Dangerous Women – Harriet Tubman – Paddy Shannon

FAQ It’ll never happen… – Paddy Shannon

FAQ How much Marx do we need to know – Paddy Shannon

Australia’s PM, Scott Morrison,  has accused maritime workers of “extortionate” pay claims, demanding their union ditch industrial action or face federal intervention, refusing to rule out sending in the military if required.

Morrison told reporters in Canberra “we cannot have the militant end of the union movement effectively engaging in a campaign of extortion against the Australian people in the middle of a Covid-19 recession”. “This is just extraordinary, appalling behaviour.” Morrison called on the Australian Council of Trade Unions to distance itself from the MUA.

The health minister, Greg Hunt, said the medicines shortage working group of the Therapy Goods Administration has reported delays. The union says it offered to help prioritise ships carrying medical supplies

The Maritime Union of Australia has accused Patrick Terminals and the government of a “hysterical” response, noting it has already moderated its claims from a 6% pay rise for three years down to below 2.5%.

The union has rejected the claim 40 ships are waiting to be unloaded. MUA Sydney branch secretary, Paul McAleer said the union is “not holding the country to ransom”. “There are not dozens of vessels off the New South Wales coast. There are a couple of vessels waiting to come into Sydney and they will come alongside when the vessels leave. There aren’t 90,000 containers waiting to come. There are no extensive delays. And what we are seeing is just small delays.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/29/morrison-not-ruling-out-sending-in-military-to-settle-patrick-terminals-wharf-strike-while-urging-lawful-resolution

 So the revelation that Trump is a tax-cheat appears to be a surprise for some in the media. However, the fact is that he is doing what the rest of the rich do with US government approval.

“It would be very common for my wealthier clients in the world of real estate to report losses or to break even,” said Robert Keebler who runs a tax advisory firm in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which serves high-net-worth clients. “It’s not something cooked up in some law firm, it’s something Congress devised.”

Experts said it was not uncommon for wealthy business owners to claim holiday homes or hobby farms were businesses whose running costs should be offset against other income, or that private jet flights for weekends away in Miami were business expenses.

However, his tax evasion is small change to the the plunder of Africa’s treasury. 

Africa is losing nearly $89bn a year in illicit financial flows such as tax evasion and theft, amounting to more than it receives in development aid, an estimate, published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. It shows an increasing trend over time and is higher than most previous estimates and it is most likely an underestimate.

“Illicit financial flows rob Africa and its people of their prospects, undermining transparency and accountability and eroding trust in African institutions,” said UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi.

Nearly half of the total annual figure of $88.6bn is accounted for by the export of commodities such as gold, diamonds and platinum, the report said. For example, gold accounted for 77 percent of total under-invoiced exports worth $40bn in 2015, it showed. Understating a commodity’s true value helps conceal trade profits abroad and deprives developing countries of foreign exchange and erodes their tax base, UNCTAD said.

The report calls Africa a “net creditor to the world”, echoing economists’ observations that the aid-reliant continent is actually a net exporter of capital because of these practices.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/28/tax-evasion-theft-rob-africa-of-89-bn-per-year-un-study

 The government are to be congratulated for banning discussion of the abolition of capitalism in schools. 

This will greatly stimulate curiosity in the young and open-minded about what is being withheld from them and give those of us who want to replace capitalism opportunities for clarification.

We can point out that, unlike its twentieth century and current debasements, a sound project for holding society’s resources in common is not only compatible with democratic practice but actually requires it. We can introduce the idea of historical specificity, the fact that social systems are not everlasting and our own will come to an end, however permanent it may seem. 

 The meatpacking industry has suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks, in part because production-line workers often work side-by-side for long shifts. The full picture of how the meatpacking industry has handled COVID-related workers’ compensation remains murky.

Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA’s slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant. JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, denied the family’s application for workers’ compensation benefits, along with those filed by the families of two other Greeley workers who died of COVID-19. Families of the three other Greeley workers who died also sought compensation, a union representative said. JBS has said the employees’ COVID-19 infections were not work-related in denying the claims.

As more Americans return to workplaces, the experience of JBS employees shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting compensation for medical care and lost wages. Tyson has also denied workers’ compensation claims stemming from a big outbreak in Iowa.

