Letter: Two countries (2011)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two countries

Dear editors

We actually live in two different countries.

On the one hand, we have a tiny minority of people, who own and control this land of “theirs”. On the obverse side of the coin, we have us, the vast majority whose only real possession, is our ability to labour, to use our mental and physical abilities, to earn a wage or salary.

The businesses we toil for do not belong to us. Our only interest is our salary or wage, at the end of the week or month. There ends our interest in the firms that employ us.

According to the Land Registry, 75 percent of the land mass of the UK belongs to approximately 1400 people. I am not one of them, are you? The figures on share ownership are similarly skewed, with less than 1 percent of the population owning over 99percent of all marketable shares!

We live in two different countries. For the mouth-pieces of capitalism to say “we are all in this together” is arrant lies and nonsense. Whether said by Coalition or Labour figures makes not one jot of difference to us, the majority.

They own, we do not. We labour and toil, they do not. We are leaves on the capricious winds of capitalism’s speculation, they are not. We worry about the price of food, energy, housing etc and all the fluctuations of this system, they do not.

Capitalism is not “fair” to the vast majority of us, the population of the Earth. It does not work in our interests. It subverts our nature as co-operative human beings. It and they treat us as dumb adjuncts to the productive process that affords them vast wealth and opulence, whilst at the same time, condemning us, the majority, to the stress, poverty, starvation, homelessness, misery, insecurity, etc, etc, etc, that afflicts our lives every second of everyday, of our lives.

Only a revolution in thought and understanding of this reality will serve to free us from this. Only a working together of us, the disenfranchised and powerless within the present system, capitalism, will ensure that we live in a world where we all can live in dignity, inclusion and empowerment and not in want, insecurity and fear.

Steve Colborn, 

Seaham, Co. Durham.

Party News and Election Results (2003)

Party News from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Local Elections

The Socialist Party contested 3 seats in the local elections in May, all in the North East. The results were:

South Tyneside Borough Council, Primrose Ward:

Labour 1658, Conservative 594, Socialist 316.

Easington District Council, Deneside Ward (3 councillors):

Labour 527, 492 and 479; Socialist 242.

Seaham Town Council, Deneside Ward (5 councillors):

Labour 390, 386, 372, 367 and 333; Socialist 216.

Leaflet distribution:

Over the past six months Socialist Party members have distributed some 50,000 leaflets at demonstrations and other events. The response has been up on recent years, perhaps reflecting a modest revival of political interest.

If any Socialist Standard reader would like leaflets for distribution in their area, write to Campaigns Dept, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.

Blogger's Note:

The SPGB candidates are not named in the party news but my educated guess is that it was John Bissett in South Tyneside and Steve Colborn in Deneside.

Of those 50,000 leaflets mentioned above, I distributed a fair few.

Euro-elections (1999)

Party News from the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is standing a list in the June 10 elections to the European Parliament in the North East electoral region. Standing for capitalism are the three parliamentary parties, the Greens, the UK Independence Party and the Scargill Labour Party (the last two both campaigning on a platform of British withdrawal from the Common Market), the Pro-Euro Conservative Party, the BNP and the commercial organisation selling meditation courses known as the “Natural Law Party”.

The four-person Socialist Party list is: John Bissett, Steve Colborn, Stephen Davison and Andy Pitts.

Elections in North East England (1999)

Party News from the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard 

We are standing two candidates in the 6 May local elections in the North East, in Primrose ward of South Tyneside Metropolitan Council and in Deneside ward of Easington District and Seaham Town councils. Further details from the North East Branch Secretary.

The North East branch will also be contesting the European elections on 10 June. A full list will be presented in the 4-member North East Election Region. The Socialist list is: John Bissett, Steve Colborn, Stephen Davidson, Andy Pitts. It is planned to have over a million leaflets distributed to households in the area.

To a Supporter of Capitalism (2011)

From the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of course the things we need to live will have to be produced by someone in socialism. The difference being that, in socialism, the means for producing and distributing these things will belong to us all. They will not be the possessions of a tiny minority of the world’s population. Moreover, our relationship to the means and instruments to this production and distribution will not be an alienated one. As we share in the productive and distributive efforts equally, we will share in the access to the same. As free and equal members of the human species.Anything wrong with that? Not from where I stand.

 

Capitalism, this society you seem so enamoured with, as in a Faustian otherworld, does not work for us, the majority.

 

Ever heard of the wealthy worrying about the price of energy, foodstuffs, housing, their kids’ futures, paying the bills, etc, etc, etc ad-nauseum? No.

