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Keynesianism. Borrowing For Growth. US Wartime Experience.

2013-06-18T00:17:00.000+02:00

The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.
History: The Great Depression

After a decade of depression, the great economic innovation in the wartime USA was the creation of an immense flow of credit to support the construction of industrial plant and equipment for the war effort. The US government willed the ends—of vast steel factories, great new production facilities for ships, aircraft, and armaments—and willed the means, by authorising the Federal Reserve Bank to create credit for business expansion. This is the secret of rapid economic development. Allowing banks and the government to create credit allied with businesses borrowing to invest that money, then the economy will prosper.

The public debt and investment credit created to fund these vast programs was rewarded by immense productivity gains made by American industry. From 1938 to 1944, economic growth increasing on average by over 12 percent pa, industrial production booming at over 20 percent pa, productivity per head up by 8.5 percent pa, industrial construction climbing at70 percent pa. USA productivity was up 64 percent per capita. The output of the economy increased in constant $2005 prices from a trillion dollars in 1938 to about two trillion dollars in 1944 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_GDP_10-60.jpg). The USA of 1946 had over 50 percent of the production capacity of the market economies of the world.

But the doctrinaire capitalist US Government regarded economic planning as an unfortunate, neo-socialist wartime necessity. After the war, under President Harry Truman, it abandoned the Investment Credit Creation procedures which had won the war, and all forms of industrial development policy. Consequently, the American economy declined to the modest growth rate of two to three percent pa. First Japan, then China learnt the lessons. Deng Xiao-Ping's China was not scaared of socialism and introduced Investment Credit Creation from the mid-1970s. That is why China has grown so dramatically in recent years. It also points the way for the western world battered by austerity. Socialism is the answer, even if it is limited to war socialism.

More at London Progressive Journal...

State of Play: Euro 2013, Football and Palestine

2013-06-05T21:56:00.002+02:00

Palestinians even have to struggle against the obstructiveness of the Israeli occupation to let their kids play football.

THE COMMON MARKET: Why Britain should not join (John Gollan, 1969)

2013-05-31T22:20:00.000+02:00

Communist Party Pamphlet

Those familiar with the state of Europe today might be surprised if not amazed at the perceptiveness of this criticism of the EEC forty years ago when it was first seriously proposed that the UK should join it. It is by John Gollan, then General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. There is little in the modern EU that the Communist Party leadership did not foresee. Nobody can deny that they were not warned that the EU was a rich man's club aimed at the working people, and so it has evolved.

A big political struggle around the proposed British entry to the Common Market has now been launched.

We are witnessing an unholy political alliance of the leaders of the three main parties, Labour, Tory and Liberal, in a concerted campaign for entry, despite the fact that the majority of the British people are against.
Ostensibly this campaign is presented as a great progressive crusade—into Europe: new frontiers and outlooks suitable to the technological age, a kind of world citizenship overcoming petty national bounds. It is to be the secret cure to Britain’s economic ills.

Never was a more reactionary proposition dressed up in such fraudulent clothing.

In reality what is being undertaken is a gigantic operation in the exclusive profit interests of the great imperialist monopoly concerns, now increasingly operating across national frontiers and with world wide interests.

It is not a proposal for a united Europe but for a permanently divided Europe. It is a proposal to join the most reactionary and imperialist part of Europe dominated by the West European monopolists and super trusts, above all those of West Germany with its aggressive revenge seeking aims.

The Common Market is a closed economic, capitalist, political and military grouping, the answer of West European imperialism to the new conditions arising out of the difficulties created by the advances of the forces of national liberation and socialism after the Second World War. It is anti-planning, anti-socialist, anti-working class. Its economic motivation is so-called “free” competition for the ruthless economic domination of the trusts. The Common Market of the Six, protected by a common external tariff, is the home base from which the monopolists reach out for world trade, with export of capital and neo-colonialism tying the third world countries in associated and subordinate status as cheap raw material suppliers and markets.

Its bureaucratic supranational structure of Commission, Council and Court is designed to subordinate the national states to the supranational interests of the trusts.

It has a vested interest in maintaining the cold war and anti-Sovietism. Its political military expression is NATO in which West Germany is now the dominant European military force.

It is clear, as we will show, why the big British monopolists and the Confederation of British Industry want to enter such a reactionary, dangerous and retrogressive set-up. But this set-up is against the political, economic, social and national interests of the British people.

Not only would it mean tremendous costs: £1,000m a year to the bad for the balance of payments, an increase in the cost of food of 30/- a week for every family, every economic problem made more acute and trade links with the Commonwealth and EFTA undermined. It would also end British control over vital spheres of policy, especially economic, and end British sovereignty. Ultimately the aim is for the creation of a single federal state, controlling foreign and military policy as well, in which the British Government would play a subsidiary role.

The advance to socialism, already rendered difficult by the dominating position of the British monopolies and right wing labour policy, would be very much more difficult in the Common Market of the trusts.

Main characteristics of the Common Market

What is the Common Market, or the European Economic Community, to give it its exact title?

It was set up by the Treaty of Rome, signed on March 25, 1957 by West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg (the Common Market Six). It began to function on January 1, 1958.

The Treaty provided for three basic things: a customs union, an economic union, and certain common institutions.

The customs union, eliminating all the tariffs between member States and introducing a common external tariff applying to imports into the community from outside countries, has been completed.

From the beginning the Market was intended to be more than a free trade area. The Treaty, therefore, prescribes a series of measures of economic harmonisation,—covering such matters as the free movement of capital and labour, a common transport policy, a common fuel policy, harmonisation of tax systems, a common commercial policy towards outside countries, and a common agricultural policy.

If all these measures were carried out the economies of the Six would to a large extent become merged into a single economic union.

How matters have evolved we shall describe below.

Obviously the Market carried big implications of political union or evolution into a single West European capitalist super state. Indeed, its founders clearly put this as an objective.

West German Professor Walter Hallstein, first President of the Market and previously West German Foreign Secretary, described the EEC as a three stage rocket-customs union, economic union, political union. Speaking at Harvard on May 22, 1960, he said:

We are not in business to promote tariff preference or to establish a discriminatory club to form a larger market to make us richer. We are not in business at all. We are in politics.

Financial Times, 23 May, 1960

When Hallstein was West German Foreign Secretary his chief claim to fame was to pronounce the notorious Hallstein doctrine of the West German revenge seekers, that West Germany spoke for all Germany, and that no country should recognise the German Democratic Republic.

Ex-Nazi Dr Kiesinger, West German Chancellor, said just before Harold Wilson’s visit to Bonn in 1967, that “he would tell Mr Wilson that the Common Market was not a commercial structure only, but that it was a political community requiring a modicum of common foreign policy”. (Financial Times, 13 February 1967).

All this, of course, is easier said than done as the Market embodies all the inter-imperialist rivalries, and in particular the threat of West German domination.

The policies are anti-socialist, anti-working class and pro-monopoly. Indeed, as we shall show, the Common Market is tailor made for the trusts.

It is more than a customs union. As Hallstein said in a speech in Brussels in July 1969, it is “an indissoluble union of European states and peoples… an economic area of continental scale. To this end the economic policies of the member states are merged into a Community policy” .

The main aim

The main aims of this general economic policy are quite specific—unimpeded economic competition by the monopolies. All economic measures decided by the EEC are subjected to this policy, with the systematic encouragement of mergers to create super trusts. National economic planning is out.

Harold Wilson is now converted to entry. But it is worth recalling his speech (when he was opposed to entry) in Parliament on June 7th, 1962, when he said:

The plain fact is that the whole conception of the Treaty of Rome is anti-planning, at any rate anti-national planning… the title and chapter headings of Part 1 of the Treaty (of Rome-J.G.) and the whole philosophy of the relevant articles show a dedication to one principle, and that is the principle of competition… what planning is contemplated-a tremendous amount of planning is involved in the Common Market-is supranational, not national, but it is planning for the one purpose of enhancing free competition.

Every major decision of the Common Market authorities has been on these lines.

A committee on medium term economic policy was set up in April 1964. The Commission sent its plans and proposals to the Council in April 1966. The Council then sent them back and the Commission adopted a watered down version. This was only a vague declaration of intent. There were no targets. It laid down that there was to be no state interference with the private sector, in other words with the monopolists. The only state intervention allowed was to ensure “free competition” and to remove obstacles to mergers.

The Community’s Directorate General of Competition, Dr Pieter ver Loren van Thermaat, wrote in an article in the Statist, June 16th, 1962, that…

the keynote of the Treaty (of Rome-JG) is that the desired economic expansion, stability, higher standard of living and full employment, in short, all that happens in the economic field in the EEC is to be the result of free competition and not of dirigist measures.

All this means that once in the Common Market Britain would not be able to introduce any national economic plan, would not be able to control capital movements or to introduce export and import controls, to take measures to control the cost of living or increase taxes against the rich, pursue a policy of regional economic development with subsidies or other state means; in short, to control the main lines of the country’s economic policy.

Incomes policy

The general policy of free competition also means commitment to wage freezing and all the other anti-social policies of the central banks. As Wilson himself remarked in the speech to Parliament already quoted:

I still take the view too that… there are still many employers who are looking to the Common Market primarily as a means of strengthening their hands in a showdown with labour. When one looks at the whole sorry, miserable history of the pay pause over the last year, I wonder whether there is not some reason for thinking that there are some Ministers at least who regard Europe as a means of enforcing the general wage freeze which the Government have been trying to get ever since the Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This was a major reason for the Confederation of British Industry supporting British entry. In its report on the Common Market, Britain in Europe, it declared that increased competition resulting from entry should have “a salutary effect in accelerating structural change in British industry, in bringing about a more efficient use of resources, and in particular a more rational market for labour, and in holding down costs and prices generally.” (p 23)

While in theory there is nothing in the Treaty of Rome which forbids nationalisation, in practice the whole idea is to encourage mergers and the creation of super trusts. In a letter to The Times (Sept 17, 1969), Professor Wedderburn quotes a recent case from Italy:

A Milan court, in Costa v ENEL (1968), Common Market Law Reports, 267, took the view that legislation proposing to nationalise the electricity industry in Italy offended against Article 37 of the treaty, which prohibits discrimination between nationals of member states. The nationalisation legislation was a nullity whatever the Italian Parliament said.

In an EEC booklet—Harmonising Taxes: a step to European Integration—Commission member Hans von der Groeben writes that freedom of capital movement, a key EEC aim, can “be created only if steps are also taken to remove the impediments which company and tax laws place on mergers and the acquisition of holdings across the internal frontiers of the Common Market”.

Maurice Corina, in an article in The Times Business Supplement (February 13, 1969), reports that the EEC Commission “has already submitted proposals to the EEC Council of Ministers to facilitate trans frontier mergers by changing existing company laws. The Commission in its proposals writes that the intentions of the common tax rules suggested are ’as an encouragement to forming larger groups better able to face competition inside and outside the Common Market’ “.

None of the Six countries, says the CBI report already quoted, operates legislation restricting mergers. The opportunity for “large scale operations” is another major reason given by the CBI for entry, and explains why nearly all the big British monopolies, headed by the ICI are fervent pro-Marketeers.

The big trusts are fundamentally imperialist. Most of them have intensive investments in colonial and previous colonial countries. Whether by means of direct colonial rule or neo-colonialism, they use these countries as a source of cheap raw materials, markets and super exploitation.

Second class citizens

One of the purposes of the European Common Market is to maintain the developing countries, and particularly those of Africa, as agrarian hinterlands, providing minerals and agricultural raw materials for European industry and consumption. The major French and West German trusts which dominate the Common Market—such as Krupps, Mannesemann, Rothschilds, Pechiney—are the same giant monopolies which exploit Africa.

African states have no power within the Common Market, but are only allowed “second class citizen” status as associated members, who have to accept the dictates of the Common Market Commission on which they are not represented.

The Development Fund, ostensibly created to assist the African Associated States, is controlled by the European powers. This ensures that the funds provided tend to go on agriculture and such things as roads, communications, etc, rather than basic industrialisation, and that the interests of the European monopolies in Africa take precedence over the development of the African states.

In addition, the African and Asian states suffer from the constant fall and fluctuations of the prices of the raw materials they export to the Common Market, while they have to pay ever rising prices for the manufactures and machinery they import from Europe.

Von der Groeben also makes it clear that the Commission frowns on a policy of subsidies for regional development of backward areas. He writes:

Member states must not entice firms away from other member states, nor must they try to outbid each other in the attempt to attract firms from non-member countries.

&In other words even the inadequate fiscal measures to attract industry to Scotland, the North East, South Wales and Northern Ireland taken by the Labour Government would not be allowed.

Indeed the EEC itself has already pointed out in its Medium Term Plan 1966/70, p.3, that the poorer regions in the individual EEC countries have got poorer still:

Disparities between certain regions of the Community have continued to get worse, some getting the full benefit of economic growth, while some of the least developed, or those hardest hit by technological change, remain to a great extent unaffected by that growth.

Institutions of the Common Market

The supranational apparatus and directing bodies of the Common Market are in effect a gigantic bureaucracy over and above the national governments with the elected Parliaments exercising no control whatsoever.

The main bodies are the Council, the Commission, the European Court, and the so called European Parliament.

The Council consists of a Minister of each of the Six Countries, usually the Foreign Minister, although it could be another Minister subject to the question to be considered, eg if transport, the various Ministers of Transport.

Of key importance is the Commission. It consists at present of 14 members, soon to be reduced to nine. They are appointed by the Six Governments, and act in full independence of the Council of Ministers and the Governments. In theory, they can be removed. If the so called European Parliament passes a vote of censure on it, the Commission then resigns as a body. But in practice this is not remotely possible.

Powers of the Commission include the issuing of decisions which are binding in every respect; recommendations which are binding as to ends but not to means; and opinions, which are not binding.

Acting at the request of the Commission, the Council gives its views on or endorsement of the Commission’s conclusions, and without this endorsement the Commission cannot act on certain matters.

In implementation of the Rome Treaty the Council and the Commission acting together issue regulations which are of general application and have the direct force of law in every member state; directives which are binding in the state to which they are addressed, but leave the way they are to be implemented to the state concerned; and decisions which can be addressed to a Government or an enterprise or a private individual, and which are completely binding. They can also issue recommendations and opinions.

Bureaucracy

The powers of the bureaucratic Commission, therefore, are considerable, as the guardian and policeman of the Treaties, as the executive of the EEC, as the initiator of Community policy and exponent of Community interest to the Council.

Treaty provisions and decisions of the Community institutions are observed if necessary by taking the Government or the offending party to the European Court, that is the Common Market Court.

As the Executive body of the EEC the Commission wields wide powers and is also responsible for the administration of Community funds. It controls the levies and loans of the Coal and Steel Community ($720m between 1952 and 1967); the Euratom research and training programme (outlay $430m between 1963 and 1967); the European Social Fund ($30m a year); the European Development Fund for Overseas Territories ($730m between 1964 and 1969) and the Agricultural Fund of the Community ($2,500m for 1969).

The relationship between the Commission and the Council is intricate. Any measure of general application, or particularly important measures, have to be enacted by the Council of Ministers. But they can only proceed upon the proposal of the Commission. The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Emile Noel, has written:

The Commission thus has a permanent duty to initiate action. If it submits no proposals, the council is paralysed and the forward march of the Community comes to a halt-in agriculture, in transport, in commercial policy, in the harmonisation of laws, or whatever the field concerned may be.

