Wee Matt Miscellany

"yir arse is oot the windae"

 

The Socialist Party is not a part of the "left."  We are opposed to measures which tinker with and attempt to reform capitalism. The left on the other hand have kept their agenda well hidden, if it has a discernable revolutionary current, it isn't obvious , indeed , even their active supporters appear afraid to engage with any discussion about what socialism *is*. However , it has been a " left " tactic in the past where they are hypocritically asking workers to vote for a parliamentary party to get reforms which you know you can't get, on a road which they don’t support , to socialism ,which is not defined except , that it is recognisable as another state capitalism . The Socialist Party is opposed to such trickery of workers. Simply, the "left" are not socialists and to argue it is then "yir arse is oot the windae", as we say.  Even limited equality cannot be achieved, while retaining the profit motive - It is economically impossible.

 The Socialist on the other hand are quite explicit that socialism is, "the common ownership and democratic control of all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and on behalf of the whole population ". In other word a free access society. We stand for the original idea of socialism. Untrammelled by statist failures, indeed we predicted all of these failures. The "left" appear to want to administer capitalism. Far from splitting the " left ", we despise the "left " for its political cowardice, (being unable or unwilling to describe socialism to workers and nail their true colours to the socialist mast), of opportunism, (interference in workers struggles and grass roots movements to subvert them to their cause), and for its pretensions, (of assuming to know what socialism is, and presenting itself as a leadership towards it.)

The Socialist Party urges workers to "Abolish the wages system ". We insist that socialism as defined above is an immediate and practical possibility, requiring only a majority of workers who know what it is, who desire it and are willing to organise as equals, without a vanguard of political leaders forming an elite and a cadre of misinformed workers, as their expendable cannon fodder and irrelevant pawns , (our job is to inform , relay , and assist in this ) unlike the Leninist - Trotskyist , and former CP-er Stalinist Left , we don’t , as Lenin said , regard workers, "left to their own devices as being only capable of achieving trade union consciousness."

What exactly is the purpose of the SPGB standing in elections? To put the case for socialism, as no others do this, made by workers seizing control of their own destiny and working for socialism, without the leadership of vanguardist organisations or any other leadership. The Socialist Party does not look for support or supporters, rather we insist that on the contrary workers learn what socialism is, and join us as equals to bring it about. We don’t wish to lead them. They will not need leadership if they make themselves socialist. We don’t lie to workers by pretending, that by voting for reforms, or any other measure they are supporting socialism. We do not intervene in workers struggles, except as workers in struggle. We are stand against *all* the capitalist parties , this inevitably includes the “left” parties as they support a reformed capitalism with them as the new bosses, retaining wage labour capital, government control, and their platforms reflect this. The left ARE the forces of capitalism. Simply put, we are the only revolutionary alternative to capitalism. It is by insisting that left-wing reforms can ameliorate the conditions of workers , and that this equates to a "socialist " response , and who so mistrust the workers, that they can't describe the socialist alternative to them, are indeed the real reactionary element, leaving workers confusedly equating socialism with these tired and out-moded tried and failed remedies of the last century. (The Labour Party, The Communist Party, Social Democrat Parties of all stripes).

The Socialist Party has an honourable record since 1904 of never selling socialism short, and insisting it is an immediate and practical goal, requiring no other minimum demand, now that the vote has been won, that it can only be brought into existence by the workers themselves, comprising a majority, who know and understand what socialism is, a free access global society, without nation states. We don’t pander to nationalist sentiments, following slavishly Lenin's silly "Imperialism as the Highest Form of Capitalism" dogma. Our demand is the world for the workers and not for some new state-capitalist entity, or permissible level of wage slavery. In fact, many left-wing platforms to-day are even less radical than the Old Labour ones, where mistakenly they thought they were ushering in a new era, and piously mouthed phrases such as "we are the masters now " and "socialism will come like a thief in the night".

Wee Matt

A Bit of Light Relief

This little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?"

Dad says,"Well son, let me try to explain it this way. I'm the bread-winner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Your mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you Human Needs. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is about."

The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, Human Needs are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit."

Capitalism cannot be reformed

We are offended by applying the description of 'socialism' to any of the Trotskyite parties, or even to the Labour Party. The Labour party has never been a socialist party.

“The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it – a bit like Christians in the Church of England.” (Tony Benn)

It is grossly unjust also to smear people who have joined the Labour Party in this way, some of them might be, a small minority, not significant in respect of numbers and those will be practising 'entry-ism' but can easily be expelled later.

Supporting either the top-down machinations of Leninist control freaks who would only establish a state-capitalist dictatorship over the workers ,or the 'business friendly Labour party, or any parties of the left, right, centre of capitalism, who would govern over the workers, is a deluded choice. Leftist, rightist, centrist, are all manifestations of types of capitalism and that the term 'leftist' is devoid of any particular significance.

Capitalism cannot be reformed despite the well-meaning intentions of decent people in any of those political parties and has to be replaced by a new system of; production for use; democratic delegation, free access; and common ownership of all the means and instruments for creating and distributing wealth run by ourselves. Socialism is a post-capitalist society which will need to be established by the workers of the world, by themselves and for themselves.

Labour's infamous Clause 4 reflected their confused understanding of what socialism is, entails and constitutes. First, it equates common ownership with state ownership. i.e. Nationalisation. State intervention is not socialism. The state exists to help manage the affairs of the ruling class and may indeed intervene in their general interests, nationalising, welfare, to keep the workers fit for future exploitation etc. Secondly it calls for the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. (our emphasis.) But a real commonly owned society would not require a means of rationing access to commonly owned wealth. It is a free access society.

No, the emancipation of the working class is freedom from waged slavery, common ownership of all the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, production for use, utilising technological and informational infrastructure to provide self-regulation stock control systems and free access for all within a delegatory democratic administration over resources and not people by the people themselves and not a government.

We have a world to make and win and the organising societal ethos which will percolate through this, which proceeds from the organising tenet, "From each according to their ability to each according to their needs" will provide the social framework which will shape human behaviour, self-determinedly.

Capitalism cannot be reformed. However, well-intentioned politicians may be it is not in their gift to bestow upon us more “humble mortals”.

"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.’ (1879 Marx and Engels)

It is a post-capitalist society and damn all to do with nationalisation or the state-capitalism imposed by the feudal conditions of Russian experience or the state management over people and resources envisaged by the Labour Party.

The whole point of capitalism is to keep a relatively impoverished class of workers toiling away to produce an immense accumulated source of wealth for the parasite capitalist class and banks are just a money changing part of this.

"If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." (Marx)

 

Dissolve the governments and politicians, elect yourselves into building a socialist world.