 

Getting employment, keeping it? No.

 

Paying the mortgage, or possible mortgage rate rises. Or being penalised for under-occupancy of their homes if they happen to be recipients of what is laughingly called “the benefits” system?  No, didn’t think you had.

 

Moreover, what gives a minority of individuals the right of ownership, of the things that are necessary for us all to live? Things, such as oil, gas, coal, land that existed long before the ancestors of modern man, crawled from the primordial slime?

 

A minority of people today, claim ownership of these things and more and a whole structure of laws and law-enforcement, has grown, to protect the rights of this minority of social parasites. 95 percent or more of laws, are to protect private property, not the person, why?

It is so that this minority can retain their minority ownership, at the expense of the majority of other people.

 

You and others, support a system – capitalism – that is antithetical to the interests of yourselves, your families and indeed to the majority of mankind, without even knowing how this system works and in whose interests. Indeed, workers go as far as laying down their lives to perpetuate this insanity.

 

And you to try to preach about how good this system is?

 

Tell that to the 30 to 40,000 kids under five, who die every day, of starvation or directly attributable disease. 

 

The two billion of our fellow human beings who go to bed hungry every night.

 

The hundreds of millions who have no access to sanitation or clean water.

 

The hundreds of thousands of people, homeless, even in the so-called ‘civilised’ West, in sight of empty houses.

 

A society, where it is more profitable to let fields lie fallow, rather than produce crops for the starving.

 

A society that destroys food, to keep prices high, rather than feed people.

 

You want this insanity? You’ve got it, it’s called capitalism.

Steve Colborn

Society without exchange (1987)

From the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may be hard to imagine a society totally without exchange, but nevertheless for the vast majority of human history, around 15.000 years, this was exactly the way things were organised in a stage of human history called primitive communism.

At this time humanity lived a tribal existence with each member of the tribe as important as another: the men as hunters, the women as gatherers of fruit and roots. The young, as the future of the tribe, the old as the wisdom of the tribe, who knew the migratory patterns of animals, where the best roots could be found and much more besides. When the men and women returned with food it was not (as portrayed in some of the more pathetic films such as One Million Years BC) a mad rush for food and the strongest getting the most but a fair and equitable share-out, as the tribe realised the importance of each member of their society.

Examples can still be found today of such tribal societies: the Kalahari Bushmen and Pinaro Indians to name but two who, when first confronted by colonialists and asked about greed and property and who owned what, could not even find words in their language for such concepts and would end up laughing and looking bemused.

Socialist society

The Socialist Party however is not advocating a return to primitive communism. Far from it. but we can learn from history. Socialism must be on a world-wide scale, to replace worldwide capitalism — no individual countries, just one world. Also, it can only be established when the majority understand and want it. There will be no leaders and it can only be brought about democratically, by the ballot box, through conscious political action.

Socialism is only viable when the means of producing and distributing wealth are sufficient to provide for everyone's needs. Even the most conservative estimates of food production conclude that with farming methods now available we could feed six times the present population of the world — a total of five billion people.

Money is only necessary today because, living in capitalism, the means of producing and distributing wealth are in the hands of a tiny minority of the population. A person's position in society is determined by their relationship to these means of production. If someone is lucky enough to be one of the owning minority then they are members of a capitalist class whose ownership of the means of producing wealth means that they do not have to work but are able to live off rent, interest and profit. If however you are one of the vast majority of people who do not own factories, banks, shipping lines or whatever, then you are a member of the working class. You must make a living by selling the only thing of any value you own; this is your labour power — your ability to work — for which you receive a wage or salary.

Some people say that even workers do not have to work. They could live on social security, but anyone who has tried to manage on this pittance realises how hollow this argument is and that, if a worker is able to get a "decent" wage, he or she is forced by necessity to take it.

Workers, even though they and their class produce everything in society and run it from top to bottom, are only able to gain access to the fruits of their labour through money. A worker who helps to produce, for example, £50.000 worth of cars a week will only receive a small fraction of this in wages; the rest is the surplus value (unpaid labour) extracted from all workers, which yields the rent, interest and profit from which capitalists derive their wealth.

In socialism however things will be very different. Once a majority of people want and understand socialism and how to get it, then they will take control of the various state machines and implement it. When socialism is established the land, factories, transport — all the things we need to live — will be taken into common ownership and democratic control. No one will own anything (apart, of course, from personal items). This is not to be confused with nationalisation, which is merely state controlled capitalism as exists in countries such as Russia. China and Cuba.

