than have been tried by others pursuing direct action and civil disobedience as a means to an end.

One thing is certain – the workers are not beating as path to our door, salivating over our ideas and anxious to find out more. They never have and they never will. Most see us as some self-righteous sect, a Karl Marx fan club, intellectual masturbators, never perceived as getting involved in the day-to-day struggles of the workers, forever sitting on the fence saying ‘tut-tut, that’s not how it’s done.’

For many workers, they need to see more tangible, more overt propaganda before they’re prepared to take on board our ideas and get involved. They need to see us shoulder to shoulder with them in their daily struggles – maybe because actions speak louder than words for a lot of people.

The test or justification for NVDA is not its legality, but its morality; not law but justice for the exploited. And if civil disobedience brings us in front of the judges, could we not do with the oxygen of publicity that defending ourselves would bring? And what is the socialist case if it is not just? Would we not win more the respect of our class – at last showing them that we’re on their side – if we were prepared to get our hands a bit mucky now and again?

We have to ask ourselves how much we bloody-well want socialism!! That we are happy to stand one candidate in the coming General Election, when our case is premised on the argument that socialism must be established democratically, suggests a fair few of us pay socialism lip service.

Why should we show the state (the executive of capitalism) respect? Why should we seek the respect of the master class and the legal apparatus that protects it and which continually tips the outcome of the class war in their favour? Do the bastards respect the working class? Hell, no! Because of their system, their logic, 40,000 children die every day through starvation globally. Because of their system, 210 million of our fellows died as a result of wars fought in the 20th century. The master class have no respect for the environment and they are prepared to transgress no end of laws to see that their system continues and that we are held continually in a state of subjection. The new Anti-Terrorism act is even aimed at marginalizing and isolating protest groups, stifling any opposition to injustice. Protesting at hypocrisy, deceit and fraud is now a subversive act.

The point is, how much respect do we give and how much of their respect do we wish to win? How many more millions of our fellows have to die in the name of profit before we really start getting angry? How long must we bow with suppliant knee before them, acknowledging their laws, afraid of any adverse publicity the breaking of laws might bring. If the USA were to drop an atomic bomb on Baghdad tomorrow, we’d cover it in the Standard and prepare an EC statement (and really put the wind up the Pentagon).

The longer we show the present system the respect that we do, the longer the injustices continue. NVDA is not a departure from the socialist struggle, but is very much essential to it.
If we don’t start doing something now then history will pass us by and in a hundred years time we’ll still be mentioned as a footnote at the bottom of page 743, as a small Marxist sect that produced some interesting theoretical stuff from a naffy little office in Clapham.

Is NE Branch alone on this? Is the WSM capable of really getting stuck in (and before anyone starts taking the piss we’re not on about manning barricades and handing out kalashnikovs)? Is there more to being a socialist than theorising and discussing branch business?

SOCIALISM MEANS ONE WORLD

Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these billions across the world to run society in their own interests. This will be done by taking the means of production throughout the world into common ownership, with their democratic control by the whole community, and with production solely for use.

Common ownership will be a social relationship of equality between all people with regard to the use of the means of production. No longer will there be classes, governments and their state machinery, or national frontiers.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration, from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals.

Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs.

The motivation for this new world comes from the common class interest of those who produce but do not possess. An important part of this motivation comes from the global problems thrown up by capitalism. Ecological problems make a nonsense of the efforts of governments. War and the continuing threat of nuclear war affect us all. The problem of uneven development means that many producers in the underdeveloped countries suffer starvation, disease and absolute poverty. All of these problems of capitalism can only be solved within the framework of a socialist world. Ecological problems require the sort of long-term planning and development of which competitive, international capitalism is incapable. Converting the armaments industry (capitalism's biggest industry) from producing weapons of destruction to producing useful things to satisfy human needs will take time. Ending world hunger and poverty, above all, makes the world-wide co-operation of socialism an urgent necessity.

But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced, such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level.

Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.
The World Socialist Movement, of which the Socialist Party is a constituent part, expresses the common class interest of the producers. Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world, and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be a folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must therefore be prepared to establish "socialism" in one country or even a group of countries like the European Community.

For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions, and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish "socialism" in one country would be bound to fail owing to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market.

Faced with this explanation of how the world could be organised, many would reject it in favour of something more "realistic", including some who call themselves socialist. They seek to solve social problems within the framework of government policies, the state machine, national frontiers, money, wages, buying and selling. But if our analysis of capitalism as a world system is correct—and we've yet to be shown how it's wrong—the state politics are irrelevant as a way of solving social problems, Viewed globally, state politics only make sense when seen as a means for capturing political power in order to introduce a world of free access

Gordon Brown does it again

Sent to the local Shields Gazette

"Immigrants should be required to do community service as a condition of becoming British citizens", Gordon Brown said yesterday

This follows his proposal that we should all display a coloured rag on the end of an idiot stick, also known as the Union Jack, on the Monarch's Birthday or some special "National" day he has hinted he would like to introduce (as long as it's not a working day -- the business interests he has catered for as Chancellor of the Exchequer wouldn't like that).

