Party News (2012)

Party News from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party stood two candidates in the election to the Greater London Assembly on 3 May. Here are the results:

Lambeth and Southwark: Labour, 83,239; Conservative, 30,537; Liberal Democrat, 18,359; Green Party, 18,144; UKIP, 4,395; Socialist (Danny Lambert), 2,938 (1.9%).

Merton and Wandsworth: Conservative, 65,197; Labour, 55,216; Liberal Democrat, 11,904; Green Party, 11,307; UKIP, 3,717; Independent, 2,424; Socialist (Bill Martin), 1,343 (0.9%).

The on-line London magazine, the Big Smoke, did a video interview with our candidate in Lambeth and Southwark which can be seen here: http://www.bigsmoke.org.uk/?p=77382

Readers may be interested to note that the party virtually doubled its percentage vote in Lambeth and

Southwark compared to four years ago when we last stood there.

Party News (2012)

Party News from the August 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer School
Thirty-five attended the annual Socialist Party Summer School in Birmingham over the weekend of 6-8 July. The theme of the school was Protest. Janet Surman opened with a talk on the Arab Spring as seen from her ring-side seat in nearby Turkey. She observed that, despite employing some violence, the dictatorships in

Egypt and Tunisia had not been able to maintain themselves in the face of mass and essentially peaceful popular opposition.

Mike Foster described the increased, and increasing, powers that the police in this country have been given in recent years to deal with demonstrations including infiltrating protest groups. A discussion arose out of his description of last year’s riots as “mindless”. Some challenged this on the grounds that, whereas the riots certainly had no theoretical content or political programme, they were nevertheless a practical criticism of present-day society.

A similar theme came up in the discussion after Ian Barker, of Occupy Norwich, had described what happened there. Occupy, he said, had deliberately avoided making specific policy proposals; in Norwich they had merely drawn up a list of agreed general principles which an alternative society should embody. In his talk, Stair, from our East Anglia branch, said that the list though largely unobjectionable was far too vague, but at least a space for discussions had been provided; these were continuing at regular meetings at an indoor venue to which branch members were contributing.

Bill Martin spoke on the crowd scenes in Shakespeare’s Corialanus. Although Shakespeare’s depiction of the crowd as a fickle mob reflected the views of the propertied classes of the time, he had been obliged to put the opposing view if only to knock it down. Shakespeare owned land in Warwickshire and so must have been aware of the protests there in his day against enclosure of common land with crowds levelling the fences and digging the land.

In his talk Glenn Morris argued that, while protests against the pollution of the land, sea and air were justified, they would not get very far if they assumed that a solution could be found within the profit-driven capitalist system.


Meeting with Zeitgeist
On 22 July 40 people attended a meeting in Hammersmith, London, between the Socialist Party, as part of the World Socialist Movement, and the Zeitgeist Movement.

There was agreement that the only framework within which the main problems facing humanity could be solved was one where the resources of the Earth had become the common heritage of all and so wealth could be produced and distributed without the need for money.

We call it “world socialism”. ZM call it a “resource-based economy”. In the first session, on what was wrong with the present economic system, both speakers agreed that it had a built-in tendency to uncontrolled “growth” which was having a detrimental effect on the environment. Dick Field, for the Party, explained this tendency as being due to the competitive struggle for profits between capitalist firms leading to the accumulation of more and more capital out of the profits they extracted from the workforce. Franceso, for ZM, argued that it was due to the need to pay interest to banks on money they had created, the money to pay which could only be found by borrowing more from the banks; so we were debt-slaves. Although ZM did not advocate monetary reform to mitigate this, he personally was in favour of it as a transitional measure towards a money-free society.

In the discussion Party members challenged the view that banks had the power to create money out of thin air. In the second session, on how to get from here to there, Adam Buick, for the Party, said that a gradual evolution was not possible; there had to be a decisive and more or less rapid break with capitalism, to be brought about by the political action of the majority in society acting in their own  interest. Steve Duffield, for ZM, said that ZM saw its role as to inform people of the situation, confident that they would see what the solution was. ZM was not a political party and did not  advocate reformism or electoral action. People could begin to change things now by changing their lifestyle to rely less on money and consumerism.

In the discussion, ZM members challenged the view that the new society could be voted in. Party members replied that what was important was to have a majority in favour and that it would be foolish to try to change society while leaving political power in the hands of the minority who benefited from capitalism. The vote was merely a tool to use to win political control.

Summer School 2019 (2019)

Party News from the July 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our political views are shaped by the circumstances we find ourselves in and how we relate to our situation. How does a socialist understanding of capitalism and the aim for a free and equal world compare with other political stances and belief systems? Why should we have a socialist viewpoint? And how does it impact on our lives? Our weekend of talks and discussion looks at what it means to have a socialist outlook in the 21st century.

Fircroft College How to Find Us

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.

E-mail enquiries should be sent to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk. Book a place online, or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN.

Friday 2nd August

From 17.00: Arrival

18.30 – 19.00: Dinner

19.45—21.30

Be Realistic: Demand The Inevitable

– Edmund Griffiths

This talk will look at the notions of the impossible and the inevitable in a range of belief systems, including (but not limited to) socialism and other political belief systems. Why are people attracted to ideas that seem to be either impossible or inevitable? Or put off by them? What does it mean to campaign for something that might be impossible, or inevitable? What happens when assessments of impossibility or inevitability change? How do people believe that an impossible thing is true anyway? Or that an inevitable thing may never happen?

Besides socialism, the talk will hopefully address impossibility and inevitability in contexts such as liberalism, capitalism, flat earth, the end of the world, extraterrestrial life, Scottish independence etc.

Saturday 3rd August

7.30 – 8.45: Breakfast

10.00 – 12.00:

Living In Capitalism As A Socialist

– Janet Surman

Profit is the backbone of capitalism and profit is made from a plethora of resources, the greatest and most easily attainable of which is the global human resource, to be found in any village, town or city anywhere on the planet. The capitalist system is well known for waste as a necessary part of maximising profit and there is no greater waste than that of the human potential trapped in non-productive, non-useful work.

This session will take a look at the human misery attached to jobs, to work that many don’t really want to do but have to do to survive and will also look at the opposite position when human potential can be fulfilled to the satisfaction, and pleasure even, of billions of individual human beings.