“That is the ultimate question: How can you prove it?” said Nick Fogel, an attorney specializing in workers’ compensation. Workers can challenge companies’ denials in an administrative process that varies by state but typically resembles a court hearing. The burden of proof, however, usually falls on the worker to prove a claim was wrongfully denied.

Under Colorado law, a workers’ compensation death benefit provides about two-thirds of the deceased worker’s salary to the surviving spouse and pays medical expenses not covered by insurance. If JBS had not denied the Sanchez family’s claim, that would have provided his widow a steady income and paid uncovered medical bills totaling about $10,000, according to his daughter, Betty Rangel.

“They don’t care,” she said of JBS. “They are all about the big profits, and they are not going to give any money out.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-jbs-colorado-insig/meatpackers-deny-workers-benefits-for-covid-19-deaths-illnesses-idUSKBN26K1X6

The Demoncratic Party is not a left party, not a social democratic party and not even a liberal party. They may differ on several issues from the Republicans, but mostly they survive by creating a false dichotomy. They always find issues to sell Demoncratic voters which are not consistent with their track record and which are only believed because of their undeserved reputation in certain areas. In this, the mainstream media is often complicit. The last time the Demoncrats were in power in the US, exactly just how many people were killed in military actions and as a result of economic sanctions?

First of all, the World Socialist Party has nothing against voting as a mechanism, as a method to decide practical matters, as it is making some decisions once the different positions have been debated and exposed, or as it is the election of some delegate or representative. What’s really important is the context where this mechanism is exercised. Socialists are not against “elections” even if in local or national elections we call not to vote, because of the context in which this vote is exercised. When within the framework of the State, to validate and legitimize the domination of the ruling class over us and we are excluded from decision making then we call for people not to vote in that kind of election. What we are really calling for the votes to be against State and capitalism, not against “elections” as an event. Our opposition, so, is not so much against to voting but it being used to endorse the lesser evil.

Does this mean to be indifferent to elections? Does it mean not to take a stand? Not at all. Our real work is to show, through campaigning, that this system should and ought to be changed, focusing, before anything else, towards strengthening the class struggle and the popular organization of people. Not participating into elections cannot be considered one of the political tenets of socialist revolutionary militancy. Today it is as necessary to build a path for those who seek to take part in the struggle against the capitalist system. Politicians are only interested in two things making you afraid of something and telling you who’s to blame. Both Trump and Biden indulge in fear-fanning and blame-naming. Invent the threat. Point the finger. Create toxic anxiety. 

Do we decide who we vote for on personal or sectional interests and then perhaps the lesser evil applies, but if we vote for our class, a class that transcends national boundaries, then the question is more complex. It is perhaps an observation that it is often difficult to distinguish class interests due to the inevitable clashes within the workers’ movement that the WSPUS approach is the more prescient. Only campaign for socialism and nothing else – there the class interest is clearly expounded.

And it is rarely ever crystal clear in lesser an greater evils. Weren’t we tempted to vote for Woodrow “he will keep us out of the war” Wilson, only to be deceived soon after. 

Capitalism runs politicians, not the other way around. Much importance is put in voting since the “democratic” claim of many states in the capitalist world rests on the franchise; the ability of the population to vote for representatives that will then staff the state apparatus.

Achieving the franchise was a hard fought struggle by many groups who were marginalized by states, thus not considered “full citizens”. Most people in democratic states would probably assume that they have some amount of control over state policy because of their right to vote. Radicals argue for “lesser evil voting”, or “voting as harm reduction”. The idea behind this is that if we get a choice between politicians and we can determine which of them will carry out the least, or most anti-social policies, then we should vote for the former. This “harm reduction”, or “lesser evil” approach. If radicals really want to make a difference in people’s lives, here and now, to “reduce harm” then they have to reckon with their illusions about what capitalism and the State will give them and involve themselves in the class struggle with the victims of capitalism. There is no short–cut, no alternative. One old white politician is not going to be better for them than another old white politician. Anti-Trumpism is the politics of lesser evilism. It subordinates everything to the removal of an enemy that makes all other enemies look acceptable, even those hitherto deemed the most unacceptable. When ‘anti-Trumpism‘ becomes the main basis for a groups activity and relationship with other organisations then it becomes something to criticise and oppose.

it is no part of the Socialist Party to administer bourgeois government more efficiently. It is their business to destroy capitalism, and on the ruins of that system found the free communes of the socialist commonwealth.