Production for Use

How will things be produced? Who will produce them? They will be produced as they are now. by the people who produce them now. The important difference will be that instead of the rationing of a wage or salary, there will be free access to all wealth for everyone. Everything produced will go into a common store from which everyone will take what they need. Everyone will have free access to the common store because you cannot buy what already belongs to you and everyone else. People will not be left out because they are too old, young or sick to contribute to production as happens now. These people will be looked after to the best of society's ability. Things will be produced directly for human use, not for sale with a view to profit as now. when, if there is no profit there is no production and if you are unable to pay then you are not able to consume.

Human Nature

One of the arguments socialists often encounter is that all the greedy and selfish people will take more than they need. How correct is this argument?

First of all, in a socialist society people would have to be very greedy and foolish to consume so much as to cause any kind of problem. However, apart from that the notion of greedy people is quite wrong.

"Human nature" does not exist. Human behaviour, which is its proper title, is not fixed but is the result of the society people are conditioned to live in. At present we all live in a "dog eat dog" society of competition; a vicious society where the weak are fair game. Yet even now anyone can point to examples where people forget about the greedy nature of this society to help others. They co-operate even though there is no economic reward; think of voluntary workers, or blood donors for example. There is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate even further in a sane society based on cooperation.

So-called human nature is no barrier to a concept of “from each according to ability, to each according to need". Human beings are not naturally greedy, selfish, aggressive, or naturally anything else; human behaviour is determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. There is only one barrier to socialism: a lack of understanding by people and therefore a lack of desire for it — in other words, a lack of socialists.

The Socialist Party does not have or need leaders; the party is only used by politically conscious socialists as a vehicle to get socialism; when socialism is established the need for the Socialist Party will disappear. Its job done, it will go out of existence.

Steve Colborn

Elections in North East England (1999)

Party News from the April 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are also standing two candidates in the 6 May local elections in the North East, in Primrose ward of South Tyneside Metropolitan Council and in Deneside ward of Easington District and Seaham Town councils. Further details from the North East branch secretary.

The North East branch will also be contesting the European elections on 10 June. A full list will be presented in the 4-member North East Electoral Region. The Socialist list is: John Bissett, Steve Colborn, Stephen Davidson, Andy Pitts. It is planned to have over a million leaflets distributed to households in the area. Further details next month.

Talk about Socialism (2005)

From the July 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party News

Our recent general election campaign in Vauxhall gave us the chance to talk to more people than usual.  There was a well-attended hustings meeting at which our candidate and five of the others put their party’s case and answered questions from the audience.  On most days we had a literature stall outside our Head Office where we handed out leaflets and spoke to passers-by. We also went to other busy spots such as Brixton and outside tube stations. Sixty thousand copies of the candidate’s election address were distributed free by Royal Mail.

If we can be said to have had a slogan for our campaign it was “Vote for yourself – for a change!”  Of course it takes more than a slogan to persuade people to change their minds.  Capitalism teaches consumers to buy brands of political parties like they buy soap powder.  So our refreshing message was that our candidate wasn’t going to do anything for them.  If they wanted to have their problems solved they would have to do it for themselves.

We had less than two thousand pounds to finance our attempt to increase support for socialism.  The supporters of capitalism have countless millions to convince us that theirs is the only game in town.  You don’t have to be an active supporter of capitalism – or even know what it is – to allow it to go on.  Passive, resigned, unthinking acceptance will do nicely. 

Anti-capitalism may be a start, but it’s certainly not a finish.  Real change means we have to be consciously working for something, not simply against something.  So we talk to people about socialism and invite them to tell us whether they think it would mean a better life and society than we have now.

Today things are produced only if someone can see a profit in doing so – no profit, no product.  Today there are labour markets:  we have to find a job to get money or rely on a meagre state handout – or starve.  We are told we must support a hugely wasteful and destructive war industry (“defence”) to kill or maim men, women and children in other countries with whom we have no quarrel.

What we said in one of our leaflets applies not just at elections but also between elections.  We need a new way of running society based on:

1. The common ownership of all resources by the whole community, not just a rich minority.
2. Democratic control of the community by everyone, without distinction of age, race or sex, instead of rule by unelected company directors or state bureaucrats.
3. Production purely to meet people’s needs, not profit.
4. Free and equal access to all goods and services – an end to the market and to money.