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.” Oscar Wilde

12.30 – 13.15: Lunch

13.45 – 15.45:

Team Human’: Can You Live A ‘Socialist’ Life In Capitalism?

– Howard Moss

Someone recently wrote a book called ‘Team Human’ which emphasised that humans are social creatures who are most happy and fulfilled when working together for common goals. But how do we stay human in the vast antihuman infrastructure that is capitalism which constantly undermines our capacity to work together and connect with one another?

Despite the powerful forces that set us against one another (employment, nationalism, monetary gain), people are at their happiest when associating together in, for example, clubs, societies, family groups and social and political activities, which involve working with and helping other human beings. Socialists do this too. They belong to local clubs, community groups and trade unions. But how do they – or should they – react to being asked to go further and be associated with campaigns which involve, say, lobbying governments to improve conditions in particular areas, signing petitions calling on political parties to support certain changes in the law, or being members of or giving money to charities which seek to remedy deficiencies in social provision (e.g. housing, health care) or to save people from the consequences of sudden disasters, natural or man-made?

The Socialist view is that time spent in attempts to reform capitalism is time wasted. But on a human, day-to-day level, Socialists often find it difficult just to stand by and do nothing. So how do we cope with the constant dilemmas thrown up by wanting to spend our time helping to create a truly associative social system, yet constantly being called upon to help patch up the contrary arrangements fundamental to capitalism?

18.30 – 19.00: Dinner

19.15—20.45:

Socialists Synonymous – An Evening Of Personal Stories

– Carla Dee

As socialists, we see and understand the world in a very particular way and what is once seen cannot be unseen. How did we get here, and how has this affected our lives, our families and friends? Has being a socialist been a source of frustration, confrontation and disappointment or has the party case been an enlightenment and given us a sense of clarity and sanity? Or all of these things? Sometimes, thinking the way we do can be a lonely business.

Members and sympathisers get together to share our stories.

Sunday 4th August

7.30 – 8.45: Breakfast

10.00 – 12.00:

 ‘Ye Olde Worlde Revolution’

– Bill Martin‘

In 1264 the Baron’s war (which historian Adrian Jobson characterises as the First English Revolution) saw a wide-scale attempt to inhibit the power of the monarchy. It was a revolt in which the burghers (bourgeoisie) of London played a significant role. This struggle saw the birth of the English Parliament, but it would be a further 400 years until the final constitutional curbing of the power of royalty lead to the social dominance of the capitalist class in England.

This talk will look at the life and activity of the bourgeois revolutionary Thomas Fitzthomas, who led that primitive revolt against the English monarchy. It will look at how the bourgeoisie developed as a revolutionary class, and how they struggled within a still vigorous feudal system. It will address how the knowledge of the capitalist revolution arms the imagination of the socialists of today, but also haunts the ideas many have of revolution. It will look at the role of ideas and self-image in the making of a revolutionary class, and the role of ongoing class struggle in the cause of revolution.

12.30 – 13.15: Lunch

13.30: Close

People are welcome to just attend the talks, but need to book a visitor place in advance by emailing spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk; there is a charge for any meals.

Islington By-Election: Vote for yourself for a change? (2013)

Party News from the March 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

• Why, when the resources exist to provide a decent standard of living for everyone, are we going through “austerity”?
• It’s because the present system is not geared to meeting our needs but to making profits for businesses and the rich people who own and control them. At the moment this capitalist system is in an economic crisis where profits have fallen The only way out for the system is to restore profits at our expense.
• That’s why what our wages can buy has shrunk. It’s why benefits are being slashed. And it’s why Islington council has been cutting local services.
• It’s not just Islington. It’s councils everywhere, whichever party is in control. Councils get most of their money from the government, but market forces have obliged the government to reduce this. National and local politicians are just running the system in the only way it can be – as a profit system where priority has to be given to profit-making over meeting our needs.
•  It’s the system that’s to blame, not those elected to run it. That’s why changing the politicians in charge makes no difference. As the saying goes, “changing governments changes nothing”. It will be like this as long as the profit system lasts. So there is no point in voting for parties that accept this system.
• The alternative is to change to a new system based on satisfying our needs, where the places where wealth is produced will no longer be owned by profit-seeking businesses but will be owned and democratically controlled by us all. That’s what the Socialist Party stands for. We are contesting this  by-election to raise this issue, and to give those of you who agree a chance to be counted.
• You can do this by voting for the Socialist candidate, BILL MARTIN. And then get in touch to help bring an end to the system that can never be made to work in your interest.

Write to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN.

Tel: 0207 622 3811 Email: spgb@worldsocialism.org

Election Blog: http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk

Islington By-Election, Junction Ward, 21 March 2013

Letters: Clique of Political Gangsters (1997)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clique of Political Gangsters
Dear Editors,

Writing in the February Socialist Standard ("Militant Dishonesty”), Adam Buick comments: "Imagine what a Trotskyist dictatorship would be like; not too different from a Stalinist one. we would suppose." Very true.

Leon Trotsky was every bit as ruthless as Joseph Stalin. His only problem was that he lost out to Stalin in the inevitable power-struggle following the Bolshevik coup d'état in Russia, in 1917, and was expelled from the country, and ultimately killed in Mexico City by one of Stalin's henchmen.

It should not be forgotten, however, that Trotsky supported the dissolution of the democratically-elected Constituent Assembly on January 6, 1918, because the Bolsheviks were in a minority; that Trotsky, together with Lenin, argued that the trade unions should be subordinated to the government; and. following Trotsky’s appointment as Commissar of Military Affairs, he established the death penalty for disobedience under fire into the Red Army, and restored the saluting of officers, of whom many were former Czarist officers, and other privileges for senior officers. In December 1919 Trotsky submitted his proposal for the "militarisation of Labour"; and on December 27, the Soviet government, with Lenin’s approval, set up their Commission on Labour Duty, with Trotsky. as Commissar for War, as its President. Trotsky stressed that coercion, regimentation and militarisation of labour were not mere emergency measures; but that the Soviet state had the right to coerce any citizen to perform any work, at any time of its choosing. Just as Stalin did, with his forced labour camps, ten years later. In February 1921 strikes broke out in Petrograd and Moscow, after the government had announced that the very meagre bread ration was to be cut by a third. In the Kronstadt naval base, the sailors rebelled; and, on March 5, Trotsky issued an ultimatum, demanding the immediate and unconditional capitulation of the sailors, saying “only those who surrender unconditionally may count on the mercy of the Soviet Republic".