How the European Community Institutions Work,
EEC publication, No 32

Imperialist rivalry

Any combination or union of imperialist power is subject to rivalry, tensions, attempted domination by one or another and conflicting national imperialist interests. The EEC is no exception. This conflict has expressed itself above all in the relative powers of the Commission and the Council of Ministers, the latter operating in general on a modified majority voting system.

This crisis in EEC institutions came to a head in 1965 and was precipitated by France acting to protect French interests against the domination of the others. It led to a seven months boycott of the EEC institutions by France and the paralysis of the market. The main result of this was that some of the powers expected to go to the Commission were given to newly created National Management Committees made up of representatives of the six Governments. These now exist to consider various aspects of agriculture, for monetary policy, for central bank policy, for budgetary policy, for common commercial policy, and for medium term economic policy.

These Management Committees give opinions on those matters on which the Commission can act, although they are not binding on the Commission. In a sense they are national watchdogs on the Commission.

The role of the Commission

William Pickles, who is senior lecturer in Political Science at the LSE and who follows EEC affairs perhaps more closely than most people in Britain, and who as a result is anti-Common Market, considers that the new set-up more or less recognised what had already developed in practice. His conclusion is (How Much Has Changed? 1967) that the total power of the Commission is greater than in 1963 because of the mass of regulations with the power of law turned out by the Community machinery, which require substantial administrative action for which the uncontrolled Commission is wholly or partly responsible.

He sums up the situation in this way:

The Commission proposes after extensive consultations with the national governments or their representatives; the Council considers; Council and Commission negotiate; the Council decides; the Commission applies the decision, combining its immense discretionary powers with extensive consultations with national representatives. (The Commission takes necessary decisions on its own, and supervises the working of the Treaty involving taking the Government to Court if such action seems necessary or desirable). The crucial element of all this procedure is the negotiation between the Commission and the Council…

And he concludes that this complicated process simply could not function if either the Commission or the Council or both continually compelled to refer back to six national parliaments or one supranational parliament if one was set up. (How Much Has Changed? pp 38/9).

The EEC Court, misnamed the European Court of Justice, consists of seven judges appointed for terms of six years by the common consent of the Governments. It considers cases brought by the Commission against the governments for infringements of the Treaties, government appeals against the Commission and appeals from national courts in cases where Community law appears to conflict with the national law of the country. In all cases the decisions of the Community Court of Justice are final, and overrule national law.

The misnamed European Parliament consists of 142 members appointed by the six national Parliaments from among their own members. It is largely a talking shop, utterly useless. In theory the Commission is responsible to it. In practice it is not.

It is important to see what this maze really amounts to.

First, the essential bureaucratic and dangerous nature of the EEC institutions. They are in complete opposition to any democratic control. The decisions arrived at are supranational without consideration, debate, endorsement or control by the more or less democratically elected national parliaments of the Six.

As Hallstein puts it, the decisions of the Community institutions are binding on the member states and its citizens. “They have precedence over all national rules and have to be observed by all national authorities, including in particular the courts.”

Second, the tremendous powers wielded by the Commission, an appointed bureaucracy which in effect cannot be sacked. Again as Hallstein argues: “The Commission is independent, particularly of instructions, from the member states.” This independence, he argues, is indispensable for the working of the EEC. Only in a few exceptional cases can the Council act without the Commission, and he wants the exceptions abolished.

Third, the whole underlying basis of the economic decisions arrived at, the economic ideology of the Market, is for the so called free capitalist competition and promotion of the super trusts.

NATO and the Common Market

These conclusions are enough to condemn the Common Market and its institutions for any democrat, and in particular for any socialist. They are the instrument of the super monopolies. To the extent that the supranational decisions are taken they reflect, not the interests of the common people concerned, but the supranational interests of the trusts.

Formally of course the military and foreign policy matters of Western Europe are not within the competence of the EEC institutions. They are still controlled by the national governments. Because their basis is NATO and the whole cold war policy, more than the Six are concerned, above all the US and Britain are involved.

NATO implies the continued division of Europe. It is aggressive, anti-Soviet and revenge seeking in nature. It implies huge military burdens. Its strategy is based on nuclear war.

It is also anti-working class, a buttress against the democratic and socialist advance of the working class and progressive forces of Europe. NATO was behind the military coup in Greece. Plans for a military coup in Italy have been exposed. No doubt plans for other countries exist.

The imperialist economics of the trusts imply an imperialist military and foreign policy. NATO buttressed by nuclear weapons is to defend the interests of the trusts. Just as the US trusts are the main force driving into West Europe economically, so US imperialism is the main controller of NATO.

At the same time NATO has its tensions and national contradictions. It has resulted in making the West German army the main European military force in NATO. As the European trusts combine to fight the US trusts, so the various proposals emerge, particularly from Strauss and Kiesinger for a “European” nuclear force, a means whereby West Germany could get its hands on nuclear weapons.

All along the British Government has been relying on West German support for Britain’s entry into the market. It may be that the price extracted for entry would be West German participation in the control of British nuclear weapons. This has been said by Douglas Jay among others. It would be a potent weapon in the hands of the Bonn militarists for their revenge seeking aims against the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. It would be a menace to peace.

As we will show, the logical extension of the EEC idea is for a single West European capitalist state in which all aspects of policy, foreign and military as well as economic, are centrally controlled in the interests of the super trusts.

It is no accident therefore that the EEC countries and Britain are the main opponents of the proposal of the Warsaw Treaty Powers for an all-European Security Conference, which could pave the way to the liquidation of military blocs and the development of real allEuropean co-operation instead of the phoney divisive and reactionary “Europe” of the Common Marketeers.

West Europe of the Trusts

The Common Market of the Six which the pro-marketeers want us to join is completely dominated by the big imperialist banks and monopolies of West Europe. Their main political spokesmen are the most militarist and reactionary forces of Europe: Kiesinger and Strauss and the Christian Democrats in Germany, the clerical reactionary and bankrupt Christian Democrats of Italy, Pompidou and the Gaullists in France, buttressed by the right wing of European social democracy.

In ’Vest Germany the big three commercial banks, the Deutsche, the Dresdner, and the Kommerz control a huge range of companies. The Deutsche Bank is dominated by Dr Herman Abs, who was one of Hitler’s closest associates.

In Belgium whole sectors of industry are controlled by the banks. The biggest groups are the Banque de Bruxelles, Lambert, Solvay Coppee and Empian which divide Belgium between them. The Societe Generale de Belgique controls ~20% of Belgian industry. The biggest holdings are in the notorious Union Miniere, one of the outstanding examples of outright colonial ownership and exploitation.

Presiding over the whole scene, reaching even beyond the frontiers of the Common Market, are the Central Bankers, meeting once a month in Basle. These not so shadowy figures have largely dictated Labour Government economic policy, as well as that of the Six. They include Karl Blessing of the Bundesbank, Guido Carlo of the Bank of Italy, Schweitzer of the IMF and O’Brien of the Bank of England, notorious for his attacks on anything remotely progressive. Guido Carlo has said that “The first quality of a central banker is to be cold blooded”. They have all lived up to this maxim with their ceaseless directions for deflation, wage restraint and reduced social services.

Giant mergers

In the Common Market countries, we see the same feverish process of mergers as in Britain, with the emergence there, as here, of the huge super trusts dominating the economy and more and more operating on a world scale.

In France, there were 250 mergers in the 18 months ending mid1968. In West Germany large firms like Siemens and AEG Telefunken are combining their power and engineering interests. MontecatiniEdison have merged with ENI in Italy.

Mergers across the frontiers of the Six have proved more difficult for a variety of reasons. West German and Belgian photographic interests merged in Agfa-Gevaert. The Italian Fiat has been negotiating with the French Citroen. The Compagnie Francaise des Petroles is buying into West German Gelsenburg Oil Company. The Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke of West Germany (one of its two biggest aircraft concerns) has now merged with Fokker of Holland. The Market authorities, as we have pointed out, are now working overtime to encourage transnational mergers in the Six.

Of the 200 biggest corporations outside the US, France has 23 and West Germany 26. Of the 20 biggest corporations in West Europe seven are West German, one French, one Italian and two Dutch. These Common Market trusts have an all-European or world scope. Holland is part owner with Britain of Royal Dutch Shell and Unilevers. Philips and AKU have international ramifications that dwarf Holland’s own economy. Siemens of West Germany operates all over Europe. Farbwerke Hoerst of West Germany has factories in 35 countries.

Despite the illusions created by pro-Common Market propaganda the majority of the trade of the major Common Market countries is outside the Common Market. Naturally intramarket trade has greatly increased. But still only 40% of West German trade is with its EEC partners; the figure for Italy is 40%, and for France 45%’ Only Holland with 55% and Belgium with 60% do a majority of their trade within the Community. (Financial Times, Aug 11, 1969). Their EEC “home” market is the base for their world wide economic operations.

It is the same with export of capital. At the beginning of 1967, West German foreign investment totalled 10 milliards of marks, only 29% of which was in EEC countries.

While the politicians have been talking about entering Europe, the British monopolies have already entered Europe in a big way since the Common Market was formed. The creation of the Customs Union of the Six has been got round to a considerable extent by the opening of British subsidiaries in the EEC countries and the acquiring of subsidiaries. With the process of mergers and take-overs monopoly concentration in Britain has proceeded faster and to a greater extent than in the Common Market countries.

There are now 3 super trusts in Britain with a capital of over £1,000m, compared with 3 in the whole of the rest of capitalist Europe; and 11 with a capital of between £250m and £500m, compared with 16 in the whole of the rest of capitalist Europe (The Times 500: Leading Companies in Britain and Overseas).

We have already noted the position of France and West Germany regarding the 200 biggest corporations outside the US. Britain with 65 such corporations exceeds the combined total of West Germany and France.

British investments in Europe

Of the 20 biggest enterprises in West Europe eight are British or mixed Netherlands-British. They are Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, British Steel Corporation, BP, ICI, National Coal Board, British Leyland and GEC/AEI. Excluding the two nationalised industries, all of them have branches and subsidiaries in the EEC countries; many of them have world wide ramifications.

Royal Dutch Shell, with a budget bigger than that of Switzerland, operates in nearly every country in the world. Unilever has 500 separate companies in 60 countries.

Of the 50 biggest British companies for example, 26 have subsidiaries in Italy, France, West Germany or all three. These exclude Esso, Ford, Woolworths and Vauxhall (US owned) who are included in the top fifty.

In addition to those already mentioned we find Shell Transport, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Courtaulds, Rio Tinto Zinc, English Electric, GKN, Bowaters, Hawker Siddeley, Dunlops, Burmah Oil, P and O, Reed Paper, Tube Investments, British Insulated Callender Cables, Coates-Paton, Ranks, British Oxygen, Vickers, Ocean Steamship, Plessey, British Cocoa and Chocolate.

In 1968 the number of British firms with subsidiaries in the Common Market countries or shares in firms there was 121, compared with West Germany’s 76, France’s 45 and Italy’s 20.

We do not want to overestimate the position, but by the end of 1965 British investments, other than oil and insurance, in Common Market countries was £353m (large companies only) out of a total of £1,727m in the non-sterling area (Board of Trade figures). These figures must have grown greatly, because British investment in France, for example, has doubled since 1965.

British penetration into the Common Market countries is only exceeded by that of the US, whose affiliates or subsidiaries in the Common Market countries amount to 216 compared with Britain’s 121.

Since 1958 the US has invested 10,000m dollars in West Europe, more than a third of their total invested abroad. Servan-Schrieber in his book The American Challenge, p 22, writes: “The Common Market has become a new Far West for American businessmen. Their investments do not so much involve a transfer of capital, as an actual seizure of power within the European economy.” While still currently less than 10% of the total value of the European corporations, US investment is growing swiftly and is of enormous strategic value. As early as 1963, US firms in France controlled 40% of the petrol, 65% of the photo-film, 65% of the farm machinery, 65% of the telecommunications and 45 % of the synthetic fibres. On a European scale they controlled 15% of the consumer goods, 50% of the semi conductors, 80% of the computers and’ 95% of the new market of integrated circuits.

Nine tenths of American investment in Europe is financed from European sources and Servan-Schrieber remarks: “In other words we pay them to buy us”.

Ten per cent of British manufacturing industry is US owned. If recent trends continue by 1980, 20-25% will be in US hands. (Dinning, The Role of American Investment in the British Economy, PEP.1969, p 124).

It is no wonder that these British monopolies are the main force pressing for British entry into the Common Market.

Transnational super trusts

The reason for the pressure of the trusts for entry is not hard to find. The Common Market structure of supranationalism is tailor made to suit the supranational activities of the monopolies. It could pave the way to transnational monopolies on a Western European scale, the logical extension to a West European stage of the merger movement in Britain, West Germany, France and Italy, the “European” finance capital answer to the American financial challenge—for the British trusts the next stage in the world conquest of British big business. That this is the aim has been made clear by Charles Villiers, managing director of the Government sponsored Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. Referring to the EEC Commission, he said:

I believe it has a function in encouraging and promoting the integration and concentration on a transnational basis of European industry. For such a purpose, the Commission would need a new institution which could be created after drawing upon the experience of similar bodies to the LRC.

Times Business News, Sept 19, 1969

Already the British super trusts operating across the frontiers find their “national” Governments, markets and financial and economic restrictions inadequate for their needs. They are finding ways and means of bypassing them.

Charles Levinson, Secretary General of the International Federation of Chemical and General Workers’ Unions has exposed their working in Britain (see the Guardian, May 24, 1969). The monopolies price as low as possible parts, materials, etc, transferred from a plant in a country where taxes are high to branch plants in another country.

The aim is to make the least possible profit with the object of minimising taxation. In return the monopoly will fix prices as high as possible in countries with low income taxes or profits taxes. Ultimately this process can end up in the collection or accumulation of profit in tax havens where profits can usually be hidden tax free. It is estimated that almost 25% of British exports are now accounted for by intracompany transactions and subject to transfer pricing. Levinson concludes:

Such activities by some of the major British companies like ICI, Dunlop, Bowater, etc, have contributed much more to the recurring weakness of sterling than any number of strikes or consumer buying.

The Common Market and its institutions are the monopolists’ dream and the monopolists’ creation.

Britain and the Common Market

Opposition to British entry into the Common Market is formidable and widespread among the British people, and especially in the labour and trade union movement. If all the forces against were united into a single mass political campaign British entry could be prevented. It is important therefore to be clear regarding the major reasons for opposing entry.

The real arguments for British entry have long since been exploded. We were told that in joining we would link up in a fast growing economic community, and that by some magic and undisclosed way British growth rates would start approaching those of the major EEC countries.

These superior growth rates however were not due to these countries combining in the Common Market. They started in each country in 1953, four years before the Treaty of Rome and six years before the first stage of the Common Market.

Total growth rate for the Six as a whole was 9% a year during the years between 1948 and 1958. It fell to 7.2% a year between 1958 and 1965 and was only 2% a year between 1965 and 1967. (Quoted figures: Kahn, Economie et Politique, June 1969).

Market membership in addition has not stopped economic fluctuations in the Common Market countries. Before the first stage of the developmen t of the EEC was reached, France had a period of economic stress worse than our own with devaluation and deflation. She underwent a similar period of restriction in 1964/65. Italy went through the same experience in 1963. In 1966 both West Germany and Holland experienced economic difficulties similar to those of Britain which were met by similar deflationary policies, and in Germany the unemployment level was the same as ours. Now France has devalued again (without consulting her Common Market partners, a violation of her Treaty obligations) and introduced a new round of deflation.

