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Socialist Standard July 2016 1 socialist standard Contents July 2016 Features Regulars 10 100 years of the World Socialist 10 4 Pathfi nders Party of the US 5 Le" ers The History of the WSP(US) 6 Halo Halo! 6 Cooking the Books 1 12 The Socialist Party of America Dashed on the rocks of compromise 7 Greasy Pole 9 Material World 15 The ‘democra$ c socialism’ of 18 Cooking the Books 2 Bernie Sanders 19 Proper Gander Just how socialist is he? 20 Reviews 17 Looking back on Edward Bellamy 22 50 Years Ago We examine Bellamy’s Looking Backward 23 Mee$ ngs 15 24 Rear View 24 Free Lunch 12 22 Introducing the Socialist Party The Socialist Party is like no other poli cal capitalism. Polish, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish as party in Britain. It is made up of people We use every possible opportunity well as English. who have joined together to make new socialists. We The more of you who join the Socialist because we want to get publish pamphlets and Party the more we will be able to get our rid of the profi t system books, as well as CDs, ideas across, the more experiences we and establish real DVDs and various will be able to draw on and greater will be socialism. Our aim is other informa$ ve the new ideas for building the movement to persuade others to material. We also give which you will be able to bring us. become socialist and talks and take part The Socialist Party is an organisa$ on of act for themselves, in debates; a" end equals. There is no leader and there are organising rallies, mee$ ngs and no followers. So, if you are going to join democra$ cally and demos; run educa$ onal we want you to be sure that you agree without leaders, to conferences; host fully with what we stand for and that we bring about the kind internet discussion are sa$ sfi ed that you understand the case of society that we are forums, make fi lms for socialism. advoca$ ng in this journal. presen$ ng our ideas, We are solely concerned with and contest elec ons building a movement of socialists when prac cal. Socialist for socialism. We are not a reformist party literature is available in Arabic, Bengali, All original material is available under the Crea$ ve Commons A" ribu on-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales with a programme of policies to patch up Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, (CC BY-ND 2.0 UK) licence. 2 Socialist Standard July 2016 Editorial Let’s really take control SO, CONTRARY to what Cameron – were the usual empty promises that profi ts has to take priority over mee# ng banked on and what Big Business poli cians trade in, the dire predic ons people’s needs. Voters, parliaments and wanted, Britain is to leave the EU. The of the Remain camp were exaggera# ons governments may propose, but capitalism Tory leaders of the Brexit campaign, designed to scare people into vo ng for disposes. experienced vote-catching poli cians them. It didn’t work but nothing much Brexit won’t change this. It was the case that they are, were able to convince will change. Big Business will be able to before Britain joined the EU in 1973 and enough workers, including many of the live with Brexit and adapt to it. They will will be the same a% er Britain leaves in worst off , to carry the day. want con# nued free access to the single 2019. Those who were led to think that Whether many of their voters believed tariff -free European market with common Brexit will allow them to control their their extravagant promises of a rosy standards and will expect the government des# ny have been cruelly deceived. future is another ma! er. Many would to nego ate this. Socialists have always wanted working have been registering a protest vote One of Brexit’s more a! rac ve slogans people to ‘take control’ of their collec ve against what global capitalism was doing – in fact, minus the ‘of our borders’, its des# ny. That’s what socialism is all about. to them. A vote for Remain would have only a! rac ve one – was ‘take back This is not possible under capitalism been a vote for this to remain. Which, control’, with its sugges# on that people because it is a system governed by off ered the chance to register an opinion, should be in a posi on to control their uncontrollable economic laws which they could hardly have been expected to des# ny, a powerful appeal to people impose themselves on people whatever endorse. But If they really believed that unable to control what global capitalism they want or decide. The only way to take the EU was responsible for their lot, they has done and is doing to them. control (‘back’ is out of place since the misiden# fi ed the culprit. As we said in While, a% er Brexit, the Bri sh majority class of wage and salary workers our manifesto for the referendum, ‘The Parliament will regain its power to has never had any control) is to take problem is not the EU … it’s capitalism’. enact what laws it wants, this will control of the places where we work and As capitalism will con# nue to exist a% er prove to be more nominal than real. where wealth is produced and run them Britain withdraws so too will the situa# on Governments cannot control the way the for the benefi t of all. they protested against. profi t system works. It’s the other way While the promises of the Brexiters round. Governments have to adapt their – more money for the NHS, a reduc on policies to fi t in with the economic laws in VAT, higher wages for the unskilled of capitalism which dictate that making Socialist Standard July 2016 3 encouraging when, in mes of perceived behaviour has been documented Guns, Gays and crisis, popula" ons choose to vote for a throughout human history and is also bully or an idiot. known to occur among dolphins, the NRA Then there is the homophobia. The raccoons, lions, giraff es, cats, dogs, Orlando slaughter spotlights this egregious chimps, bison, bears, horses, elephants, THE APPALLING murder last month of feature of Islam which is not confi ned to marmosets, foxes, koalas… to say nothing around 50 people in a gay club in Orlando extremists but is pre% y much endemic. In of the many bird, fi sh, rep" le, amphibian may have passed from the front pages, but the days a# er the shoo ngs some Moslem and insect species. the ramifi ca" ons are likely to linger on. gays in America did try to speak up in In short, rather than homosexuality In the fi rst place there is the shoo ng solidarity with the LGBT community, but being ‘unnatural’ as the gay-haters claim, itself. The gun lobby, in a macabre their problem is that they are despised it is homophobia which is unnatural and way, con" nues to do well out of these by their own religion and so are caught which needs explaining. massacres, and gun sales always spike in between a rock and a hard place, unable One can speculate how homophobia the days a# erwards. The gun lobby argues to speak up for either religion or gay pride. could have developed and become that a lone ‘whack-job’ gunman won’t get Western liberals who draw a discreet engrained into the moral and religious far shoo ng at people who are themselves veil over Moslem homophobia, sexism codes of many early agricultural socie" es armed and able to shoot back. Of course and.. well…veils, really deserve to have (China being an interes" ng excep" on). this is true up to a point, but this then their cowardly arses kicked. Like Jainist If life in the Iron Age tended to be nasty, implies that for maximum safety everyone monks determined to cause no harm, they bru sh and short, with high mortality due should be armed, even school children. cause harm by proxy, refusing to take any to warfare, disease and bad diets, there It’s not hard to see what’s wrong with this kind of stand or defend those who need would have been an urgent need to breed logic. The fact that everyone around you defending. At the same me, moderate new soldiers, farmers and child brides. is tooled up like an extra from The Wild Moslems need to confront their religion’s Those displaying prime breeding a% ributes Bunch is likely to make you feel less safe, endemic sexism and homophobia if would gain high status while homosexual not more so. Society would be drunk with they want to see any real integra" on in behaviour could be seen as le* ng the anxiety and nervous tension. Massacres advanced capitalist socie" es, which is side down. Over me this view could have could be sparked by cars backfi ring. Bar a# er all where the money is. Perhaps become encoded into religious teaching and football fi ghts like the recent Marseille Orlando is a watershed moment, a# er and ‘sacred’ texts which came to global riot would become Taren" no bloodbaths. which the fi re-breathing imams will not prominence in the Middle Ages, where Divorce would be by nine millimetre. Ci es dare to open their bilious mouths and many people s" ll live.
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