And so on . . .

Had Trotsky won and Stalin lost in their struggle for power, the outcome in the Soviet Union would most certainly have been the same: the emergence of a state-capitalist dictatorship (Lenin admitted that Russia had become a state-capitalist dictatorship even before he died in 1924). ruled by a privileged and parasitic minority of bureaucrats and apparatchiks. Even limited bourgeois democracy was anathema to Leon Trotsky.

And this is the man that the Militant Tendency, now masquerading as the Socialist Party, eulogise. Socialists must confront them, demand to speak in opposition at their meetings (as socialists allow opponents at theirs), and expose them for what they are—an anti-socialist clique of political gangsters. There is no alternative.

Leading members of "Militant/Militant Labour" might well argue that they were unaware of the existence of the Socialist Party. However, Peter Taaffe. editor of Militant since 1964. and now general secretary of their party, has mentioned us, as "Socialist Party" (without the "the") in writing, in his long and turgid tome. The Rise of Militant (Militant publications, London, 1995. Chapter 54. p.544). "Euro-Elections": "Militant Labour and Scottish Militant Labour decided to nominate Tommy Sheridan as a candidate for the European elections in Glasgow . . . He beat the Tories, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialist Party, Natural Law Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain” (emphasis mine).

So, there we are.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, 

Essex

What’s in a name?
Dear Editors,

The news that the Trotskyite wing of the Labour Party is to call itself "The Socialist Party" has rightly caused consternation among true Socialists. But then, so many other bodies have adopted similar tactics this century. Even the New Labour Party, under Tony Blair, has many members chaffing at losing their "Socialist” identity.

The trouble is that nowhere in the world is that word “Socialism” recognised in its true meaning, apart from by an insignificant few, who ruffle no political surface anywhere . . . after ninety-two years of intensive propaganda.

The word "Socialism" in its true meaning has always failed to communicate itself, simply causing greater confusion.

Why not shut the door on this useless piece of baggage and let your objectives be your title? For example: “The One World Moneyless Society Party"?

In one stroke confusion is ended. Only true Socialists can follow you down that path. That word is made redundant. It has never served its purpose and has no future.

Sam Levitt

London, NW3

Reply:
We don't agree. While it is true that the word "Socialism" has become distorted this century to mean state capitalism even for most of those who consider themselves socialists, the word still does convey, better than for instance "moneyless society" which suggests a mere economic change, what we stand for: a society where productive resources are commonly, i.e. socially, owned and where people cooperate. i.e. act socially, to produce what is needed. After all, we say that humans are social animals, and what better name for a society where humans can develop their social potential to the full than "socialism".

Editors

Marxian purity?

Dear Editors,

I’ve been generally looking sympathetically at the website of your Canadian counterparts for a few months now, and have finally decided to write to you with some general enquiries vis your organization: some statistical and some theoretical, since what is said in the web-site intrigues me. If I may then, I have some questions to ask:

What are your general political activities? If you’ll forgive me, from the tone of the website you seem to adopt an approach of revolutionary predeterminacy (it will come when it comes) and of Marxian purity, gained at the expense of activity. It sounds like your general support for the abolition of property is your only goal, and that you do not work to oppose (by actions) capitalism as it stands but defer all action to the time of the "inevitable revolution". This rather strikes me as a theoretical purity gained by a loss of effectiveness.

Something that has happened to myself, when arguing for socialism and against vanguardism. is that I have been presented with two arguments: 

1. That how will it be possible to bring the proletariat round to a revolutionary consciousness without a minority vanguard (and further what use then is such a party as yours?).
2. That a world-wide revolution is not possible both because of the impossibility of the world-wide proletariat rebelling simultaneously, and further that the capitalist imperialist system has damaged the development of many countries, thus preventing them from having the infrastructure necessary to progress to communism. And I wonder how your party can answer these arguments, because my usual response is to bluff my way out of them, as I can't see a real answer (particularly vis the awakening of revolutionary consciousness of the people).

I would be grateful if you could help my curiosity—thank you.

Bill Martin

Lancashire

Reply:

Our general political activities consist in propagating the idea of socialism. This involves publishing leaflets, pamphlets and a monthly magazine, holding meetings, debating with other groups, contesting elections, all with the aim, at the moment, of spreading a knowledge of what socialism is and of inciting a desire for it. Later, when a majority have come to want socialism, the aim will be to dislodge from power, through democratic political action, the supporters of class privilege and the profit system.

We certainly do not believe in "predeterminacy": that all we have to do is sit around and wait for socialism to come. Capitalism certainly paves the way for socialism, but people make history and it is people who will have to make the transformation from capitalism to socialism. What socialists can— and must—do is accelerate this.

In one sense we who are already socialists are a "vanguard": we have become socialists before the rest. We are certainly a minority. But the question is: how should that minority act? Lenin’s answer (echoed today by the myriad Leninist. Trotskyist. Maoist, etc. groups throughout the world) was that it should seek to lead the workers; this was reinforced by his (mistaken) assumption that the mass of workers were not in fact capable of understanding socialism anyway and was accompanied by advocacy of a rigidly centralised and top-down form of organisation. This is what "vanguardism" generally means and what we mean by it when we denounce it.

The answer we give as to what a socialist minority should do is that socialists should seek to “agitate, educate and organise" workers for socialism. This is based on the assumption that not only can workers understand socialism but that a majority of them must before socialism can be established. It follows from this that seeking to be a leadership cannot advance the cause of socialism, only the spread of socialist knowledge can. It also follows that Socialists should organise themselves, not as an elite general staff, but as an open democratic party, so prefiguring the mass socialist party they expect to emerge and indeed so prefiguring the inevitably democratic nature of a socialist society.

Is the idea of a world-wide revolution realistic? Why not? After all, capitalism is already a world-wide system, in fact it is now more than ever a single world system. Even theorists of capitalism are beginning to recognise this with their talk of "globalisation". They are right. What it means is that if global capitalism is to be replaced it can only be replaced globally, by another global system, world socialism.