The reasons for the particular severity of Britain’s economic plight are well known: economic policy sacrificed to the balance of payments problem, the root of which is capital expenditure abroad and military expenditure overseas. Hence the dreary rounds of huge taxation, wage freeze, economic restriction and low growth rate. Entry into the Market will not solve these problems.

Indeed Harold Wilson made precisely this point in his Parliamentary speech already quoted when he was against entry:

The whole House knows… that in Europe or out of it this country can achieve economic strength and virility only by our own efforts, by our skill, ingenuity and our capacity for organisation and also by our sense of purpose and the ability to manage our national economic affairs with a good deal more intelligence and vision than have been manifest in the last few years.

It’s a pity he doesn’t re-read his own speeches because the reason we are in a worse plight today than in 1962 is because he has carried out exactly the same economic policies as his Tory predecessors.

It is then argued that in the EEC we would have free access to a market of 200 million. But in order to do so we would have to break up EFT A, a market of 110 million. The whole system of Commonwealth preference would have to be dismantled, creating new obstacles to British trade in a market of 700 million (true the majority of which is much poorer than that of Europe).

It was even argued that non-membership meant our exclusion from the 200 million of the Common Market. On the contrary, British trade with the EEC countries has grown significantly. British exports to West Germany have gone up from £124m in 1958 to £323m in 1968; to Italy from £66m to £160m and in the same period increased to £253m to France. West Germany became our second largest export market in 1968, ahead of Australia. France was our third best customer for capital goods.

While these arguments for entry are demonstrably phony, there is no doubt that entry will seriously affect Britain’s already chronic balance of payments problem.

The Financial Times wrote on 4 Aug 69:

New studies now under way in Whitehall suggest that the balance of payments cost to the UK of joining the EEC will be a great deal higher than the £5oom. per annum estimate given by Mr. Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, to the House of Commons in 1967. The range now appears in the £500m. to £I,ooom. bracket; and there are in Whitehall economists of repute whose own estimate would be nearer the top end of the range.

Even if we struck an estimate of £750m, the effect would simply be disastrous.

One of the main reasons for this is the Common Market agricultural policy. Under this we would have to pay EEC prices for home produced food (very much higher than ours), impose levies on imports from the Commonwealth and be expected to buy food produced by inefficient French and German farmers. By this item alone the cost of living for the average family in Britain would go up by 30/- a week.

Other factors adversely affecting our balance of payments would be the decontrol of capital movements and possible loss of exports due to increased costs. As Douglas Jay said in a speech at Oxford (Morning Star, 16.6.69):

Every informed person now knows that joining the European Economic Community in its present form, and with its present policies, would make much more insoluble precisely those difficulties from which Britain is now suffering.

The situation would be worse all round and the Government knows this. But it is hell bent on joining, because it puts the interests of the big monopolies in the growth sectors of the economy before the interests of Britain. They and they alone would benefit. They are the driving force for entry.

Labour mobility

Market policy regarding the movement of labour, wages and taxation would have big implications for Britain.

Free movement of labour between Common Market countries is aimed for by the end of 1970. The general idea here is that if a vacancy in a member country is not filled within three weeks, it will be open to a worker from another member country. This worker would be able to renew his labour permit within one year, take any job for which he is qualified after three years, and after four years, any kind of paid job as if he were a national of the country concerned.

Such labour would tend to be the unskilled and would be difficult to train and absorb. The implications of all this are so big that provision exists for the revoking of these measures if a recession should occur.

Such free entry of continental labour would exist alongside the present restrictions on the entry of coloured immigrants. In a pamphlet issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 1962, Val Schur commented…

…such an influx could clearly create problems in the United Kingdom. There could also be serious political repercussions if as a result of the Immigration Act, Commonwealth immigration is restricted while the movement oflabour from Europe is freed.

Labour in Britain and the Six, p 14

Equalisation of hours, pay and holidays is supposed to proceed in an upward direction, although levels are not fixed. This is generally assumed to mean that there would be an upward movement for the lower paid countries and industries, while the higher paid would be held back waiting for others to catch up. Any trade unionist will know how this will be used to lower wages and conditions rather than raise them. This has been the experience of all the spurious wage restraint arguments about the higher paid sacrificing to assist the lower paid.

Taxation

The general EEC policy relating to tax harmonisation and social security financing would almost certainly have a serious adverse effect for the British working class.

The financing of social security in the Six means big payments by the workers and employers. State payments are relatively small. In most of the Six (with the exception of France and Italy) workers’ contributions are much higher than in Britain, and in all of them employers’ contributions, in view of the rather small state contribution, are very much higher. The importance of the state contribution in Britain is that it comes out of general taxation. In other words, the rich make a contribution.

So the British worker would pay more individually. The state contribution would be reduced. The employers’ contributions would increase, but of course, these are in effect employers’ costs which are passed on in price increases. All round, therefore, the British worker would be worse off if the EEC method of financing social security was enforced.

One major EEC tax proposal is to introduce a uniform value added tax on all goods produced. This would replace the selective purchase tax which now operates here. If proceeded with in Britain it would shift taxation still more from direct to indirect taxation. In other words, it would make our already retrogressive taxation system even more retrogressive, bearing even more heavily on the poor than the rich.

But an even greater cost to Britain than those stated so far would be the loss of control over Britain’s economic future.

What are these vital spheres of our life in which the Common Market would reign supreme over the British Parliament and British law? They are:

Export and import policy, tariffs and regulation of trade and balance of payments policy
Farming policy
Policy regarding control and direction of the monopolies
Policy regarding Steel, Coal and Atomic energy
Banking policy (ultimately)
Transport policy (ultimately).

With these vital powers in the hands of the Common Market, British control and direction of the economic life and functioning of Britain would virtually cease to exist. In other words the type of economic counter programme now demanded by the left would be impossible once we were in the Common Market.

At present we have the power to compel Parliament to change Government policy. What we need is the mass effort to win change. Once in the Market Britain’s Parliament would lose its exclusive control over these vital spheres of economic policy. They would be vested in the EEC Commission and Council.

The arguments of the monopolists for going in are clear. As we have said the bureaucratic supranational anti-democratic set-up of the EEC and its economic philosophy are tailor made to their needs. Already the problems arising from mergers are alarming the labour movement. The extreme difficulties of the fight against redundancies, the closing down of factories and mass unemployment caused by the GEC/AEI merger, and that of BMC/Leylands and others are well known. If the struggle against these super-giants is difficult now, what is it going to be like when the ICI links up in a transcontinental merger with a West German and/or French and Italian counterpart, and the GEC, British Leylands and the others do likewise? This, as we have shown, is one of the main purposes of EEC economic doctrine. These trusts would not only play off the workers of one region of the country against another as of now, but the workers of one country against the workers of another.

Even now the merger movement is reaching the transcontinental stage and raising these problems.

A free hand for super trusts

In an article in The Times Business Supplement of August 20, 1969 entitled, “When Companies Span the Frontiers”, Michael Shanks writes of “the divergence between the global planning of transnational corporations and the national planning of the various host governments.” He points out that these giants want rationalisation and mass production on an international basis “to exploit national differences in factor (especially labour) costs”, and so on. He wants some kind of deal, as he puts it, between governments and transnational monopolies. At present the Labour Government could act on this problem if it wished and take action against these giants.

But of course once we were in the Common Market these transnational trusts would be given more or less a free hand. The Government would be forbidden to take state economic action to stop this whole process. As we have pointed out above, they would be forced by Commission regulations to facilitate the growth of the super-monopoly.

At present, given mass movements and struggle, we can utilise our system of political democracy, which the monopolies are trying to undermine, for action on the lines the movement is fighting for. Once in the Common Market the sovereignty of the British Parliament would be fatally undermined. The pro-marketeers, John Pinder and Roy Price, in their Penguin, Europe After de Gaulle, admit:

It is certainly the case, nevertheless, that membership even of the European Community as it exists today would mean a more formal pooling of sovereignty, and over a wider area of policy making (than British membership of the UN and other bodies, JG). It would mean that a British Government would be required—eventually, if not immediately —to accept majority decisions taken in the Council of Ministers. The British Parliament for its part would have no opportunity to amend or reject these decisions. British Courts, too, would be obliged to implement rules agreed to by the Community institutions.

This, of course, would please the monopolists. It should be rejected by the British people.

Parliament no longer supreme

Just what this loss of sovereignty would imply was spelled out by Lord Dilhorne, then Tory Lord Chancellor, in a speech in the Lords in the Common Market debate of August 2nd/3rd, 1962.

The Common Market organs of Government “in the spheres in which they operate”, he admitted, have supernational powers which override those of each country’s parliament and law courts. Any regulations of the EEC must be given immediate effect in British law. Parliament would not even have the right to debate them. And the Chancellor warned “should they conflict with existing (British) statute or case law, they would override it…”

In the case of directives, he said, Parliament would have to pass immediate legislation to make the directive operative.

Lord Dilhorne concluded “So, my Lords, to the extent I have mentioned, in the case of both regulations and directives, the legislative functions of Parliament would have to give way to that of the (Common Market) Council and Commission.” Our courts, he said, “would be called upon to enforce the decisions of the European institutions and the judgements of the European Courts…”.

The cornerstone of Britain’s political constitution is the sovereignty of Parliament. Sir Ivor Jennings has said, “the supremacy of Parliament is the constitution.” The Treaty of Rome can only be applied to Britain’ by Act of Parliament.

Lord Dilhorne tied himself up in knots in his vain effort to reconcile the sovereignty of Parliament and the Treaty of Rome. He said, “But while Parliament’s power to repeal the Act applying the Treaty remains, and cannot be fettered, I am not implying that it would be right for us to repeal it”. When a lawyer uses “right” he means “legal right”. This is clear when he continued: “The Rome Treaty is not limited in duration, and there is no provision for its termination. Parliament could repeal the Act applying these Treaties; it cannot be prevented from doing so”.

“But”, he went on, “it must be recognised that in international law, such a step could be justified only in exceptional circumstances; and if it were taken without such justification, and without the approval of other member states, it would be a breach of the international obligations assumed on entry into the Common Market.” (Our emphasis.) The pro-marketeers and the profit patriots therefore are prepared to sacrifice British sovereignty to enter the Market. Whether in fact they could is another matter. For them profit comes before country. This is something, which when fully grasped, the British people, we are sure, will never tolerate.

It can be argued that British entry would give the British Government membership of the EEC Council and the Commission, and that they would therefore influence their decisions. This argument misses the point. Not only would the British Government merely be one amongst many, but it would be bound by the rules, philosophy and outlook of the Treaty of Rome and all the body of decisions already taken by the EEC institutions which have the power of law.

Future Developments in the Market

The transitional period in the Market comes to an end in January 1970. By then the decisions are to be taken which will take the Market on the next stage beyond the confines of a customs union and toward economIC umon.

Considerable difficulties have occurred in development of Market basic policy and institutions due to the complex problems involved, and the national antagonisms and conflicts of interests.

This was seen on the Common Agricultural Policy, which was only evolved with the greatest difficulty and to meet French interests more than others. The problem here was the large peasant agriculture, often inefficient. The aim of the complex system oflevies and subsidies, which has resulted in a dear food policy, was to put the small peasant out of business and develop large scale agriculture. It has resulted in making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Six million peasants were driven off the land between 1950 and 1963, and at present the policy eliminates half a million from the land each year. All this has encountered great peasant opposition.

The CAP has not only resulted in dear food, but huge agricultural surpluses. The system of agricultural support payments will reach £833m. this year. It has been calculated that if Britain entered she would have to pay half of the support payments.

With the latest French devaluation which would have resulted in an 11% price increase to the French farmers, the CAP has been thrown into confusion. The market price now paid to French producers has been reduced to offset the devaluation gain, with the French ordered to levy border taxes on French products and subsidies on imported farm products of her Market partners. The result has been to isolate French agriculture from the other Five for a year.

And the Daily Telegraph (August 13, 1969) commented:

The Common Market has in effect suspended (for a year, JG) its most prized achievement, the common farm policy of the Six, as a result of French devaluation.

Difficulties have been encountered too in relation to the coal and steel community. The problem here was the contracting nature of these industries. The proposals for closures and rationalisation ran into acute national opposition. The EEC Chairman of the Committee on Energy Policy, M Lapil, has written:

So far from being a basis of European unity, energy has become a pocket of resistance to integration.

Development of the main body of economic policy has proved complex. The moves to concert taxation proposals in order to promote mergers we have already commented on. “Free” movement of capital is so obviously in the interests of the trusts, that it will be pushed ahead. Work on the uniform value added tax is proceeding. Final agreement on a common transport policy has been postponed to 1972. Harmonisation of social policies has been achieved in relation to workers moving from one country to another.

A common commercial policy, which if carried out would mean no more trade agreements by individual Market countries with non-EEC countries, will almost certainly promote trouble. Agreement on monetary policy has received a heavy blow with French unilateral devaluation without prior consultation with her Market partners. It is clear that these matters will all be pressed ahead, despite acute national difficulties, if the Market is not to collapse. But why should Britain be involved in all this?

The aim, a federal state

All this poses still more sharply the development of the EEC into a single federal state with a common foreign and military policy and budget, as well as a common economic policy to override national differences.

Indeed, even now, if the main economic policy making decisions of a state are delegated to the EEC, it becomes increasingly difficult for that state to pursue a fully independent foreign and military policy.

The federal state has always been the aim of the founders of the EEC, although so far resisted by de Gaulle’s France.

It has been argued that a federal parliament of a single West European state is necessary to better “control” the Commission and the Council, and to get “democratic” control of the funds for which the Commission is responsible.

In a federal parliament, whether appointed from existing parliaments or directly elected, the British population would be represented on the basis of one sixth of the population of the 300 millions involved. If represented on the basis of representation of the existing “European” Parliament, Britain would have 36 seats, with Scotland allocated 2 or 3, and Wales 1.

We would be virtually sunk without trace.

What powers would this federal parliament in fact have? Precious few. It has already been pointed out that the Commission-Council decision making machinery of the EEC is essential for the working of the Market. This machinery could never work if its decisions had to be referred back to a federal parliament. The essence of any modern federation is the concentration of power at the centre. Already the national parliaments have lost their competence regarding policy making vested in the EEC. If these powers were extended to include the budget, military and foreign affairs, the federal parliament would lack any real power at all.

Instrument of cold-war

Whatever the pious arguments of “democratic” control, it is clear that the monopolists want a super state.

As we say this has always been the argument of the founders of the EEC. In his speech on the problem of British entry in July 1969, Hallstein argued that the ultimate purpose of future Common Market development “is the creation of a European Federal State”.

The social-political aims of the great European trusts dominating the Market are to transform it into a political-military federation, as the latest instrument of the cold war, permanently dividing Europe.

This dream of “European unity” expressed in the slogan of the “United States of Europe” in the First World War, and later of Hitler’s “New Order”, is succeeded by the federal West Europe of the Common Marketeers. But uneven development is a law of capitalism, and whatever the form of the alliance, it will be dominated by the strongest power within it. Today that power is Western Germany.

The contradictions between the imperialist powers inside and outside the Common Market have been demonstrated at every stage of its development.

In the beginning Britain contracted out, counterposing to the Common Market politics of France and West Germany the so called Anglo-American special relationship, and building up EFTA. France and West Germany opposed British entry.

Now things have changed as the Common Market has consolidated. The British trusts want to go in. America encourages British entry, amongst other things with the idea that Britain would be America’s Trojan horse within the Market.

As West Germany has gained in military and economic strength, she supports British entry. Kiesinger and Strauss feel confident that they will be able to control Britain within the Market.

