There have never been more misconceptions than there are today about what socialism is and who supposedly stands for it. To name but a few – the left-wing of the Labour Party, China, Cuba, North Korea, Corbyn/Sultana’s Your Party, the Greens led by Polanski, the small left-wing groups with ‘socialist’ in their names, Mamdami the mayor of New York, and so on and so forth.
One of the tasks of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to shake these mistaken ideas from people’s minds and place in front of them the vision of a moneyless, wageless society of common ownership, cooperative endeavour and free access to all goods and services which is what socialism started off as and still is.
Westminster watchers were glued to the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, and none more so than new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, after a Conference speech laying out his ‘vision’ of undoing 40 years of Thatcherite privatisation and ‘wrong turns’.
Will he call a snap general election to secure a popular mandate for this vision? The Tories are nowhere, the far-right divided and mired in scandal, and the Greens have arguably damaged their prospects by passing a resolution that Zionism is racist.
Thrilling stuff, if you like domestic soap operas. But capitalism will continue regardless, just as socialists continue working for its abolition. Because only then will anything really change.
A dark abyss of cruelty lies behind capitalism’s glitzy facade. Christa Pike spent 31 years on Death Row for murder while lawyers launched appeal after appeal. The trial jury were never told about Pike’s hideous childhood: ‘Pike was physically and sexually abused by several of her mother’s husbands and boyfriends, and raped several times, once when she was 11 and again aged 17. Later, it was discovered that she was repeatedly raped as a toddler by her grandmother’s boyfriend.’
Unmoved, Tennessee’s governor, and the Supreme Court, refused to stop the execution. But the lethal injections failed, leaving Pike with possible brain damage. Her endless punishment is just one story in a trail of broken lives left by a world obsessed with money, power and bloody revenge.
Nowadays, an accumulator (a single bet on, e.g, 5 horse races) has a cash-out option. If the first 2 nags win, a gambler with nagging doubts about the remaining selections can cancel the bet and take the current winnings. Rational, no?
Rational too is the capitalist with nagging doubts about future elections who cashes out some of the wealth gifted by the workers to bet on politicians who, if the electoral gamble comes off, will doubtless ‘work’ tirelessly to defend donors’ sectional interests. To do that, they will also have to act in the interests of the owning class generally by defending the biggest accumulator of them all – the profit system. (see also October’s editorial)
There will be a lot of noise about the Holborn and St. Pancras by election – Labour and the Greens competing over who can be trusted to handle the cost of living crisis. Neither, though, will address the root cause of the crisis, that society is run on behalf of those who own the land and factories.
Until these are brought into common ownership, there will be poverty and unemployment, as this is how the owners get us to work for them. Our aim is to get this message out through the noise. You can help punch through the noise by getting people to write World Socialism across their ballot paper.
Get in touch with us to find out other ways you can help
Balaclavaed men attended anti-migrant protests in Dover and Portsmouth claiming to be “patriots” taking back control from a “globalist, Marxist-communist, anti-Christian group that has ruled us for too long”.
Marxist-communists advocating global socialism and opposed to religious superstition would be an accurate description of our party, but to think we have somehow been in control shows confused thinking. Those in control of society are the capitalists, and governments are compelled to prioritise the needs of this asset-owning, profit-taking minority.
Our members are part of the working class majority. The only ‘power’ we have is to express our views and opinions. We condemn global capitalism (the cause of homelessness, poverty etc) while those on the far-right condemn those merely trying to escape from some of its consequences.
A recent study showed that nearly half of parents are struggling financially after having a baby.
In some cases this has even led to them watering down baby formula milk in order to save money. This can be really serious for an infant, as it may result in growth problems and developmental delays. Baby banks supply clothes, nappies and baby wipes to parents, but get few donations of baby milk.
This is what life can be like for some of the poorest workers under capitalism: essential items such as baby formula can barely be afforded. A society that results in this level of poverty needs to be replaced by one where meeting human need is the priority.
So Starmer is about to resign as an MP. This will allow him to follow the plan he set out after he resigned as PM, i.e.:
“I will now focus on other things and that will be international affairs including defence, security, trade and technology in a fast-changing world.”
A cynic might translate this as:
“I shall reap the dividend of eleven short years in parliament by selling the tiny remnants of my soul to defence corporations, multinationals, big tech, bankers and investors. A quick message to all of you who have worked 40 odd years to gain a pitiful pension to last you through your uncomfortable final years, it appears you joined the wrong pension scheme. So long suckers”
With record summer heatwaves and ‘weather whiplash’ events, global warming is fast becoming normalised. Now shocking video has emerged of unsurvivable flash floods in Nepal and Tibet, probably caused by a melting Himalayan glacier. Geologists have been warning about this for years, and there have been similar previous floods.
The death toll continues to rise as the water recedes. Rescue work is underway as local villagers scramble to help survivors, and aid workers pour in from elsewhere. But in the boardrooms of the world’s corporate powerhouses, eyes do not move from the bottom line figures. Nothing matters except profit, even while capitalism heats the planet and melts glaciers.
Until we abolish this inhumane system, these human tragedies will continue.
‘Mass delusion’ is among the many labels that have been attached to Donald Trump’s rule and the support for him by tens of millions of Americans. But what about the delusion that affects the vast majority of the world’s population? They believe it’s natural and inevitable that millions should suffer grinding poverty while the 56,000 wealthiest people on the planet own assets three times as large as those of the poorest half of humanity combined .
There’s nothing natural/inevitable about this at all. We can fix it but only if that majority comes together to set up a system of common ownership and voluntary cooperation with free access to the abundant goods and services the world could provide..