It is up to those who think it unlikely that when the idea of (world) socialism catches on it will do so more or less evenly in all parts of the world to explain why they think it will catch on first in some countries before others (and in which). To us, the more realistic supposition is that of an even growth, because conditions are essentially the same everywhere and because socialism is the idea of a world society (and also, of course, because the international socialist movement will be consciously working to try to ensure an even development of socialist ideas).

Capitalist-imperialist development has certainly held back the development of many parts of the world, but remember socialism is not something that is (or could be) established separately in different countries one by one; it is a world system. Like capitalism. When we socialists say that the resources of the world are (more than) sufficient to eliminate world hunger and poverty and provide a decent life for the whole world's population we are talking about productive resources on a world scale.

Editors

General Election 2017 (2017)

Party News from the June 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

News and information on the coming election Thursday 8th June

Standing in Swansea West

BREXIT: DOES IT MATTER?

Will BREXIT – whether hard or soft – do anything to solve the problems people in this country are suffering from - job insecurity, inequality, poverty, crime, poor healthcare?

The answer has to be ‘no’. And the reason is that these problems don’t come from particular constitutional arrangements. They come from the way society is organised – production for profit and ownership of the vast majority of the wealth by a tiny minority of people: the global system of capitalism.

The other parties

This is the system all other political parties exist to administer. They have different ideas on how that system can best be maintained, but all agree it must be retained.

Many of their supporters have good intentions but are unaware that, in campaigning for these, they are helping to maintain this built-in system of minority privilege. So, however different Corbyn’s policies may seem from May’s, they offer no alternative to the present way of running society.

No matter how well-meaning politicians may be they can’t control that system – it controls them. The best any government can do is try to ride its storms.

So what's the alternative?

We propose an alternative to the society based on ownership of capital and market forces that currently exists in the UK, Europe and worldwide. This alternative is a society of common ownership that we call socialism.

Not ‘socialism’ as you may understand it. Not the type of dictatorship that collapsed in Russia and elsewhere – which were forms of state capitalism in fact. Not any of the schemes for state control advocated by some in the Labour Party.

For us socialism means something completely different and something much better. We are talking about:

•           a world community without states or frontiers based on participatory democracy

•           a society without buying and selling where everyone has access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money

•           a society where people use the earth’s abundant resources rationally and sustainably, and contribute their knowledge, skills and experience freely to produce what is needed

To sum up:

•           If you don't like present-day society – with or without Brexit.

•           If you’re fed up with the way so many people are forced to live – hanging on for dear life to a job that gives little satisfaction and doing it just for the money

•           If you are sick of seeing grinding poverty alongside obscene wealth

•           If you are sick of the Earth being abused by corporations who don’t care about the future or the environment

•           If you think the root cause of most problems is the market system and the governments that maintain that system

. . . then you’re thinking like we are.

What can you do?

The new society is one without leaders just as it is one without owners and wage-slaves. It is a wholly democratic society, one which can only be achieved when you – and enough like-minded people - join together to bring it about peacefully and democratically.

If you agree with this, you will want to cast your vote for our candidate. In voting for Brian Johnson, the Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate, you will be voting for the socialism you – and we – stand for.

– Election manifesto of our candidate in Swansea West

************************************************************

Standing in London too

The Socialist Party is also standing in London, in Battersea and in Islington North. The candidates are Danny Lambert and Bill Martin.

Islington North, where we also stood in 2015, is Jeremy Corbyn's constituency. At that time he was just an ordinary leftwing Labour MP. In the meantime he has become the Leader of the Labour Party. This hasn't changed our attitude towards him or the Labour Party. We have always been opposed to the Labour Party and have never seen it as a vehicle for socialism.

Battersea is the next door constituency to Vauxhall which we normally contest. It is not far from our  Head Office in Clapham High Street which are being used as our election rooms.

Copies of the manifesto in London can be obtained by a sending a stamped addressed envelope to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Also available are “I'm Voting for World Socialism” stickers.

Offers of help, phone 0207 622 3811 or email spgb@worldsocialism.org

Party News (2016)

From the June 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party stood 3 candidates in the Greater London Assembly and 1 candidate in the Welsh Assembly elections on 5 May. Here are the results:

Lambeth and Southwark: Lab 96,946 (51.63%), Con 34,703 (18.48), Green  25,793 (13.74), LibDem 21,489 (11.4), UKIP 6,591 (3.51), Kevin Parkin (Soc) 1,333 (0.71), All Peoples Party 906 (0.48).

London North East: Lab 134,307 (58.7%), Con 32,565 (14.23),  Green 29,401 (12.85), LibDem 14,312 (6.26), UKIP 11,315 (4.95), Respect 5,068 (2.22), Bill Martin (Soc) 1,293 (0.57), Communist League 536 (0.23).

London South West:  Con 84,381 (39.47%),  Lab 62,937 (29.4), LibDem 30,654 (14.34), Green 19,745 (9.24), UKIP 14,983 (7.01), Adam Buick (Soc) 1,065 (0.50).

Swansea West: Lab 9,014 (40.6%) Con  3,934 (17.7%), Plaid Cymru 3,325 (14.5), UKIP 3,058 (13.8), LibDem 2,012 (9.1), Green 883 (4.0), Brian Johnson (Soc) 76 (0.3)

Election Leaflet: Stop Voting to Keep Capitalism Going (2016)

From the April 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is contesting 3 of the 14 constituencies in the Greater London Assembly elections on 5 May. Here is our election leaflet.

Socialism isn’t about paying benefits, taxing the rich or nationalising industries.

It is wanting us all to be free and equals running things for our own benefit.

Democracy should mean all have an equal say in running things. But today we don’t all benefit equally. We are running society on behalf of the people who own it.

In our workplaces, we co-operate and produce wealth together. Everyone's work is equally needed. But we don't benefit equally. The people who really benefit, are those who own the world.

We cannot be free while we work for them and not ourselves.

Real freedom comes from power. Today real power comes from owning wealth. So long as a minority own the wealth, they will have the power and the freedom, we won’t.

The glorified talking shop of the Greater London Assembly is just about managing the costs of keeping inequality going. The SOCIALIST PARTY wants wealth and power owned and controlled by everyone.