It is no accident therefore, that the main advocates of the federal idea are Kiesinger and Strauss, who even see a West Europe Federation, with a “European” nuclear weapon under their control, facing up as a rival to the United States. In his Grand Design, Strauss visualises a European federation with “the reduction of national states to the standing of the present provinces of the German federation”, the purpose being to “provide a framework in the Atlantic and European context for a German policy”.

It is not only the West Germans who are talking about federalism. So are Heath and the Tories as the spokesmen of the British trusts. George Brown too, speaking at the Council of the West European Union at The Hague (The Times, 5.7.1967), said:

We believe that Europe can emerge as a Community expressing its own point of view and exercising influence in world affairs, not only in the commercial and economic, but also in the political and defence fields.

In their Penguin, Europe After de Gaulle, John Pinder and Roy Price “envisage” the new federal Europe complete with a single budget, army and foreign policy, remarking “a federal Europe would probably be capable of becoming in time a nuclear super power” (p 130).

But what kind of Europe would it be? Not Europe at all; at most, 10 or 12 out of the 30 European states. Their common characteristic would be the cold war, hostility to socialism perpetuating division and the danger of war. Their Europe would be dominated by West Germany.

The aim is to create a mammoth aggressive capitalist power grouping, menacing the socialist states, eXploiting hundreds of millions of European workers, Africans and Asians.

To sum up:

British entry to the Common Market would increase the cost of food by 30s. a week for an average family.
It would add as much as £1 ,ooom. a year to our balance of payments defici t.
It would hit British agriculture and trade with the Commonwealth.
It would increase social security payments and make our taxation system more retrogressive.
It would deprive Britain’s Parliament of sovereign powers over a whole range of vital economic questions.
It would open the way to still greater mergers on a transcontinental scale.
It would place British economic life under an undemocratic and uncontrolled super bureaucracy acting in the interests of the trusts.
It would further intensify the division of Europe, placing Britain with the most militarist anti-socialist forces, and in particular West German militarism.
It would increase the danger of war.
It would make the struggle for socialism harder as it makes the trusts stronger.

This is the ugly reality behind all the “European” talk and verbiage. The British people should have none of it.

A real policy for Europe and Britain

The most sinister aspect of the new campaign for British entry to the Common Market is that it comes at a time when a new effort to overcome the division of Europe is overdue.

The vast majority of the British people want an end to the cold war. No one now really believes the myth which so long sustained the cold war, that the Soviet Union was poised ready to conquer Europe. But they are alarmed at the renewed growth of West German militarism and the rise of neo-Nazism. They seek an end to NATO and the division of Europe into two rival military blocs, just as they are struggling for an end to American aggression in Vietnam.

They see no point in the continued stationing of British troops in West Germany, and the crippling military expenditure overseas which is such a damaging factor in Britain’s adverse balance of payments.

The TUC has demanded the ending of the military blocs, the withdrawal of British troops, and East-West understanding, and large votes were cast at the Labour Party Conference for these proposals.

Not only would British entry into the Common Market be economically disastrous for Britain and undermine its national sovereignty; it would deepen the division of Europe, increase East-West tension and increase the danger of war.

This may be in the interests of the great imperialist monopolies seeking to extend their power on a transcontinental scale, but it is against every vital national interest of the British people.

Warsaw Pact Appeal

In March 1969 the Warsaw Treaty Powers, headed by the Soviet Union, made an important call to all European States, irrespective of their social systems, for peace and security in Europe.

Present day Europe, the call pointed out, “means over 30 states, large and small, differing in their social systems, locations and interests. By the will of history, they have been fated to live side by side, and no one can change this fact”.

Pointing out that the peoples want to prevent a new conflict and emphasising the responsibilities of governments, parties, political and public leaders to preserve peace, they exposed those forces “which regard as assets for European development, not the settlement of disputes and peaceful agreements, but additional divisions and missiles, and fresh military programmes worked out for decades ahead”.

They called for an all-European Security Conference, inclusive of all states to “make it possible to find ways and means which would lead to the ending of the division of Europe into military groupings, and to the establishment of peaceful co-operation among the European states and peoples.”

Here is the way to end both NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organisation, and replace them by an all-inclusive European security system. It is the exact opposite of the Common Market and a Federal West Europe. It is what the people want. This, not the Common Market is the first step towards overcoming European division, and to a Europe of all thirty states united for peace and economic and social co-operation.

A number of European states have responded positively, including Finland, Denmark and Norway. But not Britain, West Germany or the Common Market Six. Yet it would be a major step to overcoming the division of Europe, which a closed economic and political grouping such as the Common Market intensifies.

But the call of the Warsaw Treaty Powers involved more than this. It pointed to the next stage, to the strengthening of political, economic and cultural contacts among all states on the basis of equality and respect for the independence and sovereignty of all European States.

“A firm system of European Security” the call pointed out, “will create the objective possibility and necessity for implementing through joint efforts major projects in power, engineering, transport, water and air space which have a direct bearing on the welfare of the population of the entire continent. It is precisely this common factor that can and must become a foundation for European co-operation.”

All-European co-operation

Working on such lines, real all-European co-operation would be raised to a level never before seen. This would be of the greatest importance for Britain and British technology.

In place of the closed economic grouping of the Common Market, we could see a further all-round lowering of tariffs and a vast expansion of East-West trade, which would be of enormous importance for Europe as a whole. The further development of the policies of the Common Market and particularly British entry would disrupt this hopeful perspective.

In place of the disruption of Commonwealth trade, which British entry into the Common Market would bring, we counterpose the conscious and systematic expansion of such trade, in particular by long term credits and trade agreements on favourable terms. A big expansion of trade with the so called underdeveloped nations is possible and is badly needed.

The co-operation of all European states, which we counterpose to the Common Market, with the consequent liquidation of military blocs, would release huge resources from armaments spending and overseas military expenditure. These could be made available for housing, education, social services and pensions. Ending such military expenditure overseas would be a vital contribution to a drastic reduction in Britain’s balance of payments problem.

Entry into the Common Market, on the other hand, means the continuation of the military blocs and the crippling arms burden.

Instead of undermining British sovereignty and the power of Parliament and giving up control over the most vital areas of economic policy, which entry to the Common Market entails, we should, by mass political campaigning, ensure that that sovereign power is used to introduce an entirely new alternative economic policy in Britain. Such a policy has been advanced by almost the whole of the left in Britain.

We could end the credit squeeze and the incomes policy, and ensure economic growth by heavier taxation of the rich, introducing a drastic wealth tax and an increased profits tax.

We could take the necessary measures to control trade, reduce the export of capital and realise the overseas assets of the trusts to liquidate our foreign debts and end dictation by foreign bankers.

We cannot allow the ever growing mergers which result in ever greater super trusts, closures and mass redundancies, and the social death of entire towns and areas. These trusts make a farce of democracy and any social and economic planning. Above all, we cannot stand by and see these national giants become even greater transnational giants, with the various national governments as their pawns, playing off the working class of one country against another. Entry into the Common Market would pave the way to this danger. Indeed, it is already happening.

Economic and political power go together. The monopolies are opponents of democracy and the whole democratic process. More and more they and not the Government are taking the main economic decisions that decree the economic and social future of the country.

Today the representatives of the big monopolies, who already occupy key positions on various state boards, are attacking the parliamentary system and calling for a coalition government, or a government of “businessmen”.

They see the trade unions and working class organisations as their main enemies and have been the driving force of the attack on the unions and the advocates of anti-strike legislation. They want to put the working class and trade union movement in a legal straitjacket.

Whatever the immediate measures fought for by the trade unions to prevent the consequences of these mergers for the working class, everything points to the need to nationalise these great trusts and make them the property of the people. Only by this means can we ensure the economic and political future of Britain in the interests of the British people.

The further development of monopoly power is incompatible with the further development of democracy. The issue is—who is to control our future? Shall it be the trusts, or are we going to fight forward to a democratic people’s Britain advancing on the road to Socialism?

In the meantime, the trade unions of Britain and Western Europe should co-operate for united action and a concerted strategy to defend and advance working class conditions against these trusts, which now operate across the frontiers of Europe.

This, then, is the real answer to the Common Market, to all the spurious talk of “Into Europe”, designed to perpetuate European disunity.

It is a call for the ending of military blocs and closed economic groupings, for real all-European co-operation, for peace, security and economic and social advance.

It is a call for a new progressive economic policy at home.

We appeal to all who realise that Britain’s best interests demand that we stay out of the Common Market, to unite regardless of differences, to defeat this new campaign for British entry.

Let us say No to the Common Market, but Yes to Europe-all of Europe-to preserve peace, end military blocs and advance all-European social and economic co-operation irrespective of social systems.

Our Wars are Illegal: Accounting for War Press Conference

2013-05-23T22:05:00.001+02:00

The Worst Crimes in UK History

by Jim McCluskey, reposted from Dissident Voice, May 20th, 2013

In a time of peace the West is permanently at war. Massive standing armies are continuously fed their natural fare. And, incredibly, the myth of the UK being a peace-loving country is sustained by a “liberal” media who endlessly regurgitate the spurious justifications of the political elite. There are currently only two states on the planet which routinely attack other sovereign states and yet the UK and the US persist in seeing themselves as on the side of righteousness and peace.

John McDonnell is an outstanding member of parliament who tells it as it is. Together with Annie Machon (former MI5 officer) and Chris Coverdale (of Make War history) they held a press conference on 23rd April, 2013, under the heading “Accounting for War”.

As John McDonnell pointed out the UK has been involved in 5 illegal wars since 2001. These have caused the deaths of at least 1 million adults in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya and Syria. An estimated 600,000 children have died.

We are all responsible for this. We let it happen. These children have parents who grieve as we would grieve at the death our own child. Our grief would be all the more bitter in the knowledge that the killing took place at the behest of pitiless fantasists who are not being brought to justice for their crimes. As John declared our government issued the orders for war with the consent of Parliament, the Queen, Law-enforcement authorities and taxpayers. These, he claimed, are the worst crimes in UK history.

Annie Machon resigned from MI5 in protest against the UK’s illegal activities in Libya which included efforts to destabilise the state and a plan to murder President Gadaffi. At the press conference she stated that UK’s secret agents are active in a number of Middle Eastern and other countries attempting to destabilise governments including Syria where covert action is widely understood to have been going on for decades. Moreover the lack of effective oversight of the UK secret service is such that even government ministers cannot discover the extent of their activities. Even as information emerges about the crimes of illegal kidnap, rendition (sending abroad), and torture of individuals the government has chosen not to have a root and branch examination of the relationship of government, elected representatives and the law but has passed further legislation to protect the secret services and to prevent evidence of illegality becoming public.

Annie Machon informed the UK media that the secret service had definitely ‘fixed’ the intelligence purporting to justify the invasion of Iraq and that Iran, too, was to have been invaded in 2008. It was not invaded because the US intelligence agencies advised that there was no evidence that Iran was making or was intending to make a nuclear bomb.

Chris Coverdale quoted from the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law, Point 6:

“No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law.”

The UN Declaration makes it clear that the invasion of another state is an illegal act and those who authorise it can, under the law, be brought to account.

The UK’s mentor and ally in war crimes is the US. Here, by far the largest army the world has ever known, invades and destroys with impunity smaller states with no chance of effectively defending themselves. This is an army which has been granted militaristic nirvana – its political masters have declared the world a battlefield and instituted war without end (“perpetual war for perpetual peace^rdquo; in the words of the late Gore Vidal). The view that we can stop terrorism by invading the countries and slaughtering the families of those we suspect of being terrorists is one which mystifies the minds of sane people everywhere.

In addition to the illegal and gratuitous invading of sovereign states the US is also engaged in a covert war round the globe and the multiple crimes committed therein have been exposed in Jeremy Scahill’s book, Dirty Wars. The global operations of the foot-soldiers in this war include targeted assassinations (murder of prominent or suspect individuals) of those unfortunate enough to be named in President Obama’s hit list (hit lists, once considered the territory of organised crime, have gone mainstream). These “black ops” take place world-wide, we are told, with thousands of operatives working in 100 different countries, as cogs in the United States killing machine, hunting down, capturing or killing designated individuals, directing drones, AC-130 heavily armed ground-attack gunships and cruise missiles, and continuing the age-old work of destabilising governments and political movements which are deemed not to support the interests of the US.

And we, the citizens of the West, cosseted in our unheeding comfort zones, kept in ignorance by a colluding media, culpably unaware, drift towards disaster.

The abandonment of the rule of law by governments undermines the moral fibre of a nation. This is all of a piece with our commitment to incinerate millions of our fellow humans with thermonuclear weapons if “our vital interests” are threatened.

If the forces of destruction are to be brought under control it can only happen by sufficient numbers of citizens finding out the true story and then acting accordingly. We all owe a huge dept to individuals like John McDonnell MP, Annie Machon, Chris Coverdale and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill who work tirelessly to this end.

Jim McCluskey is the author of The Nuclear Threat.

Why a National Debt of 100% of GDP has Never been a Cause of Austerity

2013-05-21T16:19:00.000+02:00

We hear all the time that we are deeply in a debt crisis with the national debt at grossly unsustainable levels, and that is why we have austerity and cannot afford the provisions of the People’s Charter. Is that so? Michael Meacher at his blog (michaelmeacher.info/weblog/) has given us some historical data that makes nonsense of those claims:

At the end of the Napoleonic wars government debt was over 250% of GDP
Just before World War I it was about 30%, rising to 175% by 1918
It was still 125% at the start of World War 2, by the end of which it stood at 230%
It then fell to no more than 25% by 1990
Since then rose to almost 70% by 2010
Following the banking bail-out it has risen now to just under 90%.

So the national debt when the welfare state and the national health service was introduced in the period of the post war Labour government under Clement Attlee was over 200%, and now it is less than half that. Now we cannot afford luxuries like welfare, but in the period of genuine austerity after a devastating war, we could. It follows that we can again, and we can afford the provisions of the People’s Charter, especially as we shall be getting rid of useless drains on the UK tax take like a nuclear submarine and absurdly generous taxation terms for the rich. Support the People’s Charter.

People's Charter joins call for a People's assembly

2013-05-18T17:55:00.000+02:00

Anti-cuts activists from across Britain announced that they'll come together in June for a historic assembly against austerity. MPs, the unemployed and trade unionists are expected to flood Westminster Central Hall in a bid to show that the cozy pro-cuts consensus doesn't exist outside parliament.

Dozens of trade unionists, MPs and grass-roots activists including the People's Charter called on those angered by public-sector cuts and privatisation to rally at a "national forum for anti-austerity views which, while increasingly popular, are barely represented in Parliament". Their launch statement said:

"This is a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provision come under renewed attack by the government. A people's assembly can play a key role in ensuring that this uncaring government faces a movement of opposition broad enough and powerful enough to generate successful co-ordinated action, including strike action. The assembly will be ready to support co-ordinated industrial action and national demonstrations against austerity, if possible synchronising with mobilisations across Europe."

Coalition of Resistance chairwoman, Romayne Pheonix, said the event was inspired by the mass grass-roots fight against austerity in Greece and across Europe.

"I think what we have is an exciting opportunity to bring together official delegates from the whole of the trade union movement with campaign leaders from across the country."

The conference—scheduled for Saturday, 22 June—will follow a swathe of welfare cuts effective from April. Funding for council tax subsidies will be cut by 10 per cent, while increases in housing benefit and a raft of other benefits will be capped at half the current rate of inflation. And the launch of the Tories' Universal Credit will give bosses the power to stop workers' benefits if they go on strike.