"Britishness" has become something of an obsession with him. Psychologists have suggested that it might have something to do with, being from Scotland, him being unsure of his "Britishness" and so over-compensating in the same sort of what that Hitler, an Austrian, did with "Germanness". More probably, his spin-doctors have detected that voters in England might not be too keen to vote for a party led by a dour Scotsman whose father was a Presbyterian Minister and so have told him to play up his Britishness. In other words, usual political opportunism. Or maybe he wants to steal votes as well as policies from the British National Party.

But it also serves a purpose. The capitalist class rules in the end only with the consent of the ruled class and nationalism is one of the means they use to try to con us that we have a common interest with them as against the inhabitants of other capitalist states. Brown perhaps feels that liberal and cynical attitudes have gone too far and that we need an increased dose of nationalism to keep us ideologically bound to our masters.

Whatever the reason, he has now come up with the outrageous proposal that workers who come to Britain and want to settle here should first have to undergo a spell of forced labour before being entitled to the "privileges" of being a legal subject of the British State. The Labour Party used to pose as a champion of civil liberties and the like. Not any more. They are now an openly authoritarian as well as an openly capitalist party.

Suffer the little children - under Blair

Commencing a letter to Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 22nd December 1965, AF Philip, Chairman of the newly formed Child Poverty Action Group wrote:“There is evidence that at least half a million children in this country are in homes where there is hardship due to poverty.”He ended his plea on behalf of Britain’s deprived minors thus: “We earnestly beg you to see that steps are taken at the earliest possible moment to help these families.”

So confident that child poverty would be quickly eradicated by the amazing magical wand that Wilson often wielded, Labour suggested the CPAG would be obsolete within a year, the problem it was set up to help sort a thing of the past. Forty-two years later the CPAG is still in existence and child poverty is still with us, despite 10 years of Labour reforms.

In the past week the United Nations has reported that children growing up in the United Kingdom suffer higher deprivation, poorer relationships with their parents and are exposed to more risks from alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex than those in any other wealthy country in the world. The report compiled by Unicef says that the UK is bottom of the league of 21 economically advanced countries, trailing the United States which comes second to last.Over 16% of children now live below the official poverty line. Way to go, Blair. Forty two years after a Labour government promised to eradicate poverty it is as high as ever.


Replying to a letter from the CPAG on 20th January 2006, Tony Blair confidently wrote:” I can promise you that we share your ambition to make child poverty history in our country. It is why we have publicly said we want to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it completely by 2020.”What is nauseating about this is that Blair is telling the CPAG, who in 1965 complained that there were officially half a million children in poverty, that by 2010 he will halve child poverty – ie. slash the number of impoverished children from 3.4 million to 1.7 million.


So 45 years after Labour said they would end child poverty the best they can offer is to set a figure which is thrice the 1965 figure as a bloody victory!! Rather than distributing wealth and claiming to have as its priority the lifting children out of poverty and improving their education and prospects, Labour in facts redistributes poverty like no other government in the industrialised world.


Of course, come election time, Blair and co will continue to depend on working class historical amnesia to carry them through to a fourth victory, confident their lies and betrayals and rampant hypocrisy will be concealed by surfeit of promises for the future and pathetic excuses for past failings.Incidentally, if you do suffer from political amnesia, try clicking on this remedy: LABOUR SLEAZE

Climatic change again

sent to the local Shields Gazette

Climate change due to global warming is perhaps the greatest danger facing humanity as a whole at the moment (though others make out a good case for this being the spread of the ability to make nuclear bombs). Environment minister, and South Shields MP, David Miliband wrote about this in the Times (12 February):

"Climate change is, according to Sir Nicholas Stern, the greatest ever market failure, but the answer is not to replace markets. Instead, we need to price pollution into markets and extend market mechanisms so that they work more effectively".

In other words, the Market has Failed, Long Live the Market! This from somebody billed as New Labour's bright young intellectual, though it does show the extent of Labour's commitment to capitalism.

Socialists take a different view. Miliband of course is no socialist (though his father wrote a couple of books -- "Parliamentary Socialism" and "The State in Capitalist Society" -- of interest to them). We say: the Market has failed, so let's replace it with something better that doesn't produce problems like global overwarming.

The "carbon trading" and "green taxes" favoured by Miliband are just tinkering with the market system, whereas if carbon emissions are to be stabilised and the consequences of global overwarming tackled effectively it is the whole market system of competitive production for profit that must go.