We are seeking a stop to electing people who redistribute poverty and run the world for the rich.

When a majority of us stand firm and demand that the wealth of the world is brought into common and democratic ownership we will be able to peacefully make the change.

When that happens, we will be freed from bosses, loan sharks and landlords.  We will be able to produce wealth to supply the needs for all.

We will be able to work less because we won’t be wasting our time protecting the privilege of a few. We would no longer need money, buying or selling.  We could share the wealth we make among ourselves rationally.

To start to make that change, vote for the SOCIALIST PARTY candidate to let people know, and then come join us.  The more people who do that, the sooner we can change the world.

The SOCIALIST PARTY candidates are:

Lambeth & Southwark: Kevin PARKIN

North East (Islington, Hackney, Waltham Forest): Bill MARTIN

South West (Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond): Adam BUICK

The campaigns are being conducted by locally by the branches. Offers to help out with leafleting and street stalls should go, respectively, to Head Office, North London and West London branches (see page 8 for contact details).

Why socialism is still relevant (2004)

From the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Little, it seems, has changed in the one hundred years of our party’s existence. At the time of its foundation our members were duelling in the letters pages of the left-press, against the advocates of indirectness, palliation and reform of capitalism; insisting instead that “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line”. This simple point, it seems, has yet to be grasped by the Left.

Where we have a controversial war in Iraq to contend with, they had a controversial war in South Africa. Where they had the main Marxian sect – from which they actually split off – the Social Democratic Federation, doing dirty deals with Tories to help defeat Liberals, we have the Socialist Workers Party doing dirty deals with religious confusionists to try and take votes off Labour. Where the jingo press of 1904 wailed and trembled about floods of immigrants from eastern Europe, today’s wails and trembles about floods of immigrants from Eastern Europe.

This is not because there is nothing new under the sun, but because the essence of our social system has not changed. Despite the spread of telecommunications, electricity, internal combustion engines, synthetic fibres and sundry consumer goods, the basic logic of our social system remains the same.

We remain trapped in a world organised into units of property called nation-states; a system that prompts periodic wars over who has – or can deny – ownership of natural resources and trade routes. Within those nation-states, the owners command the forced labour of the populations, who are compelled into wage slavery under threat of poverty. They hand their ability to work over to these national proprietors to be used to produce a profit. Having thus sold their abilities, they then have to use the wages they receive to obtain the goods they need to go on living and selling their skills.

In order to keep hold of their property against an overwhelming majority and their rival owners, the master class sows all the while division and fear of strangers among their workers, via their ownership of the means of mass communication, that jingo press.

No profit, no production

Then, as now, the three hard and fast laws of capitalism obtained: can’t pay, can’t have – irrespective of how dire is your need. No profit, no production – no matter how useful the goods are. No profit, no employment – no matter how skilled or devoted you are.  Demonstrate a profit or you’re out.  Then, as now, the first principle of society is that the tiny handful of parasites who own it must be satisfied above all else; making us dance like marionettes on strings of property law, financial chicanery and effective demand. The predominant activity in the modern world is producing goods for sale in order to realise a profit. In short, the cause of our Party’s formation, capitalism, continues.

Not just continues, but grows. In Britain today, there are some 28 million people engaged in wage slavery, working an average of over 40 hours a week – a record. It’s no wonder then, when we spend all that time working for our masters, that we have such little time to look after ourselves. This, not ‘Tory cuts’ or ‘Labour incompetence’ is the source of the intractable problems of useful services. It is that our society is not run for us but for its owners.

It is portrayed as a triumph of the Labour government that more people than ever before are exploited in wage slavery. The entirety of the Labourites’ ideas extends to trying to make capitalism work. If the state, they say, can remove impediments to the market, we can make the market work for all. This has been the mantra of Labour from its very inception: if the right people can get into powerful positions, the interests of the workers will be looked after, and all will be well. New Labour is not some aberration, a betrayal of the old glorious cause; Labour is about trying to make capitalism work under new management.

Our Party was formed to oppose the Labour Party

We do not want more jobs, more employment, more prostitution of our lives’ energies to the gain of the profit takers. We do not want a society where we are told we live in a democracy, and yet all our security and future happiness depends on the tides of money-owners’ whims. Where we are told we live in a democracy, yet spend the best years of our lives obeying dictator bosses lest we be sacked. Where we are told we live in a democracy, yet all we can do is elect politicians who appoint ministers who go cap in hand to the people who own our society, and ask them very nicely if we can have a little consideration, some of the wealth we have produced, back.

Six-time failures

We have had six Labour governments, six attempts at running capitalism in the interests of the wage-slaves. Each and every one of those governments has run aground, when the time came for it to implement policies in the interest of the profit takers against the interests of the wealth creators. The present attempt goes on with its plans to increase services, to end child poverty within the next two decades, and yet all it has achieved is a decline in the growth of the divide between poverty and riches.

Even, let us imagine, if they meet their child poverty targets, this still means decades more of the horrors of poverty for millions of children. This, apparently, must be so because Holy Property must not be infringed, and the right of one person to untold wealth comes before the very right to live of scores of others. All they can do is tinker with the wages system, wrap up their help in the contract of the sale of labour-power.

The means to end poverty, though, are with us now. They have been with us for a hundred years or more. That has, though, gone unnoticed, and the working class have gone on supporting Labour, and thus supporting capitalism. Who, perhaps, could blame them, when the only alternative appeared to be offered by the Leninist left, who offered the same as Labour, except with more soldiers and secret police?

We need to be clear here – the working class has continued to support capitalism, else Labour would not have proposed its capitalist policies to win their votes. They accepted the existence of the labour market, of the three core principles of capitalism. The buying and selling of all in life has taken on the appearance of a fact of nature, rather than as the man-made artefact it is. So the possibilities of producing for needs, of using our energy directly to end poverty did not come to mind, and only schemes that abided by the law of ‘can’t pay can’t have’ have ever been considered.

The Socialist Party, though, has always sought to debunk this mythology of capitalism. To show how our present system was made by humans, and so can be unmade by them. To show how these apparently natural laws of capitalism are in fact the vested interest of a tiny section of our society. To show that poverty is not a question of things and how they are distributed, but is fundamentally linked to the productive logic and priorities of a profit-based system of production.