To register for the assembly visit www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk.

The signatories:

Katy Clark, Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP, John McDonnell, Labour MP, Murad Qureshi, Labour London Assembly, Dawn Butler, ex-Labour MP, Caroline Lucas, Green MP, Natalie Bennett, Green Party England and Wales leader, Robert Griffiths, Communist Party of Britain general secretary, Bill Greenshields, Communist Party of Britain chair, Fred Leplat, Socialist Resistance, Richard Bagley, Morning Star editor, Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, Kevin Courtney, NUT deputy general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, Manuel Cortez, TSSA, Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary, Paul Mackney, Natfhe (now UCU) ex-general secretary, Vicki Baars, NUS VP union development, Kevin Donnelly, Trade Union Council, Tariq Ali, author, John Pilger, journalist, Ken Loach, filmmaker, Owen Jones, writer, James Meadway, New Economics Foundation senior economist, Lee Hall, playwright, Roger Lloyd Pack, actor, Josie Long, comedian, Francesca Martinez, comedian, Iain Banks, author, Arthur Smith, comedian, Roy Bailey, folk singer, John Rees, Counterfire editorial board, Wendy Savage and John Lipetz, Keep Our NHS Public, John Hendy QC, People's Charter vice-chairman, Imran Khan, People's Charter co-chair, Rachael Newton,People's Charter, Zita Holbourne, Co-chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Anita Wright, Secretary, National Association of Women, Joginder Bains, Association of Indian Women, Shang Gahonia, Indian Workers Association, Colin Hampton, Co-ordinator, National Unemployed Workers Centres Combine, Carolin Jones, Director, Institute of Employment Rights, John Hilary, Director, War on Want, Romayne Phoenix, Coalition of Resistance chair, Sam Fairbairn, Coalition of Resistance co-chair, Clare Solomon, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair, Andrew Burgin, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair, Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition convener, Kate Hudson, CND senior economist, Bruce Kent, peace campaigner.

Morning Star, Wednesday 6 February 2013

Why the National Health Service Cannot Survive Privatization While Britain Remains in the EU

2013-05-18T00:56:00.001+02:00

The attacks on our British NHS cannot be divorced from our membership of the EU. The aim of the EU is to entrench neoliberal capitalist policies into all member states, so that public services and public utilities must be open to private capital--privatized! The neoliberal policies of the EU necessitate ANY British government privatizing the NHS, and every other public utility and service that we valued after Attlee and Bevan had set them up in 1945-1951. We shall not be able to return to that while we remain in the EU, unless the EU went socialist, an unlikely scenario.

Public ownership will not be possible by law, and the European Court of Justice is not an orthodox court of law but one dedicated to administering European law, the very law that renders public ownership illegal. We are being forced into a polity that will not allow energy companies, transport, banks, health and education to be publicly owned services free of the profit motive.

Be aware of what is going on, and that UKIP has no commitment to saving any of the services we have taken too much for granted for the last 60 years. UKIP is not the answer because it is even more right wing than the Tory Dem government. It is the right wing of the Tory party, and only objects to foreigners having a say in what they want to do themselves to own us. Nigel Farage has already said he’d readily form a coalition with the Tories providing Cameron is not the leader.

World Ranking in Unemployment Benefit Replacement Rates

2013-05-01T22:25:00.000+02:00

by Tim Viandras, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, researching the political economy of welfare states and labour market policies in the European Union, 11 April 2012

In times of crisis, workers who lose their jobs need to retain their purchasing power. A high replacement rate (ratio of unemployment benefits received relative to the last gross wage) mitigates the negative effects of rising unemployment on aggregate demand. It also prevents workers from falling into poverty when they lose their jobs.

This table shows the gross replacement rate in the first year of unemployment for all countries for which data are available. The data are taken from a recent IMF working paper. Countries are ranked from highest to lowest for countries in which replacement rate is > 0).

European countries did not have all the highest replacement rates in 2000, challenging the idea that only the best developed countries have the best protection for workers. Workers who have unemployment insurance in some non-EU countries score higher. In the top 10 are Ukraine, Algeria, and Taiwan, while Russia, Tunisia, Romania and Hong Kong make it into the top 20.

The Anglo Saxon countries rank poorly: UK (46th), Australia (43rd), Ireland (39th) and the US (31st) coming after Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Belarus. The picture for Eastern European countries is more mixed with Bulgaria (16th), Romania (18th), Ukraine (9th) doing ok, whereas Estonia (48th), Poland (41st), Czech Republic (42nd) do not do so well.

	Country	Gross Replacement Rate, year 1
1	Netherlands	0.7
2	Switzerland	0.687
3	Sweden	0.685
4	Portugal	0.65
5	Spain	0.635
6	Norway	0.624
7	Algeria	0.612
8	Taiwan	0.6
9	Ukraine	0.56
10	Italy	0.527
11	Denmark	0.521
12	Russia	0.505
13	Tunisia	0.5
14	Finland	0.494
15	France	0.479
16	Bulgaria	0.473
17	Canada	0.459
18	Romania	0.45
19	Hong Kong	0.41
20	Austria	0.398
21	Belgium	0.373
22	Argentina	0.354
23	Germany	0.353
24	Greece	0.346
25	Azerbaijan	0.338
26	Egypt	0.329
27	Venezuela	0.325
28	Belarus	0.313
29	Israel	0.307
30	Japan	0.289
31	United States	0.275
32	Kyrgyzstan	0.255
33	New Zealand	0.254
34	Latvia	0.253
35	Uzbekistan	0.25
36	Uruguay	0.25
37	Korea, South	0.25
38	India	0.25
39	Ireland	0.238
40	Hungary	0.235
41	Poland	0.226
42	Czech Republic	0.225
43	Australia	0.21
44	Turkey	0.206
45	Albania	0.202
46	United Kingdom	0.189
47	Brazil	0.152
48	Estonia	0.132
49	Lithuania	0.117
50	Chile	0.115
51	Georgia	0.09

Data taken from: Mariya Aleksynska and Martin Schindler (2011) Labor Market Regulations in Low-, Middle- and High-Income Countries: A New Panel Database. IMF Working Paper.

A Gentle Christian Nun Appeals to the West to Call off the FSA and leave the Syrians in Peace, as they were!

2013-04-28T02:57:00.000+02:00

RTE interviews a nun who has lived peacefully among the Syrians for 20 years, and has seen first hand what is going on.

Do as thou Wilt!

2013-03-28T19:50:00.000+01:00

Didn’t Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister and bosom pal of President Ronald Reagan, boast that society is dead? Where does society come into this Anarchistic advertisement?

It sounds like the old Rabelaisian motto, “do as you like” or Aleister Crowley’s and the Wiccan’s “do as thou wilt”—theough the Wiccans do qualify their motto—and if the maxim of anarchy is also “do as thou wilt” or its equivalent, do they expect us to switch magically from imperfection to perfection—the imperfection of this greed driven capitalist world, to a world of Libertarian competition only to the extent of outdoing each other in lovingkindness? That is the Christian dream of precipitate divine intervention ridding the world of evil. Indeed it is equal to dying in the wicked world and being resurrected into a heavenly new world. In short it is unrealistic and unlikely, if not utterly impossible, and in any case could not be achieved without planning for it.

We are social beings and, if we hope to remain human, cannot avoid having a duty to our fellow beings in our society. Capitalists demand more and more liberty to do as they like—freedom to exploit their fellows in increasingly dishonest ways. But socialism requires us to respect our social instincts of caring and sharing, and protecting.

Here then are two different freedoms—“freedom to” and “freedom from”. “Freedom to” is quite impossible in any society—no one except an absolute dictator is free to do just as they like. Society necessarily constrains us. Most people do not seek more and more “freedom to” do things, they are happy to be “free from” care, starvation, loneliness, and insecurity. That is the purpose of society. It is why we cannot step magically from the imperfection of capitalism to some fanciful anarchistic or even Christian dream. We cannot be free or approach human and social perfection until capitalism is long gone, socialism has been established, and time has liberated us from the greed and selfishness of capitalism. That time is a necessary period of transition.

Where Did All the Money Go?

2013-03-19T23:32:00.001+01:00

The treasuries of the world's capitalist countries have been turned over to the banks by our corrupt political caste of morally deficient opportunists. The banks are keeping the accounts of the rich minority topped up because of their losses through junk bonds. The bankers and bond traders have lost their rich masters' money through their excessive risk taking, believing assets would continuously grow in value. They didn't. Many banks should have been declared bankrupt according to capitalist theory, but were not. Governmental lackeys bailed them out with our taxes, and now governments have to recoup the tax money out of us! Of course it suited the capitalists because they want government to be minimal, merely to serve their own purposes and not the needs of the people, whence the cuts in public benefits and services, and the refusal to tax the rich, whose greed caused it in the first place.

"In 2001 there were 497 dollar billionaires with combined assets totalling $1.5 trillion. In 2010 there were 1,210 of these super-rich with assets totalling $4.5trn—more than the gross domestic product of Germany"

The Communist Manifesto: Some Notes

2013-03-19T23:05:00.000+01:00

The Communist Manifesto is among the most widely read and widely discussed written work known. It was a short statement of the aims and arguments of the revolutionary movement in Germany, but was soon recognized worldwide.

These notes on it, lightly edited, are from the pages of the Texas Communist Party.

Introduction

Communism already (in 1848) inspired fear among Europe’s rulers. Communists needed a public explanation of their views, goals, and tendencies. Thus, progressive leaders of many nations gathered in London to create this straightforward declaration, this manifesto.

1. Workers and Capitalists

Class struggle explains all written history.
The main economic classes of the past, such as slaves, aristocrats, kings, and serfs had the relationship of oppressor versus oppressed. They fought constantly until, eventually, they either destroyed themselves or transformed society into a new and better stage.
Capitalism sprang from the ruins of feudalism as property owners took power from the aristocrats who had ruled. As capitalists took over governments, they re-shaped them to advance capitalism. Governments in capitalist countries are committees for furthering the interests of the capitalists.
From the 18th century, capitalism raged through the planet. It destroyed other economic classes and exploited the lands and peoples of all nations.
Some previous classes all but disappeared as the capitalists took power, but the working class became the main opponent of capitalism. Capitalists are driven to improve their methods of production to outpace other capitalists. One result is that they tend to drive down prices. Another is that they constantly try to lower workers’ wages and benefits. Just as capitalists constantly need more and better machinery, they also need more and better-trained workers.
Big capitalists tend to displace small ones, whether farmers, small producers or small shopowners. As they are displaced, they become workers. Thus, capitalism creates more workers. Through constant training and regimentation, capitalists also strengthen the working class and make it more and more capable of taking over.
Capitalism reduces all economic and social activity into a search for profit. Capitalist politicians act on the behalf of their own national capitalist class.
This is especially evident in foreign affairs, where the politicians are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions to gain advantage for their own capitalist class.
Even though the capitalists have created marvels far surpassing those of previous societies, it is a serious mistake to think of capitalism as purposeful. It is not. It’s only “purpose” is to create profit for capitalists. Any and all other accomplishments are incidental.
The third class evident in modern capitalism consists primarily of small businesses, farmers, shopkeepers, and some professionals. They fight the capitalists to maintain their own incomes, but their fight is not a progressive one. In fact, it is anti-progressive, because these middle-class people wish to move history backward to stop the relentless march of big capital. Only the working class is revolutionary, and only the working class can grow in power enough to challenge the capitalists.
A fourth “class” is sometime considered, but they are extremely weak and not at all progressive. These are the idlers and criminals, who neither produce nor play any independent fighting role. They may temporarily help the workers, but not in any consistent way. They are usually available for hire by the capitalists against the workers.
When class fought class in previous societies, the revolutionaries had fewer members than the rulers. But the working class movement is a movement of the vast majority of people. They fight within their own nations to overcome their own capitalist oppressors.
Capitalism, as noted, is capable of great developments, but its progressive role in history soon ends. Instead, its main role becomes that of oppressor, warmongerer, polluter, and destroyer. As capitalism’s progressive role came to an end, the revolutionary role of workers became more important and more evident.
Fortunately for human kind, the capitalists have created and organized their own replacements. Given the survival of our planet, the fall of capitalists and the victory of workers are equally inevitable.

2. Workers and Communists

Communists have no interests separate from those of the world working class. We do not have a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” to impose. Every strategy, and every tactic, is taken to enhance the working class and make it stronger. Even though workers’ struggles take place within their own nation, communists maintain a world view.
The immediate goal of communists is to help the workers form and improve the working class to grow in power and, eventually, overcome the capitalist ruling class. History shows that this changing relationship between oppressor class and the oppressed has ever been the same.
Communists and workers are no threat to freedom for ordinary people. Rather, they threaten the power of capitalists to continue exploitation. Communists have no intention or reason to take away ordinary people’s property, but they fully intend that the means of production should pass under the democratic control of the people. The authors point out that the workers want no more than what they have created. Capitalists, of course, want it all!
The rights of women and of children are emphasized.
As workers, the majority of people, come to power across the world, divisions among people will begin to terminate. Artificial national boundaries and armies will no longer be needed, as people on both sides of every border share common interests. Workers have no separate country.
Communists strive to extend democracy to all aspects of modern life, including economic decisions. The capitalists control the economies today with no concern for democracy. Workers have always struggled for more democracy, and have won many smaller battles. Once the working class controls the economy, the battle for democracy and the socialist revolution will be complete.

The goal of communists is stated at the end as:

…we shall have an association in which the development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

3. Analysing Socialist and Communist Positions

This chapter is delightful for the authors’ use of language and vocabulary as they demolish the rival philosophies of their time. We don’t have to look at the 19th century to find dishonest authors and quacks with fake answers. Our news stands and bookshelves are full of them today

To analyze our problems and recommend honest solutions incurs the wrath of the capitalists, while phony analysis and meaningless solutions are safe—often even a good way to make an income and become famous!
Reactionary spokespeople criticize capitalism, but recommend, as a solution, a return to the romantic fantasies of feudalism, in which the main characters are knights and beautiful princesses, not mud-covered serfs. Other reactionary “socialist” writers attack capitalism, but hope to advance the values of the ruling class. Marx and Engels, Germans, were particularly infuriated by middle-class philosophers of Germany who copied their ideas from the French, but made them even more abstract, spiritual, murky, and obscure.
Many authors espoused ways to “improve” capitalism and make it more humanitarian. They say that corporate “free trade” schemes will help workers, or that clever corporate personnel policies will lead to a form of socialism. They preach that capitalism will become more and more humanitarian and will eventually become socialism without any need to organize the working class. The capitalists, they say, rule for the benefit of the workers. The historical anomaly of post-war prosperity gave a measure of undeserved believability to these harebrained ideas.
A third general category of anti-Marxist philosophers was extremely popular then, and enjoyed a resurgence in the 1960s. They are well-meaning “utopian socialists” who criticize capitalism but do not want to organize resistance against it. Their criticisms may be valuable, but their solutions are useless and no threat to capitalism. They organize “counter-cultural” institutions, such as communal farms, private schools, or whole communities in peaceful nations such as Costa Rica, and even in Texas. While clever and brave, they opposed political organization of the working class and thus had no future.

All these “philosophers” are tolerated, even rewarded, by capitalists. Our universities are crammed with them. They make fine after-dinner speakers!

4. Communists and their Opponent Parties

Thoigh short, less than two pages, books have been written about the ideas in this brief chapter. Arguments about it continue still.