Its replacement would be a world without frontiers where the Earth's natural and industrial resources have become the common heritage of all humanity. Only then will a world body capable of taking the necessary co-ordinated global action exist. Only then can the Earth's resources be used to satisfy people's needs not to make a profit for those who own and exploit them.The buying and selling of the market system would be replaced by giving and taking in accordance with the principle "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".

Demand the Impossible

Text of a leaflet I've done for the antiwar demo on 24th Feb

Today, 24th February, people have travelled the length and breadth of Britain to protest at the continuing bloodshed in the Middle East.

No doubt many will be veterans of the mass protest in London 4 years ago which attracted almost 2 million people - people fully aware at the time that the events of 9/11 had no link to Saddam Hussein and that he posed no military threat to the West. Likewise, the many who marched to Hyde Park that day were right in believing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction—a fact that has now been proved—and that any war in Iraq would fully destabilise the country. And you would have been in a minority had you not realised the link between the intended war and the fact that beneath the sands of Iraq lay huge oil resources.

Undoubtedly, after over four years of campaigning you will be revolted by the incessant lies of the Blair government as it has tried to justify the occupation of Iraq and its further plunge into chaos. Week in, week out, the government has distorted the truth and sunk to all manner of low tactics to justify its position. And now, after all of your campaigning efforts, the meetings and demos you have attended, the petitions you have signed, the umpteen arguments with your friends and neighbours, you are here protesting again, having been proved right, marching today, demanding a withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq, hoping to halt a looming attack upon Iran, and calling for no replacement for Trident.

Four years of solid protest and your cause is not one inch further forward! Indeed, the anti-war cause has taken a step back. For, paying no heed to the hell that has been let loose in Iraq, Labour and the Tories are all too ready to escalate the war and support a US-led attack on Iran, even if this means the use of nuclear strikes.

Whoa, hold on! Do you not think you might just be wasting your time here today? Granted, the Iraq War has resulted in the deaths of 660,000 and innocent Iraqis are still being killed every day. And yes, Blair has increased the British troop presence in Afghanistan and he even kept schtum during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But do you not think you’re asking the wrong questions, making the wrong demands? Repeating the mistakes of the past? We’re not saying you are wrong for asking questions, only that you do not ask enough. Indeed, question everything! We’re not suggesting you are demanding too much today—in truth, you are not demanding enough!

Whilst this march demands the withdrawal of western forces from Iraq and pleads that Iran is not attacked, it supports the very system that creates war by not questioning the premise of war. War is a bedfellow of the system we know as capitalism, being waged over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets, natural resources and the profits that can be had via the same. By not taking issue with the nature of capitalism, and the root of war, this gathering is making the mistake of every previous anti-war demo and meeting and paving the way for more in the future. Wars will continue as long as capitalism exists. By demanding the British and American governments listen to us today we further give them legitimacy by acknowledging their right to make war and indeed end it.

Now we’re not being churlish here. It is heartening to see so many here today, united in common voice - it reveals the workers can be mobilised around issues they feel are important. But from our experience - and we’ve had 100 years’ experience of observing campaigns and demonstrations and protests around every kind of reform and demand imaginable (we’re the oldest existing socialist organisation in Britain, having been formed in 1904) - we can confidently say that this demonstration is just one of hundreds over the years that address the symptoms, not the cause of the problem, and will make no significant difference to the established order, either here or in Iraq, or to the way politicians think. Four years ago, two million marched all over Britain; there were demos and vigils every night in opposition to the war. Over one-hundred Labour MPs voted against Blair’s war, and to top it all the push for war received no UN sanction, but still the troops were sent. So much for one of the biggest protest movements in labour history!

Consider this. Across the globe there are literally hundreds of thousands of campaigns and protest groups and many more charities, some small, some enormous, all pursuing tens of thousands of issues, and their work involves many millions of sincere workers who care passionately about their individual causes and give their free time to support them unquestioningly. Many will have campaigned on some single issue for years on end with no visible result; others will have celebrated minor victories and then joined another campaign groups, spurred on by that initial success.

And, considering the above, two things stand out: firstly, that many of the problems around us are rooted in the way our society is organised for production, and are problems we have been capable of solving for quite some time, though never within the confines of a profit-driven market system; secondly, that if all of these well meaning people had have directed all their energy—all those tens of billions of human labour hours expended on their myriad single issues—to the task of overthrowing the system that creates a great deal of the problems around us, then none of us would be here today. Instead we would have established a world without borders, without waste or want or war, in which we would all have free access to the benefits of civilisation with problem-solving devoid of the artificial constraints of the profit system.

