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1 Socialist Standard September 2020 Socialist Standard September 2020 1 Introducing the Socialist Party The Socialist Party advocates a society developing Russian capitalism under a where production is freed from the one-party dictatorship. Both failures have artificial constraints of profit and given socialism a quite different -- and organised for the benefit of all on the unattractive -- meaning: state ownership basis of material abundance. It does not and control. As the Socialist Standard have policies to ameliorate aspects of pointed out before both courses were the existing social system. It is opposed followed, the results would more properly to all war. be called state capitalism. The Socialist Standard is the combative The Socialist Party and the World monthly journal of the Socialist Party, Socialist Movement affirm that capitalism published without interruption since is incapable of meaningful change in 1904. In the 1930s the Socialist Standard the interests of the majority; that the explained why capitalism would not basis of exploitation is the wages/money collapse of its own accord, in response to system. The Socialist Standard is proud widespread claims to the contrary, and to have kept alive the original idea of continues to hold this view in face of the what socialism is -- a classless, stateless, notion’s recent popularity. Beveridge’s of the natural world can have limited wageless, moneyless society or, defined welfare measures of the 1940s were effect and run counter to the nature of positively, a democracy in which free and viewed as a reorganisation of poverty and capitalism itself. equal men and women co-operate to a necessary ‘expense’ of production, and Gradualist reformers like the Labour produce the things they need to live and Keynesian policies designed to overcome Party believed that capitalism could be enjoy life, to which they have free access slumps an illusion. Today, the journal transformed through a series of social in accordance with the principle ‘from exposes as false the view that banks measures, but have merely become each according to their abilities, to each create money out of thin air, and explains routine managers of the system. The according to their needs’ why actions to prevent the depredation Bolsheviks had to be content with All original material is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales (CC BY-ND 2.0 UK) licence. 2 Socialist Standard September 2020 Editorial How real is democracy today? A common boast made by capitalism’s can face periods of unemployment and such as the Chartist movement in supporters is that free market capitalism even destitution. When capitalists do hire nineteenth-century Britain. is inherently democratic and that rights, workers they will attempt to extract the The freedom of assembly enables such as the right to vote, freedom of most value from the use of their labour the workers to organise politically in speech, freedom of assembly, necessarily power that they can get away with and their own interests and is invaluable go hand in hand with the freedom of the keep their wage costs to a minimum. On in aiding the development of working- capitalists to invest and make profits. the other hand, it is in the interests of class political consciousness. The right During the Cold War, Western workers the workers to obtain the highest wages to vote means that workers have the were always reminded that whatever they can. In their efforts to achieve this, power to choose who will control the grievances they had about life under workers have combined in trade unions capitalist state machine. Up to now, they capitalism, they were lucky to have the and at times have withdrawn their labour have used their votes to elect capitalist vote and have their say, not like in the to put pressure on the employers. It representatives in the mistaken belief USSR and the other ‘Socialist’ countries. is the outcome of these struggles that that those representatives can run the The words ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ determine the conditions of workers’ capitalist system for the workers’ benefit. are a necessary part of any aspiring lives. Although both the capitalists and the They are invariably disappointed and in capitalist politician’s lexicon. workers enjoy the same democratic rights, many instances this has led to political This prominence given to democracy they do not have the same social power. disillusionment and cynicism. masks the reality of workers’ lives under Clearly, the capitalists, more often than We urge workers to find out about the capitalism. not, are in a stronger position. socialist case, which is that capitalism Workers, who have no independent However, we must not read into this, cannot work in their interests and that means of living, have to sell their physical as many on the Left do, that capitalist socialism is the only solution to the and mental energies to an employer in political democracy is a sham and that problems capitalism creates. order to acquire the necessities of life. workers should have nothing to do with With this in mind, workers can then The employers (or capitalists) who own it. It needs to be pointed out that the elect their own delegates with a mandate the means of production and distribution workers were not handed their democratic to abolish the private and state ownership will only employ workers if they have a rights on a plate, they had to struggle for of the means of living and replace it with prospect of making a profit. If not, workers them through their own organisations, democratic common ownership. Socialist Standard September 2020 3 Two fingers to the virus THE CONTINUING spikes in Covid cases and drugs vie in a constant arms race. If city. The fire team was killed instantly. around the world, in places where it you attack a disease with a drug that’s The architect, who thought he was at a was deemed vanquished or at least in meant to kill it, and the disease wins, it’s safe distance, was also killed, and two retreat, start to resemble the physical like Popeye getting a dose of spinach. hundred or so other people besides. The appearance of the virus itself, with little Vaccines are already under attack in docks were obliterated, three hospitals trumpets erupting everywhere from its social media, with anti-vaxxer messages destroyed, ships flipped, sunk or flung in spherical surface. But what’s also erupting outnumbering pro-vaccine posts on pieces onto the land. The blast measured is the trumpet fanfares of success as average by five to one, and a recent 3.3 on the Richter scale despite the force countries like India and Russia announce survey suggesting that, even if a vaccine going mostly upwards. It was heard 160 the mass production of vaccines they is produced in the UK, up to 50 percent miles away. It has been listed as the fifth have supposedly developed for their of the population might refuse to most powerful, artificial, non-nuclear home markets. How have Modi and Putin take it (New Scientist, 12 August - bit. explosion in history. succeeded in leaving the rest of the world ly/346Qsw2). Let the idiots die, you might Sympathetic city halls across the world straggling behind them? Do they have think, the world has enough fools, but draped themselves in the Lebanese flag, better scientists than anyone else? Did their anti-vaxxer idiocy could kill others including Tel Aviv, though Israel and they just get lucky? if it prevents society vaccinating its way Lebanon are technically at war. As the In the case of India, it’s just political to the long-hoped-for herd immunity. fire burned out over the blast area, the spin from the nation’s prime administer. And any vaccine toted as effective which recriminations started. How could nearly “Not one, not two, as many as three turns out to be the opposite will only 3,000 tonnes of explosive ammonium coronavirus vaccines are being tested in strengthen the antivaxxer lobby and risk nitrate have been kept for six years India,” Modi announced with a flourish extending the pandemic. in a port warehouse without proper in Delhi in August, as if announcing the Of course the Russians might be right safety precautions, despite numerous breakthrough of the century. But you about their vaccine, though the lack of warnings and six letters to judges, and can describe anything as a vaccine and transparency is not encouraging. Even without residents knowing about it? announce tests on it. “Along with mass- by capitalist standards, Putin is not a The conspiracy vultures descended to production, the roadmap for distribution team player. He will certainly be hoping feast, but the simple answer was that of vaccine to every single Indian in the the vaccine works, so he can use it as people fucked up. The Lebanese cabinet least possible time is also ready,” he an armlock on the West, just as he did resigned. The country’s food supply, in a added with grandiose pomp but again with gas supplies to Ukraine. Things pandemic, had been virtually destroyed. without really saying anything. in Belarus have been kicking off lately, Ammonium nitrate is quite like Russia’s president Putin went further, with the repulsive and patriarchal troll potassium nitrate, or saltpetre, and is however, by announcing that a Covid Lukashenko stage-managing yet another popular because it’s cheap to make, good vaccine had been medically approved 80 percent election ‘victory’ despite for fertilisers and, if you mix it with fuel and would go into mass production by only scoring 3 percent support in polls, oil, excellent for making bombs.
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