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Edinburgh - Glasgow
Day School
Saturday 10 May,
1 to 5pm
Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill
Road, Glasgow
CAPITALISM IN THE 21st
Century
Why Capitalism Can’t Go
Green,
speaker Paul Bennet
(Manchester)
Another Century Of War?
speaker Gwynn Thomas
(South West London)
The Tyranny of Copyright,
speaker Tristan Miller
(Central London)
Each speaker will speak for 30 minutes.
The rest of the session will be devoted to
questions and discussion.
Free tea, coffee and light refreshments
will be available throughout the afternoon.
Admission free, all welcome.
View Leaflet.
Page
1 Page
2 Page
3 Page
4
Have
a look at page 1 and 4.
Have
a look at page 2 and 3.
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East Anglia
Saturday 24 May, 12 noon to 4pm
12 noon: informal chat/branch
business
2pm to 4pm: branch business/future
plans.
The Conservatory, backroom of the
Rosary Tavern, Rosary Road, Norwich
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Summer
School
Friday 18 July to Sunday 20 July
RELIGION
Our weekend of talks and discussion
will explore socialist views on religion
and its impact on society. How
does faith relate to other aspects of
capitalism, such as relations between
countries or between communities?
How does a religious outlook differ from
a socialist or humanist one?
The venue for Summer School
is Fircroft College, which offers
excellent facilities within easy reach of
Birmingham city centre.
Full attendance (including
accommodation and meals Friday
evening to Sunday afternoon) costs
£120 per person, or £60 to those on low incomes.
Send a £10 deposit (cheques
made payable to the Socialist Party
of Great Britain) to Summer School,
flat 2, 24 Tedstone Road, Quinton,
Birmingham, B32 2PD. Enquiries to
Mike at spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.
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South West Regional
Branch
Saturday 17 May, 2pm to 5pm
Village public house, 33 Wilton Road,
Salisbury (near Salisbury railway
station).
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Socialist Ramble
A ramble along the Green Chain
Walk in South-East London, approx 6
miles. Sunday 8 June, meet
Falconwood station 11 am.
This is open to members, supporters,
non-members, etc. - anyone interested
in finding out about socialism and the
Socialist Party in a relaxed informal setting.
We shall stop at a pub for lunch.
If you would like to know more about
the route in advance, contact Richard
Botterill on 01582-764929.
On the day, phone Vincent Otter’s
mobile 07905-791638.
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PARTY NEWS
The Socialist Party will be
contesting one seat in the elections to the
Greater London Assembly on Thursday 1 May, the same day as the election
for the mayor of London.
The seat is Lambeth & Southwark and our candidate will be
Danny Lambert.
This is the constituency in which our Head Office is situated.
Members and sympathisers who wish to help distribute our election
leaflets, please contact the,
Election Dept at 52 Clapham High St,
London SW4 7UN
or phone
0207 62 3811
or email spgb@worldsocialism.org.
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Picture Credits
cover: Eiffel Tower 1 - Joe Flood
© 2005 Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0. Volkswagen
- Nico Biraogo © 2006 Creative
Commons Attribution ShareAlike
2.0. Tank invasion - http://img.
radio.cz/pictures/historie/
1968srpen1.jpg. Camera - Paweł
Zdziarski.
p2: Pack of cards - Christian
Gidlöf.
p15: Hugo Chavez - Agência Brasil
© Creative Commons Attribute 2.5
David Cameron - Land of Hope
and Glory, 2006
p17: Trident missile - US DoD.
p18: Nagasaki victim - Shiotsuki
Masao, 1945.
p19: Camera - United States
Department of Homeland Security
p24: Rice - S McCouch © 2004
Creative Commons Attribution
2.0.Palm oil plantation - Marco
Schmidt © 2007 Creative
Commons Attribution 2.5. Palm Oil
- Whitebox, 2007.
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To busmen—and others
By the time this issue of the SOCIALIST
STANDARD is in print the Busmen and Railwaymen may have got the pay
increases they claimed, or they may be preparing for strike action. In
either event we wish them well, as we always do when workers take
realistic action to get something more out of their employers. We say
that the action should be realistic; it should be taken after due
consideration, by the workers concerned, of the chances of success, for
there are occasions when strike action has been a battle lost before it
was fought. There is, however, no reason to think that the situation
facing the busmen and railwaymen at the present time is such an
occasion. The controlling body of both sections of the nationalised
transport industry say they can't pay more and won't pay more, and that
strikes will only drive more people permanently away from using trains
and buses, but it looks, to an outside view, better to test the
situation now than to defer it, even though no doubt the growth of
unemployment in recent months has already made the situation rather less
favourable than it was. ( . . .)
As Socialists we have something more to say to our fellow workers who
make wage claims than merely to wish them well; we ask them to look
beyond strikes over wages, and by that we do not mean that we advise
them to look to Nationalisation or Labour Government to help them. The
Transport industry is already nationalised, without that change having
done anything for Busmen and Railwaymen. Remember, too, that the
Government policy of "wage restraint"—persuading you not to press
for higher wages when conditions are
more or less favourable—was in full force under the Attlee Labour
Government and will be continued by any future Labour government.
What we ask you to do, in your own interest, is to consider the case
for Socialism. If you do you will discover things that may surprise
you. You will find out how Socialism will spare you the necessity of
striking over wages, for Socialism involves the abolition of the wages
system in its entirety. It also involves the abolition of capitalism
with its continuing poverty, slumps and wars. Socialism should be your
concern as well as ours.
Executive Committee.
(Socialist Standard, May 1958)
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Declaration
of Principles
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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 not possess.
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 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 slaver to freedom. |
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