Marx and Engels explain clearly that Communists are with the working class on its immediate aims whatever they may be. They talk about the many and diverse kinds of short-term coalitions they joined in different countries. But Communists also keep their “eye on the prize” of a long-term settlement with capitalism.
Communists always remind workers of the basic class antagonism with capital. Communists keep the question of property, “who owns what”, in mind. Communists of all countries labor for union and agreement of all who treasure democracy.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers Of All Countries, Unite!

A Communist Library for Today

2013-03-19T17:54:00.002+01:00

Hundreds of pamphlets, booklets of political analysis, and flyers issued by the Communist Party of Britain, all freely readable on line or for download.

James Madison on How Tyranny and Oppression Will Come to the USA

2013-03-15T01:58:00.000+01:00

US Military and CIA Interventions Since the War

2013-03-15T01:34:00.000+01:00

US Imperialsm for Beginners

2013-03-12T01:52:00.000+01:00

Cronin’s The Citadel and the British National Health Service

2013-03-11T22:52:00.000+01:00

A J Cronin’s famous novel, The Citadel, a story of a coal mining company doctor’s struggle to balance scientific integrity with his obligations to his employers, incited the establishment of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It exposed the inequity and incompetence of medical practice at the time. In the novel, Cronin advocated a free public health service to defeat the wiles of those doctors who "raised guinea-snatching and the bamboozling of patients to an art form".

Dr Cronin and Aneurin Bevan, the British Labour Party cabinet minister who devised and introduced the “free at the point of delivery” National Health Service (NHS)—at a time when the UK was flat broke and deep in debt as a consequence of the war—had both worked at the Tredegar Cottage Hospital in Wales, which was the basis for the NHS. Now, although the UK is much wealthier than it was then, the Tory government is trying its best to undermine the NHS prior to selling it off piecemeal to the private sector. There is no reason or excuse for it except doctrinaire capitalist politics.

-oOo-

Refer to Wikipedia, sv "A J Cronin" and "Aneurin Bevan" for more information.

Wealth Distribution in the USA:Worse than we Imagine... Much Worse!

2013-03-08T23:51:00.001+01:00

A revealing video with only the fault that its dismissal of socialism as equality of income is propagandist and not true. Socialism means "from each according to their ability to each according to their work", but with a much more equitable distribution of wealth than under capitalism, and so approximating more to what the film depicts as the average US citizen's idea of an ideal distribution.

Sylvia Pankhurst—Trailer

2013-03-08T23:28:00.001+01:00

This is the trailer for the inspiring new feature length documentary Sylvia Pankhurst: Everything is possible now available on DVD from the charity WORLDwrite. The full film is packed with little-known facts, rare archive imagery, expert interviews and exclusive testimony from Sylvia's son, Richard Pankhurst and his wife Rita. The campaigns Sylvia led embraced far more than 'votes for women' as she uniquely understood the fight for democratic rights required a challenge to the system. For full details visit:
www.worldwrite.org.uk/sylviapankhurst.

A Tribute to Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution

2013-03-08T02:42:00.000+01:00

Uploaded on Jul 8, 2010

In this programme in the Islam Channel's Timeline series, Stop the War's John Rees investigates the revolution of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Chimpanzees Only Cooperate With a Fair Distribution of Rewards!

2013-02-09T22:41:00.004+01:00

The Yerkes National Primate Research Center's research programs are exploring how the interaction between genetics and society shape who we are, and advance knowledge about the evolutionary links between biology and behavior. Researchers there, at Georgia State University and at Emory University, have shown chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have a sense of fairness that was once thought as uniquely human. It suggests a long evolutionary history of the human aversion to inequity as well as a shared preference for fair outcomes by the common ancestor of humans and apes. One of the authors, Frans de Waal, says:

Until our study, the behavioral economics community assumed the Ultimatum Game could not be played with animals or that animals would choose only the most selfish option while playing. We've concluded that chimpanzees not only get very close to the human sense of fairness, but the animals may actually have exactly the same preferences as our own species.

As a direct comparison with our chimpanzee relatives, the study was extended to human children. Six adult chimpanzees and 20 human children (ages 2 – 7 years) played the Ultimatum Game. The game was played with a pair of subjects, one chosing between two differently colored tokens that could be exchanged for rewards—small food rewards for chimpanzees and stickers for children—subject to their partner's cooperation,. One token offered equal rewards to both players, whereas the other token favored the one making the choice at the expense of their partner. The chooser handed the token to the partner, who exchanged it with the experimenter for food. Thus, both partners had to agree so as to get the reward. Another author, Darby Proctor, added:

We used the Ultimatum Game because it is the gold standard to determine the human sense of fairness. In the game, one individual needs to propose a reward division to another individual and then have that individual accept the proposition before both can obtain the rewards. Humans typically offer generous portions, such as 50 percent of the reward, to their partners, and that's exactly what we recorded in our study with chimpanzees.

Both the chimpanzees and the children responded as adult humans do, typically. When the partner insisted with shows of indignation at an unfair distribution, chimpanzees and children split the rewards equally. When a partner was passive or could not reject the unfair offer, both chimpanzees and children chose the selfish option. Chimpanzees are cooperative in the wild and have apparently evolved a sensitivity to reward distributions to maintain the benefits of cooperation.

It suggests that cooperation in our relatives, the chimps, and our own species, depends upon fairness but requires the opportunity to object to, and, one surmises from other studies, to punish selfishness. The study invites consideration of the effects of unfairness in human societies, in such as the development of the law, institutions like trade unions, protest, and revolution! It seems we will respond to perceived unfairness. The distribution of wealth in the world, especially the western world is grossly unfair, and might suggest we are heading for a period of social upheaval in protest.

Noam Chomsky Quietly Analyses the Way Capitalism Controls US

2013-01-31T03:06:00.000+01:00

Chomsky, activist and linquistic theoretician, explains to Al Jazeera what is going on in the western world--why we are all so apathetic in the face of an insane demolition of our civilization all in the interests of greed and privilege. Don't expect any help from Obama, a man with no moral center, according to a group of female black activists who met him with their concerns. It explains why he is not in the least bothered about assassinating unknown people via unmanned drones in various parts of the world, and why he merely turns aside when anyone points to the Zionist injustice towards the Palestinians.

So, quiz question: who is the president with no moral center?

And for us: does he care that we know he hasn't one? Does he care enough about his future reputation to want to change the perception? It seems unlikely. He seems intent on securing his privileges for the immediate future.

The Meaning of Socialust Struggle in Britain

2013-01-30T22:55:00.000+01:00

Anthony Wedgewood (Tony) Benn is a long time Labour MP, now retired from Parliament but still arguing the case for socialism and against rule by the rich. Here he puts a brief case:

A Practical Marxism and Communism in Short Sentences

2013-01-16T23:28:00.002+01:00

Our Society and Why We Want to Change it: Capitalism

The aim of the Communist Party is to achieve a Socialist Britain in which the means of production, distribution and exchange will be socially owned and utilised in a planned way for the benefit of all.
Rule 2 of the Aims and Constitution of the Communist Party

Britain, And Its People

Whoever travels through our land must be struck by its beauty. Despite over 200 years of industrial development, Britain’s varied loveliness is world famed. But, in addition to great natural beauty, Britain is rich—rich in natural resources, in the skill of her workers, in her capacity to produce everything necessary for a good life for all.

Britain’s greatest single asset is the British people, who in their long history have often been foremost in the fight against tyranny and oppression:

the British people were the first in the world to fight and end the absolute power of kings in the English Revolution of 1640
the British working class pioneered trade unionism and the Co-operative movement
the struggle of the English Chartists in the forties of the last century is an inspiration to the workers of all countries

Britain could be a paradise for the people—its skilled working people could build a new and better life as rapidly as any other people in the world. But Britain is not a paradise for the peqple. On the contrary, there is:

massive unemployment and part time working
continually rising prices, and bitter resistance by the government and employers to wage increases
a vicious programme of cutting our social services to the bone
starvation and hypothermia among old working class pensioners, starving on miserable pensions, and desperate hardship for our disabled people
cultural domination of our country by the US
a continuous history of wars, the result of Britain’s membership of NATO and other war alliances, on behalf of the US
a constant waste of taxpayer pounds to finance costly nuclear submarines, though the ostensible reason for them, the Soviet Union, has disintegrated.

…to be selective! All of this is the consequence of policies supported largely by both the Tories and right-wing Labour leaders. But why? Who and what is responsible?

Underlying it is the fundamental cause of all the sufferings and tribulations of the people, namely, that Britain is a capitalist country, ruled for and by capitalists for their profit and interests. It is the capitalists and those right-wing leaders of the Labour movement who support their policies, who are responsible for the position we find ourselves in. What is wrong with Britain is the way society is organised, the “system of society” which prevails. Some of the main features of this society are:

It is divided into rich and poor—a tiny handful of rich (1 per cent of the population own more than half the nation’s wealth) who do no work and the overwhelming majority who work their whole lives through:
- Large fortunes comprise a quarter of this country’s wealth. This is owned by about 5,000 people—one-fifth of 1 per cent of the nation. There are hundreds of thousands of capitalist firms, but only a few hundred of them take half the total yearly profit made in Britain.
- Millions of people can exist in this country only by drawing public assistance. But there are roughly 100,000 big bosses, 300,000 small employers and 650,000 managers—a total of around 1 million who live off what the rest of us, the twenty or so millions of the working population, produce.
- These working people produce everything and own very little. The million produce nothing, own practically everything and dominate everything—the Government, Parliament, the press, the courts, book publishing, the films, ITV and the BBC.
Wars—involving incalculable suffering to the people—are a regular occurrence. There have been two terrible wars within the lifetime of elderly adults in Britain, and continuous wars backing US imperialism, especially in the Middle East.
Empire—Britain is the centre of a huge empire, now called “the Commonwealth” covering a quarter of the earth’s surface and containing a quarter of the world’s population. This empire was acquired by brutal conquest, just as the US is now acquiring its empire. It brought huge profits to British capitalists and financiers. It cost the lives of thousands of British soldiers and hundreds of millions of pounds spent in trying to keep the colonial peoples down. While many of these peoples have now won their political independence, vast profits are still squeezed out of them, for British firms still dominate decisive sections of the economic life of the poorer colonial countries.

These are some of the features of the system we live under which is called capitalism.

What Is Capitalism?

Here we deal with two main aspects only:

It is a system of exploitation. Capitalism is a system in which the means for producing the wealth—the land, the mines, factories, the machines, etc—are in private hands. It is true that in Britain some industries—mining, the railways, electricity—have sometimes been taken out of private hands and have been nationalized. But the first charge on the nationalized industries is compensation for the old, private shareholders. Nationalised boards are manned overwhelmingly by ex-directors of the industries concerned. In any case only around 20 per cent of industry at most has ever been nationalized. The remaining 80 per cent stays in private hands. Thus a tiny handful of people own these “means of production” as they are called. But they do not work them. The immense majority of the people own nothing (in the sense that they can live on what they own) but their power to work.

By exploitation we mean living off the labour of other people. There have been previous forms of exploitation. In slave society, the slave owners lived off the labour of the slaves who were their property. In feudal society, the feudal lords lived off the forced labour of the serfs. In capitalist society, the worker is neither a slave nor yet a serf, that is, forced to do free, unpaid labour for a master. But he is exploited just the same, even though the form of this exploitation is not so open and clear as was the case with the slaves and the serfs.

The essence of exploitation under capitalism consists in this—that the workers, when set to work with raw materials and machinery, produce far more in values than what is paid out by the capitalists in wages, for raw materials, etc. In short, they produce a surplus which belongs to the capitalists and for which they are not paid. Thus they are robbed of the values they produce. This is the source of capitalist profit. It is on this surplus, produced by the workers, that the capitalist lives in riches and luxury.

Let us take actual examples of this using werll established historical data. Official figures show that in 1955 the value added by labour to the raw materials, etc. in the cement industry came to £1,870 per worker. Average wages and salaries came to £620. Thus there was a surplus value of £1,250 produced by each worker. This is 200 per cent exploitation—a lot of workers got one-third and a few capitalist got two-thirds.

Capitalism is a system in which the means for producing wealth are owned by a few who live by exploiting the workers, that is, by robbing them of the values they produce over and above the value of their wages.
It is a system of booms and slumps. From the earliest days of its existence—at the end of the eighteenth century—until today, capitalism has been marked by periodic slumps, or “economic crises” as they are called, which cause mass unemployment and untold misery for the great mass of the working people. These are very special crises. They are caused because there is too much of everything and are therefore called “crises of over-production”.

In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that in all earlier epochs would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of over-production…
Marx-Engels, Communist Manifesto

The great world economic crisis of 1929-31, which really lasted until the beginning of the Second World War, is the yardstick for more recent crises, including the present one. At that time there were over 40 million people unemployed throughout the capitalist world. In Britain, in the autumn of 1930, the figures of registered unemployed exceeded 2,300,000 and never sank below 1 million until 1940, after the beginning of the Second World War.

Capitalist Crises of Over-Production

Capitalism is a system based on competition. There are many capitalists each producing the same kind of commodity. Each hopes to sell all that he has produced and thereby to realise a profit. He has to compete with his rivals in the attempt to sell his goods. The quantity of goods produced therefore bears no relation to the real demand. Capitalism is thus by its nature an unplanned, anarchic system. Each capitalist tries to produce as much and as cheaply as possible to grab as much of the market and as much profit as possible. To do so more effectively, to defeat their rivals, the capitalists constantly seek to cheapen production by introducing new machinery, speeding up the workers, etc. Thus more and more goods are being produced. At the same time they seek to drive down the wages of the workers to increase their share of the wealth produced.

There thus arises a constant gap between the quantity of the goods produced and the ability of the mass of consumers—in all countries, workers and peasants dependent on more or less fixed wages and small incomes—to buy them. This is the source of crises under capitalism.

So long as capitalism has existed there have always been crises of overproduction.

So long as capitalism continues to exist crises are inevitable. It is impossible to plan continuous unbroken production in the interests of the people under capitalism. Only socialism makes crisis-free production possible.

Capitalism Develops to Imperialism

So, capitalism is a system where each capitalist is faced with competition for the market from his rivals. To meet this competition each capitalist tries to produce more and more cheaply than his competitors. This results in the enlarging of the units of production as individual capitalists enlarge their plant, introduce more modern machinery, speed-up, etc. By this competition, the bigger and stronger capitalists ruin the smaller and weaker ones, and a stage arises when whole sectors of production are dominated by a few giant concerns. These are called monopolies and they are able to regulate production in their own interests, charge high monopoly prices, and maximize profits.

This is a new stage in the development of capitalism—the domination of economic life by monopolies—monopoly capitalism—and began to develop in most European countries at the end of the nineteenth century. Monopoly is the essence of imperialism, and imperialism is the highest and last stage of capitalism.

Imperialism

Competition leads to monopoly in each capitalist country. But monopoly does not eliminate competition. Within each country the big monopolies engage in fierce conflict with one another. Competition is particularly violent between the monopolies of different countries for world domination. One result is the scramble for secure, exclusive, competition-free markets, for sources of raw materials, for spheres for the most profitable investment of capital. This is found in the technically undeveloped parts of the world. These are seized and transformed into colonies, whose whole economic and political life are forcibly dominated by imperialist governments to meet the needs of the big monopolies for maximum profits.

But the world has only so many colonial areas. And by the beginning of the twentieth century the available colonies were parcelled out between a few older imperialist countries—Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Portugal—especially Britain. The British Empire, by 1914, covered 12.7 million square miles of territory with a population of 431 million people. 3,700,000 square miles of the British Empire were acquired between 1884-1900, the period of the rise of imperialism as a new stage in the development of capitalism.