No one we spoke to thought that what we were proposing is undesirable, not a good idea, worse than what we have now.  Instead we were told it had been tried and didn’t work, or that for some reason it would never work.  That reason usually turned out to be some variant of our old friend “human nature”.  People are “naturally” lazy – if they can get away with not working they will do so.  People are “naturally” greedy – if they can have things without paying for them they will grab the lot.  People are “naturally” aggressive – without the punitive sanctions of law and order there will be chaos.

Funny how all these nasty features of a supposedly unalterable human nature always apply to other people.  When challenged, the amateur experts on human nature never admit to showing those features themselves.

Most work in capitalism is unpleasant or boring because it is in the service of making money rather than something useful.  Despite being pitted against each other for jobs generously “provided” by employers, workers do co-operate – nothing would be produced if they didn’t.  It isn’t that the world’s poor are greedy – considering the plenty that technology and human ingenuity are capable of producing, they aren’t greedy enough!

There is a saying that talk is cheap, and in a sense it is.  It costs nothing to talk yourself out of supporting capitalism and into helping to build a practical socialist alternative.  And it costs nothing to talk others into following your excellent example.

The result of the election in Vauxhall was: Hoey (Lab) 19,744; Anglin (LD) 9,767; Heckels (Con) 5,405; Summers (Green) 1,705; McWhirter (UKIP) 271; Lambert (Socialist) 240; Polenceus (English Democrat) 221.

We also stood a candidate in the county council elections held the same day, in the Deneside ward in Durham, where the result was: Nugent (Lab) 1921; Nicholson (Con) 361; Colborn (Socialist) 288.

Nuclear spectre (1998)

From the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The condemnation by nuclear powers such as the USA and Britain of the underground tests carried out by India and Pakistan once again shows the contradictory and hypocritical nature of world capitalism. That such a reaction should come from states armed to the teeth themselves, with short, medium, and long-range nuclear weapons, is nothing less than pathetic.

Nuclear proliferation, as with the proliferation of conventional weapons, is part and parcel of the capitalist system. To get rid of nuclear weapons, you must first get rid of their cause: the anarchic, competitive nature of this society. Only when this happens will we, as people of the world, be free from the threat of nuclear armaggedon.

CND has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the futility of trying to rid the world of such weapons of death within capitalism. There are thousands of times more weapons now than when CND was first formed, all far more powerful. That’s what happens when you address the symptoms and not their cause.

The end of the “cold war” was supposed to usher in a new era of stability on the international stage. The recent underground tests carried out by India and Pakistan has put this idea into its proper context.

Talk of stability in a world armed to the teeth has about as much ring of truth about it as the book Alice in Wonderland and is about as sane as the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

The spectre of nuclear armageddon once again strides the planet.

Within the last two years China, France and now India and Pakistan have conducted nuclear tests.

If ever there was a time to look at the alternative to insane world capitalism it is now, before we see the sprouting mushroom clouds of nuclear detonations and the horror that will ensue.

Steve Colborn

Socialist Party to stand five candidates (1997)

Party News from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the coming General Election the Socialist Party will be putting up five candidates, the highest number yet in a parliamentary election. Two will be standing in Scotland, two in the North East and one in London.

The seats and candidates are:

Glasgow Kelvin: Vic Vanni
Livingston: Matt Culbert
Jarrow: John Bissett
Easington: Steve Colborn
London Vauxhall: Richard Headicar

Around 40,000 election addresses will be distributed by the Post Office in each of the five constituencies, but this will only be during the election which must take place sometime before May next year.

In the meantime preparatory work has started, with meetings, literature stalls and leaflet distribution in the constituencies. If you want to help with this, or want further information about the socialist campaign, the contact persons for the constituencies are:

Glasgow: Vic Vanni, Flat A, 26 Baker Street, Glasgow G41 3YE. Phone: 0141-649 9338.
Livingston: Matt Culbert, 53 Falcon Brae, Ladywell, West Lothian, EH54 6UW. Phone: 01506-162 359.
Jarrow: John Bissett, 10 Scarborough Parade, Hebburn.Tync & Wear NE31 2AL. Phone: 0191-189 0253.
Easington: Harland Wear, Phone 0191 5170470
London: Gareth Thomas, 185c Northcote Road, London SW11 6QF. Phone:0171-585 1856.

If you are not living in any of these areas you can make a contribution to the Election Fund. The amount in the fund at the moment is £6,292, not much compared to what the pro-capitalist parties will have to spend. The more money we have the more effectively can we make the voice of socialism heard. Cheques (made payable to‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain*) should be sent to: Election Fund. 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.