The continued existence of the Socialist Party, then, holds out the hope of the working class coming to understand those possibilities for abolishing poverty and acting in accordance with them. The Socialist Party continues to put its unique case: democratic revolution to establish the co-operative commonwealth.

Our principles are developed from, and build upon the analysis of capitalism by Marx and Engels. Where they saw, though, the newly formed working class as being outside and against their society, we see the working class now running society from top to bottom. A self-disciplined working class that turns up to work and voluntarily implements the interests of the property owners. The waged and salaried class reproduces capitalism through its own labour, and by the same means it can transform it into socialism. The revolution will be made by workers asking themselves: how does my workplace help society, and how do we make it do it better?

Democratic revolution

For this reason, we reject the leftist course of a vanguard seizing power down the barrel of a gun. Such a course is doomed to failure. Socialism cannot come about unless and until the working class consciously wants to change the system of society. You cannot create the free association of producers by the crack of a commissar’s whip. Without the conscious application of the workers’ organisational knowledge and skills, the building of socialism is as likely as the chances of the famous monkeys typing out Shakespeare.

Hence we reject war and violence as a means of making revolution. Where other parties are able to stand up and promote murder as a means of achieving their ends, we understand that it can only ever weaken our class, a class dependent upon an integrated system of production for its well-being. Mayhem and destruction are the political tools of bygone ruling classes. The feudal rulers for whom war was their reason for being. The capitalist class, willing to pursue lethal force as a competitive edge. The strength of the working class, though, is our creative power, our task to build a new world, not smash an old one. We are the last defenders of civilisation when all other parties turn to barbarism as a quick fix.

We have seen that once millions of workers take to the streets and begin to demand change, no force can stop them. All parties vie for the workers’ votes, with promises of jobs and security. When the workers move, society moves with us. We are the politically determining class. Hence the mutation of the Tories from the party of old Etonians to that of organised business run by grammar school social climbers, with a membership and internal democracy. Even the bastions of natural right give way before the world-view of the working class.

Revolution, though, isn’t just about street power. Where political democracy exists, it offers us the chance to come together and transform the machinery of state from being an instrument of rationing into an administration for co-ordinating our free labour.

We have everything we need to make the revolution in the way we live, now.

All is in readiness for the belling of the capitalist cat, all that has to happen is for us to decide to do it. For this reason, the Socialist Party continues to put forth a clear conception of socialism: a properly democratic and classless society, where the free development of each shall be the condition for the free development of all, and where all can share in the common treasury without buying and selling,according to their needs. Where our free labour is the source and guarantee of our mutual freedom.

Where others have abused the name of socialism to lead the workers to the gulag, the prison camp or the police state, we have stood firm, and refused to compromise our understanding of socialism. Though at times it feels like we may be talking to thin air, we continue to put the socialist case. We do not chase the chimeras of China, Cuba, Venezuela or wherever some form of revolt within capitalism appears. We stand fast by our case for socialism and nothing but.

Just as when we were founded the left was creating the Labour Party, so now they are trying to rebuild it according to their dreams of what it should have been. Now, as then, they are mistaken. Now, as then, the case for socialism needs to be heard, lest the working class pursue another sterile century of Labourism and capitalism. 

Though we have waited a hundred years, we still believe in our principle that we call upon the workers to join with us “so that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system that deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom” – not just because we can, but because we must.

Bill Martin

(Text of a talk given at the centenary meeting of the Socialist Party on 12 June)

SPGB News Release - Corbyn (2015)

SOCIALISTS WARN OF DEAD-END FOR CORBYN BAND-WAGGON

Members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain have warned the public not to be taken in by claims that Labour Party leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn offers any alternative to austerity in Britain.

Campaigning in North London this week, Bill Martin, who stood for the Socialist Party against Corbyn in his Islington constituency earlier this year, said Corbyn was right to lay the blame for the slump on the economic system, but claimed he was “just a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy: Harold Wilson 2.1.”

“The cause of austerity is not the Tory government, or the absence of a Labour one. It’s the profit system which causes boom and bust,” said Bill Martin. “Governments can only spend at the expense of profits.  Corbyn should know better.  It was his Labour Party in the 1970s that tried to spend it’s a way out of a slump and it didn’t work then.”

Joining him was Adam Buick, an editor of Socialist Standard magazine who commented: “There is a lesson in the failure of the left-wing Syriza government to end austerity in Greece.  While capitalism is in a slump it can’t be ended. It was an impossible demand.”

He said Corbyn and his supporters should “stop wasting time trying to reform the market system and instead join our campaign to replace the capitalist system of class ownership and production for profit by a socialist system of common ownership, democratic control and production directly to meet people’s needs. Only then will austerity be ended forever.”

Letters: Passage from Marx that Jeremy missed (2015)

Letter to the Islington Tribune, 7 August, 2015

HAVING seen off the might of the Socialist Party at the general election, Jeremy Corbyn has clearly got cocky, and thinks he can take on all-comers.

I notice he has gone on the record as saying: “I haven’t really read as much of Marx as I should have done. I’ve read quite a bit, but not that much.”  

Maybe this is the bit he missed: “The working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles… Instead of the conservative motto: ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wages system!’” (Value, Price and Profit).

Mr Corbyn does not call for the abolition of the wages system. As the Labour leadership election campaign goes on, he reveals that all he has to offer is the ghost of Harold Wilson warmed up.

BILL MARTIN

North London branch, The Socialist Party

My Election Contest With Jeremy Corbyn (2015)

From the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our candidate who stood against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North at the general election looks at his politics.

After seeing off the challenge of the Socialist Party at the general election, Jeremy Corbyn clearly feels himself invincible, taking on all -comers and challenging for the leadership of the Labour Party. To some he is the left-wing rejuvenator of true Labour values; for others, he is the lunatic left and ultimate Islington socialist.

Often at hustings in previous elections, I had found myself clearly more radical than the cautious Labour candidate, as they tried to control expectations, and put forward achievable demands. Against Jeremy Corbyn (along with a fairly radical Green candidate, and a Tory smart enough to talk to the needs of the constituency), this wasn’t the case. It would often depend on who got their turn in first, to put a radical anti-capitalist analysis of the problems of health care, housing, mental health or education.