Imperialism Causes War

In this situation, developing monopoly capitalism in Germany and the USA driving outwards and eager to acquire colonies could secure them only by taking them from those powers who already had empires, that is, by war—especially from Britain.

The various powers “gang up” in combination against other groupings of imperialist powers. Thus the First World War of 1914-18 took place as a conflict between two groups of powers—one led by Britain (the Entente) and the other by Germany (the Central Powers). It was a brutal imperialist war between Britain and Germany for colonies, markets and European domination. The Second World War arose out of the drive of Hitler Germany for world domination. Today the danger of a third world war arises out of the drive of US imperialism to subjugate the entire world.

Socialist Revolution

Imperialism is not only the period of world wars. It ushers in the era of the world socialist revolution.

The workers in the imperialist countries, faced with increased exploitation, the peoples of the colonial countries, subject to even greater oppression, the people of the whole world, faced with a succession of terrible wars, awaken to the need to end imperialism. New revolutionary Marxist parties—Communist Parties—arise to head this struggle. Where these parties have the leadership of the working class and of their allies, imperialism is smashed, as was the case in Russia in 1917 after the First World War, and China after 1945. These countries take the path to socialism, which will see the ending of the exploitation of man by man.

The Class Struggle

The Class Struggle arises from Capitalism itself. It is not Imported.

Capitalism is a system in which there are different classes, exploiters and exploited, rich and poor. The interests of these two classes are clearly opposed. The exploiters try to increase the exploitation of the workers as much as possible in order to increase their profits. The exploited try to limit this exploitation and to get back as much of the wealth as possible of which they have been robbed.

This is one aspect of the class struggle which arises inevitably out of the whole character of capitalism as a class system based on exploitation.

In the fight against monopoly capitalism, the working class needs allies, and can secure them. Monopoly capitalism attacks not only the working class but threatens the interests of other sections of society, including those of the smaller capitalists—small businesses like sole traders and self employed craftsmen. The whole home and foreign policy of monopoly capital threatens the existence of the overwhelming majority of the people. This is seen particularly in the policy pursued by the Tory Government on behalf of the big monopolies. Thus monopoly capital can be isolated and the whole forces of the people organised against it. It is the task of the working class to unite around itself the majority of the nation in common struggle for peace, national independence, defence of living standards, East-West trade, etc.

The working class has to fight both immediate and long-term struggles. The immediate struggles are those that are fought out on different aspects of struggle within the existing capitalist order. Such struggles are those for wages, in defence of living standards, for peace, etc. These struggles can be victorious without a fundamental change of social system. Organisations for waging these particular struggles are established, for example, trade unions, peace organisations, old age pensioners’ organisatiops, etc.

But for a lasting solution of all these problems, working people have to end capitalism altogether and replace it by a new system of society in which the working people rule. For this purpose, the working class creates the Communist Party to draw together the most advanced and progressive sections of the working class and of other sections of the people. The Communist Party is dedicated to the task of ending the capitalist system and replacing it by a socialist system. The Communist Party participates to the full in all the immediate struggles facing the working class and its allies, for it is impossible to talk about fighting capitalism unless one takes part in all aspects of that struggle. But the special task of the Communist Party is to link the struggle on the immediate questions with the struggle to develop consciousness and understanding of the need to end the capitalist system as such and replace it by socialism.

Capitalist society gives rise to fierce class struggles which are sharpened enormously in the period of monopoly capitalism—imperialism. This period provides the most favourable possibilities for the securing of allies for the working class. Imperialism puts the task of ending capitalism on the agenda of the day. Communist Parties are created by the working class to lead this struggle. The main task of the Communist Party is to combine participation in the day-to-day struggle with the spreading of understanding of the need to end capitalism and establish socialism.

Socialism—Our Aim

Ending Exploitation

The ending of the exploitation, of cruelty and injustice caused by class society in its various forms, has long been the dream of men. It found expression in the teachings of the early Christians, in the writings of men like John Ball, Sir Thomas More, Robert Owen, the early English Chartists and the pioneers of the British Labour movement.

But so long as modern, large-scale factory production did not exist, socialism—which alone can end the exploitation of man by man—could only remain a dream. It was capitalism, in the search for greater profits, which mastered natural forces, expanded the production of goods on an enormous scale, united the scattered, individual production of men into highly developed, large-scale factory production, thus establishing the basis on which socialism can be built.

But capitalism by itself does not “evolve” into socialism. It has to be transformed into socialism by the conscious action and struggle of men. Capitalism creates the living social force which, by its very position in capitalist society, is compelled to change capitalism into socialism. This force is the working class and its allies. The age-long dream of the thinkers and the fighters of the past can only be transformed into reality when the working class, supported by its allies and led by the Communist Party, wages the struggle to take political and economic power from the capitalist class and, having succeeded in this, sets about building a socialist society.

Features of a Socialist Society

What will such a socialist society look like? How will exploitation and oppression be ended? We can get an idea of the general features of a socialist society when we examine the experience and achievements of the Soviet Union, the country where socialism was entered for the first time. Ultimately the Soviet Union failed, partly because it was harassed for its whole existence by hostile capitalism, but also through deviations from Marxism and democracy in its internal organization. But despite the problems the Societ Union faced, it did achieve much, enough to show what socialism would be like in better circumstances.

The first and most important feature is that political power, that is, control of the apparatus of government—of the state—is now in the hands of the majority of the people led by the working class. This means that control of the armed forces, the police, the foreign office, education, radio and television, etc, is in the hands of the working class and its allies. It is this power which makes possible the taking over of the main means of production, distribution and exchange, the transformation of the country, from capitalism to socialism, and the defence of the new socialist state from attempts to overthrow it either from inside or outside the country.
The means of production—the factories, mines, land, banks and transport are taken away from the monopoly capitalists. They are transformed into social property by socialist nationalization. This means that they belong to and are worked by the whole of the people, that the fruits of production likewise become social property, used to advance the standard of life of the peoples.
Exploitation of man by man is ended. No longer can some men—the capitalists—by virtue of the fact that they own the means of production, live off—exploit—the labour of others—the working class. No longer are the workers compelled to sell their labour power to the capitalists to live. The workers are no longer property-less proletarians. They now own the means of production and work them in their own interests and in the interests of society. For society is now composed of workers by hand and brain, that is, of an associated body of wealth producers.

What is produced is no longer divided between the workers’ wages and the surplus taken by the capitalists. The whole of what the workers produce comes back to them in various ways. The achievements of the Soviet Union have been ignored and denigrated by western propagandists, but, its national income belonged to the working people. One part—about a quarter—went to the further expansion of socialist production and for other public needs, and the remainder—approximately three-quarters—was used for the satisfaction of the working peoples’ material and cultural requirements… This figure included wages and salaries and the income received by collective farmers. It included the money spent by the government on pensions and other forms of social maintenance, social insurance, and free education and medical services and on other cultural services and amenities.

Since production under socialism is still insufficient to give everybody all that they need, the direct return in money—or “wages” as they are still called—is based on the individual contribution made. The distribution principle of socialism is therefore: “From each according to his ability to each according to the work done”.

What is produced comes back in other ways as well as in wages. The whole immense system of social services—health, social insurance, pensions, education, etc—are free and non-contributory, available to all. The expenses of state administration, of defence, above all, the money for expanding socialist production—the guarantee of a constantly improved standard of living—are financed from the values created by the workers in production. All these serve the immediate and future interests of the working class.
Production is planned to meet the constantly rising material and cultural needs of the people. This is only possible because the means of production have been taken out of the hands of competing private owners whose only concern was to produce what was profitable, not what was needed by the people. Thus there is an end to crises, slumps and unemployment, of poverty in the midst of plenty. For what is planned is both an increase in production and in consumption by the people through increasing their purchasing power. The many price reductions in the Soviet Union since the end of the Second World War, alongside a great increase in production, are examples of how this works out in practice.
Socialism means the ending of the oppression of nation by nation, the end of imperialist exploitation of colonial peoples. It is impossible to build socialism on the basis of imperialist oppression—a point which right-wing Labour leaders cover up. Imperialist exploitation is the policy of monopoly capitalism and benefits it. A socialist society eliminates monopoly capitalism. There is therefore no social basis for imperialism in a socialist society. On the contrary, socialism alone ends imperialism, frees formerly backward colonial peoples, and by fraternal assistance brings them into the front ranks of industrial and social development. The development of the former colonial peoples of the Tsarist Empire since 1917 is one of the most inspiring proofs of the truth of this statement.
Socialism means peace. Within the country there are no longer capitalists who profit by war, who see in war the way to secure more colonies, markets and a chance to dominate the world. On the contrary, in a socialist society everyone loses by war not only in terms of personal suffering but also by the diversion of resources from socialist construction and the advance to a better life. The last war cost the Soviet people the equivalent of two Five-Year Plans—as well as 25 million dead.
Finally, socialism means a new, higher type of democracy—a wider, more purposeful life for all. It is the only system in which the old definition of democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people” becomes a reality. Capitalist democracy is government of the people by the capitalists in the interests of the capitalists. The basis for socialist advance is the development of the initiative of the people, their enrolment in the active processes of government and social life. Without this the building of socialism is impossible. Socialism cannot be imposed on the people from above. It develops from below, from the new opportunities which socialist society provides to men and women to develop all their capacities in their own interests and in the interests of society as a whole. The great advances made against forbidding odds in the socialist countries show this.

Socialism—the First Stage of Communism

Socialism is the first stage of transition of mankind from class to fully classless society. Marx and Engels visualised Communism in two stages—socialism, the lower stage, and Communism, the higher stage. There are many differences between these two stages. The main difference is that under Communism production has been developed to such an extent that there is an abundance of goods of all kinds. Society can now advance from the watchword on which socialism is organised, that is, “From each according to his ability to each according to the work done”, to that of Communist society, which is, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. This means the greatest advance in human history of all time.

Socialism for Britain

The steps necessary to advance Britain towards socialism are outlined in the Communist Party programme The British Road to socialism. On the basis of the building of an alliance of the working class and other oppressed social groups, a socialist government will be set up. Resting on the power of the majority of the people and on their continued struggle, this government will take over all the means of production at present in the hands of the monopolies and turn them into social property. Production will be planned in the interests of a continually rising standard of living for the people. The state apparatus which served capitalism will be transformed and replaced by one which serves the interests of the people. The people will begin more and more to play a decisive part in the running of their country.

A Socialist Britain will greatly strengthen the new advancing world of socialism which already exists and will speed up the final overthrow of imperialism all over the world.

The Path to Socialism in Britain

A fundamental problem of the Labour Movement is how to achieve socialism. Within the movement controversy has raged for a very long time as to the best way to do it. There are two main outlooks:

The Right-wing View

There is a powerful group in the Labour movement composed mainly of the leaders of the Labour Party and a majority at the TUC, which propagates a “right-wing” or “Social Democratic” view on achieving socialism.

It is based on the idea that the way to socialism is through capitalism and its institutions—that capitalism is transformed peacefully and gradually into socialism through the “introduction” of socialist measures by a Labour Government, for example, nationalization. The two Labour Governments of 1945-51 are held up as examples of this gradual transition to socialism. This “theory” is false and dangerous:

It avoids the central issue of real power—political and economic power, which under capitalism is in the hands of the capitalist class and which must be taken out of their hands if the advance to socialism is to be made. Power in the sense of a parliamentary majority must not be confused with real power. A parliamentary majority in British conditions is of importance in beginning the advance to socialism, but, by itself, it cannot bring about socialism.

Economic power means ownership of all the means of production—the factories, mills, mines, land, banks, etc. So long as these remain in the private hands of the capitalist class, society remains capitalist society, irrespective of the character of the government in power. The workers continue to be exploited. Production continues to be production for profit. Planned production for socialism is impossible. Finally, the capitalists can use this power to sabotage and disorganise the economy.

Political power means control of the state apparatus, which is more than Parliament. The state apparatus is the machinery of coercion and government established by every ruling class to maintain its rule over the subject classes. Essential positions in the capitalist state, in the armed forces, the police, law and the judiciary, education, media, etc, are, by careful process of selection, concentrated in the hands of trusted defenders of capitalism. Control is a powerful weapon in the hands of capitalists, used whenever their basic interests appear to be threatened by any progressive government.
It teaches that the state is neutral. The right-wing leaders proclaim this state apparatus is “neutral” and carries out the orders of whichever government is in power. This is a fatal and dangerous idea. Experience in the past has shown that whatever the government in power, however large its majority, the defenders of capitalism in the state apparatus are ready to use their power to thwart any move which might be disadvantageous to the capitalist class as a whole or to any individual section. This was proved in the case of the Liberal Government of 1913, which had passed a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Landlords of big estates in Ireland and Tory imperialists were bitterly opposed to this measure. They organised a mutiny in the armed forces, called the Curragh Mutiny, and compelled the Government to withdraw the Bill.

Experience in pre-Hitler Germany, Austria and Spain, and the present experience in the Arab states, in South America, particularly Chile and now Venezuela, where the US backed capitalists constantly harass the legitimately elected government, all emphasise the same point, that is, that control of the key positions in the state when left in the hands of capitalist supporters results in the overthrow of the elected parliamentary majority—where such a government is regarded as a menace to capitalism.
It confuses nationalization with socialism. The right-wing leaders assert that any economic activity by the state constitutes socialism. But capitalism often resorts to nationalization. It depends on the kind of state which does the nationalising and the kind of nationalization undertaken. In a number of countries—Germany, Canada and a number of European countries—the railways were nationalized long before the British nationalized theirs. State dockyards, arsenals, etc, have been a feature in many countries for a long time, but nobody would call them socialist measures—served a predominantly capitalist economy to benefit capitalism, not the people.

In Britain some important industries were nationalized—coal, railways, electricity, steel. This was not socialism, for these industries serve the big monopolies, providing them with cheap steel, fuel, power, and transport at the expense of the workers in the industries and of the consumers. The nationalized industries continue to be administered by the former managers and directors with a few retired generals, admirals and old trade union leaders thrown in. The industries nationalized constituted 20 per cent of industry, 80 per cent still remained in private hands. The economic power of the capitalists is not threatened by this kind of nationalization.
It teaches that the working class have no need tp fight for socialism. In essence, right-wing Labour theory reduces the role of the working class in the fight for socialism to that of “voting fodder”. All the workers need to do is to vote every so often for a Labour Government in sufficient numbers. Then socialism is handed down from above, from the magnanimity of Labour politicians, even though many are careerists and opportunists looking for the chance to aggrandize themselves by serving capitalists' interests. In practice, they disarm the working class and prevent them organising and mobilising for the greatest struggle of all—the struggle for socialism.
It turns experience upside down. This theory is most dangerous because it flies directly in the face of the experience of the international working class. No country has achieved socialism on the basis of this theory. On the contrary, in all cases right-wing Labour Governments have been replaced either by fascists, near-fascists, or Tory Governments—Germany, Austria, Britain, Australia.

The Marxist View

General principles. The essence of the Marxist view of the transition to socialism is that unless political and economic power is taken out of the hands of the capitalist class and transferred into the hands of the majority of the people, led by the working class, no advance to socialism is possible.

