socialist standard (est 1904)

  Journal of the Socialist Party a companion party of the World Socialist Movement
www.worldsocialism.org/spgb  100 years for socialism-> -> Standard Online->->Connecting with->-> socialists->-> worldwide       March 2005



LANCASTER BRANCH
Public Meeting. Monday March
14th Gregson Centre, Moor Lane,
Lancaster, 8pm.

Subject: How will a socialist society
deal with natural disasters?

Speaker: P. Shannon



Glasgow Discussion Group

Community Central Hall
304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow
Wednesday 16 March 8pm

WHAT NEXT FOR THE REFORMERS?

On how recent ideas such as the
environmentalists and the anti-globalisation
movement are likely to fare in the future.

MANCHESTER DAY SCHOOL

Saturday 23 April, 1-5 pm
Friends Meeting House,
 Mount Street,
Manchester (off Albert Square)

Theme: 'World Poverty'
More details next month

ADVANCE NOTICE
LONDON DAY SCHOOL
Saturday 9 April, 11am - 5pm
HUMAN NATURE AND HUMAN
SOCIETY

(full details next month)
Room 11, Friends House, 173 Euston Rd
(side entrance), NW1

SWANSEA BRANCH
Monday March 14. 7.30 pm.
Unitarian Church, High St, Swansea

Talk: 'GM Crops. Should they be used?'
Speaker: Brian Johnson



SWANSEA BRANCH
Monday April 11 7.30 pm.
Unitarian Church, High St,
Swansea (next to Argos).
Talk: Election activity. Is it
worth it?


 Party News



Election News
By the time you read this the general election campaign might be officially under way. As announced, the Socialist Party is standing a candidate in the Vauxhall constituency in South London.

Our Head Office, which is in the constituency, is serving as the campaign
rooms. If you want to help get the socialist message across against the Gang of Three
(Labour, Liberal, Tory: Same Old Futile Story) and their apprentices in the Green Party (and other would-be managers of capitalism such as RESPECT and VANITAS),
phone 0207 622 3811 or call in at 52 Clapham High St, SW4
(nearest tube: Clapham North).

If you are connected to the internet you can also follow the campaign on a daily basis by
visiting the site of our campaign blog "Vaux Populi"
 



EDINBURGH BRANCH
West Lothian Socialist Discussion Group

The Lanthorn,Kennilworth Rise Dedridge,
Livingston 7.45 till 9.30

2nd and 4th Wednesdays each month

Wednesday 9th March
The Economic Calculation Argument
Speaker Matt Culbert

Wednesday 23rd March
to be arranged
Admission free All welcome

Declaration of Principles


This declaration is the basis of our
organisation and, because it is
also an important historical
document dating from the
formation of the party in 1904, its
original language has been
retained.


Object
The establishment of a system
of society based upon the
common ownership and
democratic control of the
means and instruments for
producing and distributing
wealth by and in the interest of
the whole community.

Declaration of Principles

The Socialist Party of Great
Britain holds

1.That society as at present
constituted is based upon the
ownership of the means of living
(i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.)




by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

2.That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do notpossess.

3.That this antagonism can be
abolished only by the
emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the
common property of society of the means of production and
distribution, and their democratic
control by the whole people.

4.That as in the order of social
evolution the working class is the
last class to achieve its freedom,




the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

5.That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

6.That as the machinery of
government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken
from the workers,
 the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.




7.That as all political parties are but the expression of class
interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all sections of the the master class, the party seeking
working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

8.The Socialist Party of Great
Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged
labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system
which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

To Contents Here

To Socialist Party Here
Global poverty and the UN:Natural disasters
The UN wants to halve global poverty by  2016 and lift 500 million out of
misery.  It wouldn't even cost much.So will it happen?
Here

The Real Class Division
We’re supposed to be moving towards a more equitable society.
Well how come class division is worse than ever, asks Paul Bennett. Here

Meat, Money and Malnutrition

A Vegan society claims that meat is a cause of famine. So could vegetarianism
really help feed the world, or is it all more complicated?Here

Changing the System
If you have no freedom to change your life you may as well be in prison.
Workers in capitalism get more porridge than empowerment. Here


Brown Reorganises Poverty

£6.2 billion was returned to the Treasury in 2002-3 in unclaimed benefits.
 Does that mean claimants didn’t need the money? Here





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