One event illustrates this neatly. We were asked for a song that epitomised our campaign. After deciding that my own preference, Slayer’s ‘War Ensemble’, wouldn’t quite cover it, I fell back on what I knew would be most Socialist Party member’s preference: John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. As it happened, I was asked before Corbyn was, and he would have chosen the same song.

Throughout the campaign, people asked me why we were standing against Jeremy Corbyn, since ‘he is a socialist.’ I wrote a letter to the local press, pointing out that whatever he stood for, he would still a member of a party that explicitly supports capitalism. The last sentence, that a vote for Corbyn was a vote for poverty and unemployment was mysteriously excised by the paper (surely not for reasons of space). I noted several times that despite his opposition to nuclear weapons, and the fact that he would vote against it, a vote for him would (in effect) be a vote for a Labour Prime Minister committed to replacing Trident.

He clearly takes some pride in his rebellious voting record. Normally, as befits a comfortable incumbent who is certain to win, he was able to shrug off my barbs and jibes (indeed, he affably accepted that our campaign was happening and never himself asked why we were standing against him). When, however, I mentioned our Party’s democratic policy of binding mandates for delegates, he took umbrage at the idea of MPs voting as instructed. The fact that his party is not itself democratically organised does at least excuse his position.

He is certainly a passionate advocate of the needs of the poor: throughout the campaign he would come back to the notion that children should have warm dry beds to sleep in; he raised the issue of the horrific drowning of economic migrants in the Mediterranean (instead of merely focusing on local bread and butter issues); he linked mental health issues of poverty and exploitation. It was clear he knew his patch well, and, again, gazumped me by rattling off the same facts about Islington that I’d spent my time researching and learning. The problem, though, is not his analysis of the problems of capitalism, but his approach to trying to resolve them.

An example: at one hustings a very local matter came up. It was a detailed and specific question about the renovation of a council estate in Islington, and the apparent withdrawal of councillors from liaison with the tenants and their proposed designs. I hadn’t heard of the matter, even in the local press, and didn’t know the facts. My cold reading of the matter was that it was probably down to public administration law, and the nature of state property as private property of the council. Corbyn, who mercifully answered before me on this one, confirmed as much, noting that the tenants’ interests had to be balanced against the overall needs of Islington’s property estate.

When it comes down to it, he is better described as a statist, rather than a socialist (in our terms). He believes in state action: laws to reduce knife crime; public ownership of the NHS rather than private ownership; controls on rents and security of tenancy; expansion of council housing, etc.. He confirmed as much after the election, describing the Miliband manifesto as ‘basically good’. Indeed, a look at his Labour leadership campaign manifesto shows that he is far from being the frothing radical the right-wing press love to depict him as. In his response to Osborne’s July budget, he wrote: ‘I am calling for a people's quantitative easing – and asking my fellow candidates to join me in that call… The Bank of England must be given a new mandate to upgrade our economy to invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects.’ Put another way: his leadership would be just Harold Wilson warmed up.

The real source of his radical image is his persistent stance on foreign policy. First, backing dialogue with Sinn Fein back in the 1980’s, and nowadays being at the forefront of campaigns for the Palestinians. Indeed, one clear point of attack from some within the Labour Party has been the meeting he addressed where he welcomes ‘our friends’ from Hamas and Hezbollah. When questioned about that on Channel Four news, his response was to aggressively pushback, and try and get the issue back to resolving the Israel Palestine conflict. There’s no doubt that he is a passionate advocate for peace, but also, clearly, a practical politician willing to work with the existing ruling groups, but he is clearly in hock to the dismal ideology of nationalism and national liberation.

The right wing press has gone mad over him. Some Tories, taking advantage of the Labour Party’s new open primary system of electing a leader, where anyone can pay three pounds to become a ‘Labour supporter’ (and sign a declaration that they are not a supporter of any other party) and get to vote, gleefully announced that they would join up and vote for Corbyn, because he will take the Labour Party into the wilderness for decades to come. The reality, perception aside, is that Corbyn is simply a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy. The only thing he does differently, is that he believes in putting the case openly, instead of pitching to a marketing strategy in order to win power to make reforms on the quiet.

He is a decent, intelligent and committed politician, but he wouldn’t have survived in politics so long without a certain amount of steel. If he surprises everyone by winning the leadership, he could surprise the gloating smooth-faced Tory mockers by actually winning a general election. The biggest, surprise, though, would be just what a staid, unradical government it would be in reality. There would be noise, but the detail is clear, he would have to work within the possibilities of capitalism and its overall profitability. We’ve seen it before in the 1960s.

If he does triumph in the leadership election it will be because the process of installing increasingly sophisticated party and electorate management policies by the Labour leadership have run out of steam, and the desires of workers (however misinformed and locked into the logic of markets) will have forced their way into the halls of power. The media and party managers cannot paper over the lived experience of millions in this country who feel they have no voice nor control.

If he does become Prime Minister, I’ll be telling people it’s all my fault, until then, I’ll continue doing my best to stop him.

Bill Martin

Socialist Party of Great Britain Election Manifestos (2014)

From the May 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is contesting two regions, South East and Wales, in the elections to the European Parliament on 22 May and also wards in two London boroughs. We reproduce below our various election addresses, beginning with the one for the Wales region.

 Wales Region

It’s election time again

The Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement is standing in the elections to the European Parliament on 22 May and we are presenting a full list of 4 candidates for Wales.

Our case, we are sure, you will find completely and refreshingly different from what all the other parties are offering. It should also cause you to see the world and its problems in a radically different way from anything you have come across before.

What we propose

What do we in the Socialist Party propose can be done? We propose the establishment by peaceful, democratic means (i.e. voting) of a truly direct participatory democratic society in which the majority determine how human needs are met.

This means a society without rich and poor, without owners and workers, without governments and governed, without leaders and led. Where buying and selling and money are no longer necessary.

In such a society people will cooperate to use all the world's abundant natural resources in their own interests. Production will be freed from the artificial dictate of profit and everyone will have free access to the benefits of civilisation.

It will mean an end to borders and frontiers, an end to organised violence and coercion, to waste, want and war. It really will be a civilised society where technology will be used to satisfy human needs and not profits.