This means that the state apparatus is transformed into one which serves the majority of the people. The leading positions in the state—army, police, judges, etc—are taken by representatives of the people and defenders of their interests. It means, in the economic field, that monopoly capitalists’ control of the means of production is eliminated by socialist nationalization. This is the general essential content of the transition to socialism in all countries.
Concrete circumstances. While the essential content of socialism applies to all countries, the form in which the transition takes place varies according to the differences of time, place and the relation of class forces in the world, and in the particular country. In various places, we have seen socialism appear in several different ways, some of which were fundamentally non-violent, but turned violent by external interference, mainly from the USA and its allies, such as Korea, Chile, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam. In Britain again the form will be different. In our programme The British Road to socialism our party outlines the specific British forms of advance to socialism.

The British Road to Socialism

Only socialism can solve the problems facing the British people. The British people can only secure peace, national independence, better social provision, the end of imperialist domination over colonial peoples, when monopoly capitalism is ended. Britain can only advance and finally solve its problems when it takes the path to socialism.

Unity

The development of unity and of the immediate struggle are the foundations for the advance to socialism. The fight for socialism is not something separate from the fight for the immediate and urgent interests of the people, that is, the fight for wages, peace, social standards or national independence. On the contrary, the greater the level of activity on these issues, and above all, the greater the unity in action of the working class and its allies in the fight for these interests, the more speedy and effective will be the fight to end the Tory Government, to eliminate right-wing influence from the Labour movement.

Action in unity, now, lays the basis for the wider unity which is essential if we are to achieve a Socialist Government and to advance to socialism in Britain.

Alliance

The alliance of the majority of the people, led by the working classn is the force that can end monopoly capitalism. Monopoly capital, whose political representatives are the Tories, pursues a policy opposed to the interests of the overwhelming majority of the British people. It has tied Britain to the United States, with resulting loss of independence. The continuation of this policy threatens the British people with economic, political, military and national destruction.

The way to prevent this is to build a broad, popular alliance of the workers and their allies—the small shopkeepers, farmers, professional people, who between them constitute the large majority of the nation, and all of whom are oppressed and threatened by monopoly capital. But this alliance must be led by the working class, the class most blatantly exploited, and so with most to gain from socialism, and therefore the most determined and decisive class in capitalist society, once the capitalist propaganda veils are lifted from its vision. It is the guarantee that the outcome of the struggle will be to advance to socialism. Such an alliance would unite to defeat the Tories in a General Election and return a government which, through constant agitation and relentless pressure would begin a programme to take Britain to socialism.

The Role of Parliament

Parliament is rooted in British history. Through it, the British people have expressed their aspirations for social advance for centuries—the English Revolution founded Parliament 1640, Chartism 1840, General Election 1945. Parliament could play a positive role in the development of socialism in Britain, but it would not be a Parliament resting on a passive people whose task was ended with voting it into power. It would rest on and be impelled by a politically active people whose struggle for socialism would continue and be part of the activities of Parliament. In short, it would be a Parliament reflecting the will of the people and giving the sanction of its authority to their struggle.

The Programme of a Socialist Government

The Socialist Government, based on the continued action and struggle of the people, would lead the British people to socialism by carrying out the following programme:

Socialist nationalization of large-scale industry, banks, insurance companies, big distributive monopolies, and the land of the big landowners, to break the power of the billionaire monopolists, and control of foreign trade in the interests of the people
A planned economy based on socialist principles and aimed at rapidly improving the people’s living and working conditions, with workers by hand and brain, and their organisations, participating in planning and management at every level
Consolidation of the political power of the working people by ensuring that those in commanding positions in the armed forces and police, the civil service and diplomatic services are loyal to the Socialist Government and increasingly representative of the people, and by democratic electoral reform, democratic ownership of the press, and control of broadcasting by the people
The strengthening and extension of all democratic rights, and measures to ensure the just administration of the law
Recognition of the right of all subject peoples to self-determination, and the necessary measures to guarantee this
Making Britain strong, free and independent, with a foreign policy of peace and friendship with all nations.
British Road to socialism.

The Decisive Role of The Communist Party

It is because monopoly capitalism—imperialism—places before the working class and the whole people the urgent task of ending capitalism that the working class creates the political weapon for accomplishing this task—the Communist Party.

Without a strong Communist Party which has the support of the decisive sections of the working class, no advance to socialism is possible. This is the experience of the working class struggle in all countries. It is in those countries where Communist Parties lead the working class that socialism either exists already or is in the stage of being achieved. In all countries where right-wing Labour leaders dominate the Labour movement, the working class has been led to defeats and the rule and power of the capitalists have been strengthened.

The Communist Party originally formed in Britain in 1920, following on the experiences of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, is a party of a new type. It differs fundamentally from the Social Democratic Parties, the parties dominated by the right-wing Labour leaders.

Differences of Theory

The Communist Parties base themselves on the theories of Marx and Engels which were developed further by Lenin and by communist countries. These theories are called Marxism-Leninism. They are drawn from the actual experiences of the working class under capitalism. Marxist theories generalise these experiences and draw scientific conclusions from them. For example, a fundamental principle of Marxism-Leninism, based on the actual experience of the working class, is the Class Struggle.

Since the dawn of class society, history has been the history of different classes struggling for political domination, for the ownership of the means of production and for the major control of the wealth produced. Marxism-Leninism asserts that the class struggle exists and is developed most sharply in capitalist society. We saw the interests of the capitalists and workers are opposed—they confront each other as exploiter and exploited. The workers can only defend and improve their conditions by struggle. Finally, that the outcome of this struggle must not be limited to the defence and, improvement of existing conditions but to the ending of the capitalist system altogether.

The right-wing Labour leaders accept capitalist theory on all decisive questions of the working class struggle for socialism. They justify profits. They deny the class character of the state and preach its neutrality. They proclaim the Parliamentary transition to socialism within the framework of capitalism. They deny the class struggle and preach the “common interests” and the “reconciliation” of classes.

Their theory is the theory of the capitalists, which they transmit to the Labour movement. The fundamental task of the Communist Party at this stage is to combat this capitalist theory and to infuse the Labour movement with the class theory of Marxism-Leninism.

Differences of Aim

The aim of the Communist Party, clearly stated in Rule 2 of its Constitution, is to achieve socialism in Britain. The aim of socialism is also to be found in the Constitution of the Labour Party and undoubtedly reflects the aspirations of the rank and file for a Socialist Britain.

But the whole practice of the right-wing leaders who dominate the Labour Party has been to strengthen capitalism and thereby to prevent the achievement of socialism.

In words, the Labour Party now stood for common ownership. In fact, the dominant right-wing leaders were able to maintain their alliance with the capitalist class, to hold back the movement in the great struggles of the twenties, leading up to the betrayal of the General Strike in 1926, the collapse of the Labour Government in the 1931 slump, and the disruption of the Labour Party by Ramsay MacDonald’s desertion to the, Tory Party.
John Gollan, Which Way for Socialists?

They supported the first imperialist war of 1914-18. They support the capitalist gulag, the European Union. They sided with reactionaries and diehards in attacking and slandering the Soviet Union, even when we owed our freedom from fascism to the Soviets” defeat of the Nazis. The two post War Labour Governments continued the policy of strengthening capitalism, and tied Britain to US imperialism. Blair kept Thatcherism alive under Labour when the country was sick of it, and subsequent Labour governments have gone from bad to worse, Brown aiding the capitalists by emptying the Treasury of our tax pounds to prop up crooked Bankers, supporting vicious Tory cuts blaming, with the Tories, the feckless working people have to service the debt.

Throughout they have weakened and disrupted the unity of the working class by attacks on the Communists, bans, splits, purges of progressive socialist activists in the Labour movement. It is therefore not surprising that the right-wing leaders today hardly speak of socialism. Instead they speak of the “Welfare State” the “Mixed Economy”, and now even Disraeli”s expression “One Nation”, falsely imagining these mean socialism.

A fundamental task of the Communist Party is to put the aim of socialism constantly before the working class, to raise its political consciousness and fighting spirit, and to inspire all aspects of working class struggle—peace, national independence, against attacks on living standards etc.—with the aim of socialism.

Organisation

Because right-wing Labour theory sees a parliamentary majority as a sufficient condition for socialism, its organisation is adapted mainly to electoral activity. The other aspects of working class struggle—the day-to-day fight with the capitalists over wages, working conditions, standard of living—is not regarded as the business of the Labour Party. Indeed to retain the support of capitalist backers, it sides with the Tories in condemning working class action. The “wings” of the Labour Movement are rigidly divided between the trade unions and the party, with the party concentrating overwhelmingly on electoral and parliamentary activity.

The Communist Party is also interested in the electoral struggle in strengthening the number of fighting, militant MPs of the type in the past of William Gallacher and Phil Piratin, and today Jeremy Corbyn and John McConnell in Parliament. But it rejects the view that Parliament is the sole and decisive form of working class struggle, and emphasises the connection between the developing struggle against the capitalists on all issues and the return of a progressive, socialist parliamentary majority.

The main body of the Labour Party is now unquestionably the Parliamentary Labour Party, and within this, of the top leaders—the members of the Government, particularly the Prime Minister when Labour is in office—due to the machinations of Blair and his advisers when in power—and of the “Shadow Cabinet” when it is in opposition.

The Parliamentary Party has become a dictatorial party within a party with an almost presidential leader. It is a law unto itself, outside the real control of the party as such, and now independent of party conference decisions, though it commonly ignored them anyway. Glaring examples are the refusal of Gaitskell and his supporters to accept the decisions of the 1959 Labour Party conference on unilateral disarmament, and their sustained struggle to overturn them. Because the right-wing policy of the leaders comes into constant conflict with the outlook of the rank and file, discipline in the Labour Party is imposed from above, with constant bans and proscriptions from the leadership. The remaining members are content that Labour should be electable, even if all that can be elected is a Tory Party in all but name.
Because of the totally different outlook and the aim of the Communist Party, the form and character of its organisation is likewise different. The Communist Party does not isolate one side of the struggle—the electoral fight—as does the Labour Party. It bases itself on the need to encourage and develop all sides of the working class struggle, besides that on the electoral field. This is emphasised especially in Rule 2 of the Party Rules. It sees the working class the decisive, most advanced force for socialism in modern society, the class which is called upon to lead other sections in the struggle against monopoly capitalism.

Communist Party organisation is based on the idea that the Communists must have contact with all sections of the people, especially the working class, and participate in all struggles, especially the struggle of the workers in large—scale industry. This is why the Communist Party gives such emphasis to factory organisation.
The leaders of the Communist Party do not have a conflict of outlook with the Labour Movement and the mass of the people, as does the Labour Party—that of the two trends in the Labour Party—the socialist trend of the rank and file, and the capitalist trend represented by the right-wing leaders.

The Communist Party is a voluntary union of people who share a common outlook—Marxism-Leninism—and the common desire to work to realise its principles in life—that is, to advance to socialism in Britain. There are not two disciplines in the Communist Party as in the Labour Party, one for the leaders and one for the rank and file, but only one discipline. This is binding on all, leaders and rank and file alike.

The system of organisation which prevails in the Communist Party and is called “democratic centralism” is the combination of centralised organisation—higher bodies, like the Executive Committee, District, Area, Factory and Area Branch Committees—with the fullest democracy from the bottom to the top. This democracy is expressed in the following:
- all decisions are based on majority vote
- all leading bodies are elected by the vote of the membership
- all members are encouraged to play the fullest part in formulating Party policy.
Rule 3 of the Party Constitution and Aims explains this process in great detail. Democratic centralism means that:
1. All leading committees shall be elected regularly and shall report regularly to the Party organisations which have elected them.
2. Elected higher committees shall have the right to take decisions binding on lower committees and organisations, and shall explain these decisions to them. Such decisions shall not be in conflict with decisions of the National Congress or Executive Committee.
3. Elected higher committees shall encourage lower committees and organisations to express their views on questions of Party policy and on the carrying out of such policy.
4. Lower committees and organisations shall carry out the decisions of higher elected committees and shall have the right to express their views, raise problems, and make suggestions to these committees.
5. Decisions shall be made by majority vote, and minorities shall accept the decision of the majority.
The Rights and Duties of members are dealt with in Rules 15 and 16. Members have the duty to take part in the life and activities of their Party branch and to equip themselves to take an active part in the working class movement. The rights of Party members are:
1. To take part in their Party branch in the discussion and formation of Party policy and the carrying out of such policy, in accordance with the procedure defined in Rule 17
2. To elect and be elected to all those leading Party Committees defined in Rule 6
3. To address any question or statement to such leading Party Committees up to and including the Executive Committee
4. To reserve their opinion in the event of disagreement with a decision, while at the same time carrying out that decision.
All these features taken together constitute the Communist Party as a party of a new type, able to fulfil the role of advance guard and leader of the working class struggle for socialism. In short, the role of the Communist Party can be summed up as follows:
1. To give the Labour movement a socialist consciousness, a scientific socialist theory, a perspective of advance to socialism
2. To lead the workers and their allies in all the struggles which confront them—from the immediate struggles under capitalism right up to the struggles for political power and the building of socialism
3. To provide the organisation for the vanguard of the working class and working people capable of carrying out these two tasks.

Towards Success

The building of a mass Communist Party is the key to immededlate advance and ultimate victory for those dubbed “the 1 per cent”, more precisely the ruling class of capitalists.

More and more the rank and file of the Labour Party and the trade unions are fighting the policy of the right-wing Labour leaders. More and more they are fighting for the policies originally outlined by the Communist Party. The decisive task facing the Communist Party is to build unity in action with the best elements of the Labour movement in the struggle to save Britain from aiding warfare, for national independence, and for the defence of the living conditions of the people.

This unity of the socialist forces of the working class is essential if the working class is to lead the majority of the British people against monopoly capitalism. In the course of building this unity of action, the most determined effort must be made to win understanding of the need for and role of a mass Communist Party and to increase the numbers of participants many times over. It has been the consistent struggle, propaganda, Marxist explanation and leadership of the daily struggle undertaken by the Communist Party over the years which has helped maintain a principled Left movement in the Labour Party. The stronger the CP, the stronger will be the struggle for a socialist policy in the Labour Party.

Build the Communist Party

While the task of building unity with the Left of the Labour movement is of central importance, it is no substitute for the building of a mass Communist Party. Unity itself can only be strengthened if in the course of it ever new recruits are won for the Communist Party. A mass Communist Party, based on widespread unity of action with the best socialist forces in the Labour movement, is the only guarantee that the magnificent prospect of a Socialist Britain will be realised in our lifetime.

Only the Communist Party, because it is based on Marxist-Leninist theory, can point the correct way to the working class, and link immediate struggles with the ultimate fight for socialism. The Communist Party alone has applied Marxist principles to the concrete problem of the advance to socialism in Britain in its programme The British Road to socialism.

The task of building a mass Communist Party is one of the greatest importance to the whole Labour movement. A mass Communist Party is the key which will open the door on a socialist future for the British people.

Adapted from, Our Aim is Socialism, CPGB (now CPB), 1962

Fiscal Cliff Act Keeps the Rich Rich!

2013-01-10T03:04:00.000+01:00

Richard L Kaplan, a University of Illinois professor of law, and an expert on taxation and retirement issues tells us that the 'Fiscal Cliff' Act provides increased certainty and lower tax rates than simply letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire. So, the government’s budget deficit will most likely be larger than projected, and a variety of phase-out provisions that both complicate the code and raise effective tax rates were reactivated.

Almost all of the convoluted new rules apply only to people with income of at least $250,000 a year. Yet despite the campaign talk, the act does not address the issue of taxes paid by the most wealthy people. The Warren Buffetts and the Mitt Romneys of the world will see their tax rates rise somewhat, but their rates will still be well below those of less wealthy people because the capital gains tax benefit is largely preserved.