 The typical white family possessed eight times the wealth of Black families and five times the wealth of Hispanic families in 2019, according to a Federal Reserve report Monday. Median wealth for white families in 2019 was still much higher, at $188,200, compared with $24,100 for Black families and $36,200 for Hispanics.

 Median income for white families last year was $69,000, compared with $40,300 for Black families and $40,700 for Hispanics.

 Median income among the poorest one-fifth of Americans rose 3%, while median income for the richest one-tenth increased 6%, the Fed said.

The richest 1% of Americans owned one-third of the nation’s wealth. The richest 10% of families owned 71% of wealth, unchanged from 2016.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-health-united-states-hispanics-d575192ae495ac0415f587f02b79bae0

 On May 26, 2020, the Northwestern chapter of the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a forum titled Imperialism and the Left. Panelists were asked to address: What exactly is imperialism? What constitutes (if at all) effective resistance to it? How has the Left historically understood imperialism? Has that understanding been lost? The speakers were Chernoh Bah of the Socialist Party of Cote d’Ivoire; Bill Martin, emeritus professor of philosophy at DePaul University; Johnny Mercer of the Socialist Party of Great Britain; and Sunit Singh who teaches at the University of Chicago and is a member of the Platypus Affiliated Society.

Johnny Mercer: A little bit of background: I am a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) and I have been a supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain since I was 17. Like a lot of people of my generation, I was very radicalized by the Iraq War, and particularly what we saw at the time as the betrayal of the Labour Party by supporting that war. Tony Blair radicalized a lot of my generation and prompted us to form the politics that we have today.

A little about the Socialist Party of Great Britain for those of you that haven’t heard of us. We were founded in 1904as a breakaway from the SDF. At the time, the SDF, the Social Democratic Federation, was dominated by a man named Henry Hyndman. He controlled the party’s printing press and the breakaway was caused partly because of Hyndman’s domination of the party, and partly because the SDF was descending into reformism. Those who that stayed called themselves the “possibilists” because they maintained that what they were doing was possible within the context of capitalism by pursuing reformism, and we became known as the “impossibilists,” which was somewhat of a slur at the time. But we co-opted the slur and now proudly refer to ourselves as being in the impossibilist tradition. The SDF eventually merged into the Labour Party–the same Labour Party that, led by Tony Blair, brought Britain into the Iraq War.

The SPGB maintains that socialism is a moneyless, stateless, worldwide society based on production for human need, and democratic control of the means of production. We are a legalist organization of equals who maintain as Marx did that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. The party has remained consistently critical of Leninism, coining the now widely-used phrase “state capitalism” to describe the USSR as early as 1918, obviously just the year after the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power. Unlike Lenin, but like Marx, we use the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, to refer to the same moneyless, stateless, worldwide social system.

So, imperialism: we maintain that the working class, having only their labor power to sell to survive, have no country. War and imperialism for us are a natural and inevitable extension of the war of the marketplace. In other words, nation-states create wars in the pursuit of natural resources, trade routes, labor markets, and spheres of influence. At certain times, it is inevitable that some capitalist nations dominate others, but we don’t accept Lenin’s notion of imperialist and anti-imperialist nations as kind of fixed categories. The problem with Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, as far we can see, is three-fold. Firstly, we hold that it lacks internationalism. Rather than seeing the world as divided fundamentally by wage labor and capital, workers and the bourgeoisie, it seeks to replace this analysis with the notion of imperialist nations and anti-imperialist nations. The anti-imperialist nations engage in a national liberation struggle to free themselves from the domination of the imperialist nations. As far as we’re concerned, national liberation is the right of the domestic bourgeoisie to conduct their affairs without interference from foreign capitalists.

Secondly, we disagree on Marxist grounds with Lenin’s economic analysis, that goes behind the notion of imperialism that Lenin posits. Accordion to Lenin, there were these super-profits, which is the concept that workers in imperialist countries partake in the exploitation of workers in non-imperialist nations by taking some of the surplus value that is created in the third world or in the non-imperialist world and partaking in the exploitation of these countries. The idea is, basically, that it’s a bribe. There is a top section in the working class in the Western world or in the imperialist world that receives extra capital that is exploited from the third-world working class, that they get in exchange for supporting capitalism and imperialism and reforms. Therefore, Lenin thought that national liberation struggle would deprive the western capitalists and their ability to bribe the western working class. So, we disagree.