If you are now confused forgive us if we come across blunt, but which part of “to end war we must end capitalism” do you not understand? Its simple! Every aspect of our lives is subordinated to the requirements of profit - from the moment you brush your teeth in the morning with the toothpaste you saw advertised on TV until you crawl into your bed at night. Pick up a newspaper and try locating any problem reported there outside of our “can’t pay—can’t have” system. Crime, the health service, poverty, drug abuse, hunger, disease, homelessness, unemployment, war, insecurity - the list is endless. All attract their campaign groups, all struggling to address these problems, and all of these problems arising because of the inefficient and archaic way we organise our world for production.

You’ve got it! We’re unlike any other group here today out to reform capitalism, who beg governments to be just a little less horrid, who ask our masters to throw us a few more crumbs from the bread we bake. We are not into the politics of compromise and we certainly are not prepared to be satisfied with crumbs. We demand the whole bakery!

We are here today to urge you to stop belittling yourself and your class by making the same age-old demands of the master class. Demand what until now has been considered “the impossible”! Join us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. Wouldn’t such a campaign movement not only address the real root of every campaign and protest currently being waged?

The choice is yours – the struggle for world socialism and an end to our real problems or a lifetime attached to the ‘pick-your-cause’ brigade and the certainty you will be retracing your footsteps here today in years to come.

A closer look at the BNP

Sent to the local Shields Gazette

In both the local and the national press of late, the BNP have come in for a hard time. In recent weeks their policies have rightly drawn the disgust of readers of the Gazette, whilst nationally the press has reported the hypocritical condemnation of the mainstream parties who have lost seat after council seat to the BNP. The grievances of "Joe Public" I can sympathise with. What I find nauseating is the moralistic pontificating from the Blair and Cameron camps.

Considering the views of the Labour and Conservative parties on asylum and the former’s part in so overtly upsetting the Islamic world in recent years, their concern for the apparent rising support for the BNP does seem a mite misplaced. Labour and the Tories may well abhor the policies of the BNP, but have been unsuccessful in confronting them where they have made significant political gains because to do so would mean acknowledging the shortcomings of a system they champion and which gives rise to the politics of race and hate.

If anything the BNP are the product of the total failure of all the reformist parties to make capitalism a fit society to live in. And this is not realy the fault of the mainstream parties, for they are controlled by the system and not vice versa, despite their claims and promises. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating rubbish of fascists and the quick fix they offer?

The hundreds of thousands of misinformed workers who fall for the BNP spiel at election are the products of the demoralising system we know as capitalism, deluded into thinking that neo-nazi solutions to social problems – which they have been led to believe are largely rooted in the colour of a person’s skin – would suddenly improve their miserable lives. In truth, a shortage of council housing and poorly maintained housing estates, low wages and pittance benefits are no more the fault of asylum seekers than, in fact, the mainstream parties who mistakenly believe capitalism can be run in the interests of the workers. At the end of the day the BNP simply put together a better package of lies and, just like the other reformist parties, promise voters little more than extra space at the trough of poverty - and tens of thousands, their minds numbed by the politics of reform fall for the scam.

Socialism - been tried?

Sent to the Shields Gazette, 8/02/07

Dear Sir,

The anonymous patriot (7th February) - so proud to stand up for what he believes in that he hides behind a veil of anonymity - regurgitates the hackneyed old argument against those advocating real socialism. He announces that socialism has been tried and failed and to hammer home his claim points the finger of proof to the former Soviet Union.

It seems that one of the pitfalls of being a socialist is to forever have the “its been tried and failed” argument brandished in your face as soon as you announce your political standpoint. The Gazette even helped with the slur by printing a photo of Lenin alongside the shy patriot’s anti-socialist diatribe.

Once again, I am neither a Leninist, a Trotskyist nor a Stalinist and I believe socialism has existed nowhere. I maintain, as ever, that the Soviet Union was state capitalist and that Lenin was simply an opportunistic distorter of Marx’s ideas, oblivious as to what socialism meant.

In The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat it (1917), Lenin wrote: “Socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people.”

A year later, in Left Wing Childishness… he wrote: “State capitalism would be a step forward…if in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our republic, this would be a great success.”

In state capitalist Russia, the role of the state was to act as the functionary of capital in the exploitation of wage labour. The bureaucratic elite who ran the state lived in comfort and privilege as a result of the exploitation of the working class.

The essential thing is not to point to individuals and say “look, there is the capitalist class”, but to be able to point to the exploitative social force of capital which, in Russia, was represented by the state machine.

And just for the record, the Bolsheviks never abolished the wages system or commodity production. The state controlled key industries and production took place when only viable to do so. Russia traded according the dictates of international capital and, like every other capitalist state, was prepared to go to war to defend its economic interests. Russia was no, more socialist than Hitler was a humanitarian.

Yours,

John B