A radically different way

Every few years groups of politicians compete for your vote to win themselves and their parties positions in the European or national parliament.

Yet you must have noticed that -once the dust has settled -there is no significant change to the way things are for the majority of people -except sometimes for the worse. Promises are made and broken, targets are set and not reached, statistics are selected and spun.

Any promises kept only represent minor changes to the way things are and none even touch the fundamental inequity of a society (not just in Wales or the UK but in all countries) in which the vast majority of the population have to sell their energies, mental and physical, to a tiny handful of privileged beings who effectively own the planet.

How much does it say about the subservience of most of us that we vote for politicians who support a system which keeps us exploited and struggling to survive?

Employment, one of the least democratic situations

It's said we live in a democracy, but the only real decision we are called on to make democratically is which political party will impose this system upon us for the next 5 years. Everything else is shop window dressing and the activity which dominates our lives, employment (if we can get it), is, as no one can fail to notice, one of the least democratic environments that can be imagined.

It's also said we live in a meritocratic society. But if that means anything, it means that the more dog-eat-dog, the more selfish we can be, the more we can maybe gain at the expense of others.

Despite politicians' rhetoric about us 'all being in it together', at bottom everyone knows that the reality that really applies is much closer to 'greed is good '.

Nor is that actually surprising given that the society we live in, often referred to as capitalism, is based on institutionalised selfishness, i.e. the making of profit. It breeds inequality, enmity, rivalries and, sometimes, the mass violence called war.

It’s absolutely possible

You may think socialism sounds great, but that it's a bit of a utopia. But we would say that it is absolutely possible once the idea takes hold and that the real Utopia is the belief that by supporting the conventional politicians with their old tired ideas and promises the world can be a truly better place.

One way to begin is to use your vote in these elections not to support candidates who you can be sure will give you the same old system but to show that you want to overturn it and end the problems it causes once and for all.

When enough of us join together, we can transform elections from a means of keeping a society of inequality, wealth monopoly and very limited democracy to a means of doing away with it in favour of a society of real democracy and social and economic equality.

If you agree with the idea of a society of free access and common and democratic ownership where no one is left behind and things are produced because they are needed not to make a profit, we would call on you to join with us by voting for the Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement list in Wales. In this way we can begin to make a difference.

South East Region

Make this world ours

In socialism the planet will be like the one you know, but also very different. There is no money. There is no war. There are no rich people. There are no poor people. There are no leaders. All decisions are shared. All responsibilities are shared. Instead of competing to survive, people cooperate to live.

This is Earth, under new management. Ours.

You now have no bills to pay, no rent, no mortgage, no debts. Everything is free, nothing is for sale, and neither are you. But you want to help, just like others do. There are a hundred things you could do, a thousand more you could train to do.

You might have chosen to drive a bus or a train, fix plumbing, coordinate a data network, plough a field, teach a child, organise an event, study engineering, cure a disease, brew beer, rehearse a play. You might choose to work four hours a week, or fourteen or forty. What you do makes everyone better off. That’s your recompense, and it’s better than money. It’s job satisfaction. It’s fulfilment. It’s a life on your own terms, a life worth living. It’s why you make the commitment to work.

This is Earth, as it could be in the near future. It won’t be created by the politicians of capitalism. It will created by us, all of us who now produce everything, working together. We can say ‘We want this’. Then we organise to make it happen.

Against our combined communications the billionaires can do nothing. Together we can force referendums, elections, votes and take control of nation states. Then abolish property laws and the agencies that enforce them and take control of factories, land, services. It can be democratic, peaceful, and effective. We take control. We take our lives back.

This new Earth is not Utopia. There are problems, issues, arguments, accidents, mistakes, false starts or blind alleys. But cooperative management solves the problems as today’s arrogant leaderships never did.

If you agree with this you can let others know that this is what you want by voting for the Socialist Party/World Socialist Movement list.

London boroughs

We need to change things

If you work hard, play by the rules, you’ll get on. So they say. We do all the hard work. Tidy the offices, fix the cars, file the paperwork, make the dinner, change the bed pans, teach the children. We work for the best hours of our days, the best years of our lives.

But we don’t get on.

If we’re not in work, we spend our time looking for work, training for work, applying for work. But we don’t find it.

Across Europe millions who have played by the rules to produce more and more wealth find themselves getting a smaller and smaller share of it.

Over the last four years our pay has fallen in real terms: we are being paid less for our work than we were. Yet that work needs to be done. At the same time, the people who don’t need to work, who get their money just because they are “the 1 percent“, are gaining more than ever.

We, the people who do the work, who make the whole of our society go round, are punished rather than rewarded. We find it increasingly hard to make the rent or mortgage and other household bills. We find our slight protections being taken away from us with attacks on benefits. They shackle our unions. We find ourselves last in every queue to the wealthy who waltz in to the front and get the best.

We work hard. We play by the rules.

But we don’t get on.

We need to show solidarity, and fight for a change that will enable us to get on. As long as we don’t own what we produce we will continue to be second class citizens. We need to organise to take control of the productive wealth of the world so we can use our own work to better our lives, instead of making the rich richer.

We can use these elections to show that we won’t take this lying down. That we can organise for common ownership of the world.

We can vote for the Socialist Party candidates, as a way of letting our fellow workers know: things need to change.

Lambeth: Clapham Town: Oliver Bond. Ferndale: Danny Lambert. Larkhall: Adam Buick

Islington: Junction: Bill Martin.

Elections to the European Parliament are being held the same day. As there are no socialist candidates standing in the London Region you can show you reject the profit system and want a world of common ownership and democratic control by writing “WORLD SOCIALISM” across your ballot paper.

And then get in touch to help bring an end to the system that can never be made to work in our interest.  For an information pack and free magazine, write to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

Have we evolved to make money?

A SOCIALIST PARTY DEBATE

ON SATURDAY, 22nd NOVEMBER AT 6.00PM

'Have we evolved to make money?'

Bill Martin of the Socialist Party debates with Dr.Terence Kealey (Author of Sex, Science & Profits)

BIRKBECK COLLEGE, (Room 407)

Malet Street, London. WC1

(nearest tubes: Goodge St & Russell Square)