Firstly, Lenin’s analysis ignores the labor theory of value. As Marx taught us, labor power’s value is determined like all commodities by the amount of labor power that’s invested in it. So higher wages reflect higher training and skill. It almost requires a kind of conspiracy theory to suppose that capitalists give their workers more than their labor power in order to bribe them. It led to the support of the creation of new capitalist nations to benefit the local capitalist class. So instead of the international working-class struggle, it became about the creation of new capitalist nations. Finally, Lenin’s analysis assumes a form of economic determinism, it assumes quite wrongly that workers are less likely to support reformism the poorer they become; the poorer workers become, the more they’re going to become radicalized. Obviously, quite often the opposite is true. In any case we think that the working class will only support socialism if they understand the case for socialism. So, we posit an analysis that is based on revolutionary activity coming out of class consciousness rather than an economic determinist analysis.

I think it’s worth talking about the legacy of anti-imperialism and where it ended up. Everywhere you look, whether it be in Northern Ireland or South Africa, for workers, at best anti-imperialist struggle has led to the creation of new capitalist states to manage their exploitation. At worst, it’s led to the most violent form of inter-working-class sectarian bloodshed. For example, you have the Marikana massacre in 2012 in South Africa, where 112 workers were shot down. So what was the legacy of the ANC bloodshed, of all the ANC struggle? It boiled down at the end for the rights of black workers, black miners to be murdered by black police, African police, instead of the white police. Or we could look at Ireland, where the Leninists in the various IRA factions, particularly in the 1970s, mostly radical Leninist students joined these IRA factions and conducted all sorts of massacres against working class Protestants and British civilians. A notable example would be the Kingsmill massacre of 1976, where a busload of factory workers returning from a night shift were murdered. Eleven Protestants were killed; one worker was set free because that worker happened to be a Catholic. So, what of those brave Leninist anti-imperialists in Ireland now? In the case of Gerry Adams and company, they now have comfortable, well-paying jobs in Stormont, where Sinn Féin, like all the other parties of Irish capitalism, manage the exploitation of Catholic and Protestant workers alike. So, against Leninist anti-imperialism, the SPGB maintains the working class have no country to fight for. Our interests lie with that of working people everywhere, and the abolition of the wages system and the war and imperialism that naturally and inevitably come with it.

JM: Bill mentions that he considers China to be a capitalist nation and I am interested to hear from whether he also considers China to be an imperialist nation. And Chernoh talks about China, Chinese Imperialism, or Chinese capitalism’s role in Africa, in Sierra Leone. It strikes me as one of the interesting things about the Left, and one of the reasons why I am slightly cynical of this idea of these kind of fixed categories of imperialist nations and any imperialist nations, is that the Left has never seemed to be able to agree on which nations are imperialist and which nations aren’t imperialist. For a long time, particularly from the Maoists, it was said that China was this oppressed nation that needed to be liberated from the imperialist nations. Now of course in the natural development of capitalism, I would say, as a Marxist and a member of the SPGB, in the natural development of capitalism China has now entered the imperialist world stage and is exploiting workers all over the world and oppressing nations or oppressing people all over the world.

From the SPGB’s point of view, we would say that there’s somewhat of an antagonism between Lenin’s idea of super-profits and Marx’s idea of the labor theory of value, as I said in my opening address. Labor power is a commodity like any other commodity and it’s natural that it goes for different prices because some workers have skills that other workers don’t, and that doesn’t rely on this idea of the workers exploiting other workers—workers sort of somehow partaking in the exploitation of other workers. And this to me seems like quite a central bone of contention between what I would consider the orthodox Marxist opinion and Lenin’s conception of imperialism.

Bill made some very interesting points about “foolish wars” and about Donald Trump’s use of the term “foolish wars.” It’s very interesting that Trump seems to be rustling a lot of feathers among the ruling class. I’ve reflected on the hatred amongst the vast majority of the mainstream media that Trump receives, and his hatred within the Democratic Party establishment, and also within the Republican Party establishment. I’d be interested to hear more from Bill about why has that come about? If we’re going to employ a materialist analysis, what are the material circumstances that have changed in America that mean that some subsection of American capitalism supports the Trump project, if we’re withdrawing from the world, taking a step back, and not engaging in these pointless conflicts?

 Q Was the role of the USSR in Eastern Europe after World War II—so since 1945—imperialist?

I think that by any definition that’s been advanced of imperialism, capitalist nations engaging in imperialism, it strikes me that the USSR definitely did engage in imperialism in Eastern Europe. I think all kinds of anti-imperialist struggles against the USSR had pretty much the same features as you’d find in any anti-imperialist struggle in Africa. For example, South Africa or Ireland, where you see that there is a proletarian element to the struggle and there’s also a bourgeois element to the struggle. Ultimately, of course, in the absence of a globalized socialist movement it ends in a bourgeois way. If you take that solidarity union in Poland, or you take elements of the Prague uprising, it clearly is a working-class resistance that also existed against the USSR.

I am from the north of England, from Yorkshire, where the Sheffield steel industry, largely as a result of the trade unions artificially increasing the demand for labor-power through trade union activity, that basically led to the collapse of the Sheffield Steel Industry. And now the Sheffield Steel Industry exists in China because capitalists are constantly going all over the world looking for the cheapest labor power on the market possible. The same way that if they looked for the cheapest coal possible, or the cheapest bricks possible. So I’m just curious to know why anyone would think that a capitalist would purchase somebody’s labor-power for more than its true value and how that mechanism actually takes place in capitalism, because as I said it does fly against Karl Marx’s labor theory of value—and just basic common sense, the basic stuff we know about how capitalists operate.

Q Capitalism for Marx is characterized by an industrial reserve army or a condition of permanent unemployment. It is in response to the threat of unemployment that workers organize themselves in unions to control the labor market. When labor as a commodity, labor-power, is scarce, its price rises regardless of what goes into it—more skills for example. This undermines the power of individual capitalists. The state could step in to break unions, but perhaps an easier way to deal with workers was to export the unemployed or export capital, as Lenin puts it. Can you clarify how you see Lenin at odds with Marx?

JM: To be clear, I do accept, as Marx accepted, that supply and demand affects the price of labor power and I also accept that unions can step in to have some control over supply and demand, but that to me isn’t the same claim as the one being made. which is that the capitalists somehow take this surplus value that they get from the non-imperialist nations—these super-profits—and use it to artificially inflate or boost up the working class of the West. I just haven’t heard a convincing argument or an explanation as to how that mechanism actually takes place. That they would deliberately pay more, without being forced to by unions. And even if they are forced to by unions, I’d like to see an explanation that can actually trace back this surplus capital coming from these super-profits from third world countries or from these non-imperialist countries. It might not sound like a very politically correct thing to say, but the reason that people are paid less in third world countries is because of the way in which those workers don’t have the same skills. The more logical explanation is that there’s more skill and there’s more labor embodied in labor power in Western countries due to the uneven development of capitalism.

Q Sunit made the point earlier that the issue of imperialism is primarily one in the home country rather than in the colony and it is about a crisis of capital in the metropole and the need to export capital rather than how it might be perceived in the present day, as the drive to exploit of resources, as Chernoh indicated. Might this not mark a reversal of historical socialism’s understanding of imperialism?

JM: I think insofar as capital is exported, of course, capitalists look for new opportunities or markets, wage labor, they’ll look for new opportunities to exploit labor, or to purchase raw materials or whatever it is. I think insofar as it’s happened, it has developed western countries, but it’s also been at times against the interests of the Western working class. Maybe we can wind back and talk about labor theory of value. Labor is a commodity that’s determined primarily by the amount of labor power that’s embodied in that commodity. But, for Marx, it’s also a peculiar commodity, precisely because it can create more than its value. And so, when the working class organizes in unions, they’re getting a better share of the surplus value that’s been exploited from them. That is not the same as saying that the working class somehow are part of a chain mechanism that exploits the third world.

Just to be clear, I’m not making any normative claims about the justice of all of this. without saying that capitalism is a very uneven system on a global scale.

Q could you explain your notion of historical debt and what that means for the Left?

JM: The problem is that everybody does do it and everyone has done it. Are you in the business of chasing around the world and getting every nation state or every people that has ever oppressed, or exploited, or murdered another group of people, to pay the debt back? It strikes me as a particular way of rearranging capitalism at the expense of organizing the movement for socialism.

JM: As an Anglo-Saxon, I never did anything to the Normans, but if you look at the British ruling class, it’s still disproportionately of Norman French blood and not of the Germanic Saxon blood that I come from. My granddad was one of the few people that still talked about living under the Norman yoke. It just strikes me as a kind of unending cycle. I am not saying that just because it happened in the past it’s therefore all in the past. I accept that the legacy of these things continue to exist. If we take up for example the issue of repatriations for slavery, I wouldn’t be opposed in principle to repatriations for slavery, though as a socialist and as a member of the SPGB, I don’t support reforms to capitalism. But let’s say I was in Congress and I got to have the decisive vote on whether—I work with low income, mostly African-American kids, low income black kids on the South Side of Chicago—if I had the vote of whether to take some money from a bunch of capitalists in Washington that used slave labor to build up those countries and give a bunch of money to kids on the South Side of Chicago so we could buy new sailing boats and teach them to sail, I wouldn’t be against that, I wouldn’t be opposed it. But I would support it because I’d consider it a victory for the working class in terms of the working class getting back through some state reform some of the surplus value that has already been stolen from them. And that’s very different, it seems to me. One of the problems with this idea of repatriation is it implies a kind of just capitalism. That there was something unjust about the capitalism that existed before, that modern capitalism can somehow redeem. Whereas I think as a Marxist, the only thing that can redeem history is socialism.

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There are two kinds of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about revolutionary change – indeed it may use reforms to oppose such change.

The other kind cherishes the mistaken belief that successful reforms will somehow prepare the ground for revolution. Reforms are seen as necessary first steps on the long road to eventual revolution.



The first type can be summarised thus:

Political parties have already become rival groups of professional politicians with virtually identical policies and certainly identical practices, offering themselves as the best managers of the system. So it would mean that politics would be reduced to pressure group politics as different sections of the population tried to persuade governments—whichever the party in power—to make changes in their particular sectional interest or, in the case of campaigning charities, of the disadvantaged group they have chosen to champion. Political action would consist of lobbying, backed up from time to time by direct action, for reforms in the sectional interest of some group.

Politicians’ logic prevails:



1. Capitalism is terrible.



2. We must do something.



3. Reforms are something.



4. Therefore we must enact reforms.



The second type of reformist the “revolutionary reformist” has certain assumptions which seem to be the following:-



1. The working class has a reformist consciousness.



2. It is the duty of the Revolutionary Party to be where the masses are.



3. Therefore, to be with the mass of the working class, we must advocate reforms.



Further:



1. Winning reformist battles will give the working class confidence.



2. So that, therefore, they will go on to have a socialist revolution.



And just how does the jump from reform-mindedness to socialist consciousness happen? There are three basic models for how this may come about:



1. The working class will learn from its struggles, and will eventually come to realise that assuming power is the only way to meet its ends.



2. That the working class will realise, through the failure of reforms to meet its needs, the futility of reformism and capitalism, and will overthrow it.



3. That the working class will come to trust the Party that leads them to victory, and come a social crisis they will follow it to revolution.



The World Socialist Party rejects the above political strategy and offers its no compromise, no minimum programme alternative .



Fighting for reforms is to fail in the duty of socialists to demystify and dispel capitalist ideology. This is important to note: capitalism is in the end an ideology; everything it does, all of its workings, all of it is a human product, constructed in the minds of humans, and obeyed because it presents itself as the natural law, as the real world, and the realm of the possible.For so-called socialists to fight for reforms then is to fail as socialists, to become enmeshed within the working of capitalism.



The World Socialist Party does not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers’ lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour. Nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms.

But because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Our objection to reformism is that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle.



Socialists make a choice. We choose to use our time and limited funds to work to eliminate the cause of the problems. One can pick any problem and often one can find that real improvements have taken place, usually after a very long period of agitation. Rarely, if ever, has the problem disappeared, and usually other related problems have cropped up to fill the vacuum of destruction or suffering left by the “solution”.



We want the majority in society to take over and run the means of production in the interest of all. However, at the moment these are in the hands of a minority of the population whose ownership and control of them is backed up-and, when necessary, enforced-by the State and its repressive forces. The State stands as an obstacle between the useful majority and the means of production because it is at present controlled by the minority owning class. They control the State, not by some conspiracy, but with the consent or acquiescence of the majority of the population, a consent which expresses itself in everyday attitudes towards rich people, leaders, nationalism, money, etc. and, at election times, in voting for parties which support class ownership. In fact it is such majority support expressed through elections that gives their control of the State legitimacy.



In other words, the minority rule with the assent of the majority, which gives them political control. The first step towards taking over the means of production, therefore, must be to take over control of the State, and the easiest way to do this is via elections.



But elections are merely a technique, a method. The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority; they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule-they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.



The plain fact is that you can’t “Smash the State” while it still enjoys majority support – and when those who control it no longer enjoy majority support there is no need to try to “smash” it because the majority can use the power of their numbers to take control of it via the ballot box, so that it is no longer used to uphold class ownership.



To do so they will need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. This is what we advocate.



The WSPUS doesn’t suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don’t necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group which we are presently, but a mass party that has yet to emerge.

It is such a party that will take political control via the ballot box, but since it will in effect be the useful majority organised democratically and politically for socialism it is the useful majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society.

They neutralise the state and its repressive forces – there is no question of forming a government – and then proceed to take over the means of production for which they will also have organised themselves at their places of work.

This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, re-organised on a democratic basis, and are merged with the organisations which the majority will have formed to take over and run production (the workers councils and industrial unions, the co-operatives, the neighbourhood and community organisations), to form the democratic administrative structure of the state-free society of common ownership that socialism will be.



When the time comes the socialist majority will use the ballot box since it will be the obvious thing to do, and nobody will be able to prevent them or persuade them not to.

The World Socialist Party does not deny that certain reforms won by the working class have helped to improve our general living and working conditions. Indeed, there is little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as “successful”.

There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. Indeed, how could a party composed of workers and committed to the working-class interest be opposed to any measure that improved, however marginally and temporarily, conditions for workers – but our opposition is to reformism, in the sense of a policy of actively seeking reforms.

However, in this regard we also recognise that such “successes” have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has ameliorated the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely.



Reformism means POLITICAL action or pressure put on the state to modify the economic behaviour of capitalism . For example, voting for the Democratic Party to introduce a $15 minimum wage is reformist; joining your local BLM movement is not. There is no attempt to influence the state to introduce reforms therefore it is not reformist – anymore than joining a trade union is “reformist”. Another example could be advocating the abolition of the death penalty which would not be reformist .



What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be made palatable with the right reforms, By that, we mean that we oppose those organisations that promise to deliver a program of reforms on behalf of the working class, often in order that the organisation dishing out the promises can gain a position of power.

Such groups, especially those of the left-wing, often have real aims quite different to the reform programme they peddle. In this, they are being as dishonest as any other politician, from the left or right. The ultimate result of this is disillusionment with the possibility of radical change.



On the other hand, a concession wrung from the capitalists without compensation, such as a reduction of the working day with no loss of daily pay, is a triumph.



The World Socialist Party has always drawn a distinction between reformism and trade-unionism (economic action,against employers, over the price and conditions of sale of labour power). We oppose the former (even if we don’t necessarily oppose all reform measures as such) and support the latter as long as it is one sound lines (democratically organised, recognising that employers are the class enemy, etc).

As socialists, we see in this something that is to the good in the class struggle. These efforts of the workers to combine, either to resist the onslaughts of the master class, or to gain whatever they can, must meet with the support of all workers who understand their class position.The struggle on the economic field must be looked to and encouraged. The particular form of economic organisation through which the struggle is conducted is one which the circumstances of the struggle must mainly determine. The chief thing is to maintain the struggle as long as capitalism lasts.(Things get complicated when trade-unions start getting involved in reformist political action, but then our members in the unions oppose such actions as unsound.)



The World Socialist Party wholeheartedly supports the efforts of workers everywhere to secure democratic rights against the powers of suppression. Whilst we avoid any association with parties or political groups seeking to administer capitalism we emphasise that freedom of movement and expression, the freedom to organise in trade unions, to organise politically and to participate in elections, are of great importance to all workers and are vital to the success of the socialist movement.



In other words, although individual reforms may be worthy of support, the political strategy of reformism — promising to win reforms on the behalf of others — is a roundabout that leads nowhere. Some improvements are made and some problems are alleviated. Yet new kinds of problems arise which require addressing in a society that is forever changing. Or of defending the status quo against some ‘anti-reform’ when gains are being undermined. For the reformer’s work is never done under capitalism.



Another factor to be considered is that organisations that have a commitment to socialism but who also advocate a reform programme were in practice swamped by people who were attracted by their reforms rather than their supposed commitment to abolishing capitalism. In these circumstances,and those those who viewed reforms as a stepping-stone to socialism were themselves swamped by people for whom reforms were simply an end in themselves, palliating the worst excesses of the system.



In 1890 William Morris wrote an essay ‘Where are we now?’, as he left the Socialist League and looked back over his time in that organisation and the Social Democratic Federation. He saw two ‘methods of impatience’, as he termed them.

One was futile riot or revolt, which could be easily put down. – The armed struggle in modern terms .

The other was, to use the then-popular label, ‘palliation’, what we would now call reformism.



Morris (and the WSPUS) resolutely opposed both, since they would be carried out by people who did not know what socialism was and so would not know what to do next, even if their efforts were successful on their own terms. Instead he advocated propagating socialist ideas:



“Our business, I repeat, is the making of Socialists, i.e., convincing people that Socialism is good for them and is possible. When we have enough people of that way of thinking, they will find out what action is necessary for putting their principles in practice. Until we have that mass of opinion, action for a general change that will benefit the whole people is impossible.”



As Sinn Fein was described as the political wing of the IRA, some would describe ourselves as the political wing of the anarchist movement.

 A new analysis by the Health Foundation think tank says poorer areas of England are being less well served by GPs who are struggling to cope with shortages of doctors and less funding per patient than those in wealthier areas. People living in the most-deprived communities are less likely to have a GP appointment, with nurses substituting for doctors in some areas. The Health Foundation added: “While practices in the most-deprived areas have fewer GPs, they have more practice nurses compared to the more affluent areas, which could be resulting in unplanned substitution of nurses for doctors to meet demand for appointments.”

Experts at the Health Foundation estimated that GPs in poorer areas received about 7 per cent less money per patient than less-deprived parts of the country once the increased workload and need of patients in poorer areas were factored in. Once the demand from patients living in poorer areas was taken into account, practices were found to receive about £10 less funding per patient than those serving less-deprived populations.

Doctors working in the most-deprived communities will on average be responsible for the care of almost 10 per cent more patients than a GP serving patients in more affluent areas, the analysis found.  

For every 100,000 people, there were 45 GPs serving the most-deprived areas, compared with almost 49 in the least-deprived areas. In addition, a disproportionate number of GPs aged 65 or older are working in the most-deprived areas, which could make inequalities worse as they leave their roles.

Many practices in the most-deprived areas are less equipped to provide high-quality care compared with practices in the least-deprived areas, the Health Foundation said in its report. Practices were also found to be less likely to perform well in Care Quality Commission inspections and got lower patient-satisfaction scores.  

The report said: “People who live in more socio-economically deprived areas of England are less likely to see a GP when they have an appointment compared to people living in more affluent areas. They are also less likely to report being very satisfied with the overall standard of care at their practice, and on some measures, the care they do receive is likely to be of a lower quality.  This impacts individuals (whose health needs may go unmet) and the wider health care system – with rates of emergency hospital admissions higher among both children and adults living in areas of high deprivation. The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have increased these inequities further.”

Dr Rebecca Fisher, senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation and a practising GP, said: “People living in poorer areas have greater healthcare needs, but GP practices serving our most deprived communities are underfunded and under-doctored. If this government is serious about tackling health inequalities it has to address inequalities of provision in general practice – the front door of the NHS. That means making sure that much-needed extra GPs work in under-doctored areas, and reviewing funding for general practice to make sure that money is being allocated in proportion with need.”

Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We had a desperate shortage of GPs, even before the pandemic, and the experiences over the past six months have only strengthened our case for significant funding to increase and sustain the GP workforce.

“Unfortunately, a decade of under-investment in general practice means patients often face a postcode lottery when it comes to accessing our services. This should not be the case and all patients should have access to the best possible GP care, regardless of their circumstances or where they live.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/gps-nhs-england-health-foundation-patients-b598324.html