Dundee SSP

The SSP’s Party Political Broadcast for 2011 was shown on TV on Monday 18 April.

There are two slightly differing models of class.

The sociological model is made up of the upper class, the middle class and the lower class. Whenever the media mentions class, however rarely, this is what they are referring to. Differentials based on income.

Socialists refer to class via the Marxist model – bourgeoisie, petite bourgeoisie and proletariat. Although there may be some cross over, we differentiate based not on income but on relationship to the the means of production (tools to do your job).

To give a quick example.
A taxi driver who leases their car might be proletariat.
A taxi driver who owns their car, leases it to others and runs it themselves might be petite bourgeoisie
Someone who owns a fleet of taxis and leases them out would be bourgeoisie.

The sociological model would ignore the persons relationship to the means of production (the taxi car) when deciding which layer to place them in.

The people who own the factories which make the taxis are also bourgeoisie. The workers in the car factory would be proletariat.

So as a handy guide, these terms are, for the most part, interchangeable:
ruling class, bourgeoisie, upper class
middle class, petite bourgeoisie
lower class, proletariat, working class

Class War

These classes have competing interests and where they differ this is referred to as class war or class conflict. To read headlines in the papers you would think that class war is started when the working class fight back, not when their conditions are initially under attack from the ruling class.

We disagree.

Class war isn’t that one day of striking every few months by a section of workers. Class war is the ongoing daily battle by the rich to redistribute wealth to them from us. Every time an employer tries to worsen the working conditions of workers that is class war. Not just when the workers eventually have had enough and protest or strike about it.

Read the whole A-Z of the SSP here

The SSP have launched our manifesto for 2011.

You can download a copy as PDF from the main SSP site.

Hopefully this should cover most of the policy queries you may have. If you have a question about an SSP policy or position not included them leave a comment below or contact us.

Until a few years ago the SSPs policy on banks was probably take them under workers control. With the most recent capitalist recession though, we have had to develop it a bit deeper than that.

Raphie de Santos has been central to this, several of his articles on the banking crisis have been republished here.

For something a bit more in depth read the pamphlet Sub Prime Driven Recession: Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you.

Available for free online, or £2.50 in print, it goes into depth about the causes of the collapse of the banks.

This tries to explain the roots of the banking crisis in easy to understand language

The Great UK Housing Bubble
The great 1980s UK housing bubble, which is now deflating rapidly, started with problems in the economy in 1970/80s and was inflated by:

• government policy around selling council houses
• a disastrous entry into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
• central bankers cutting interest rates to avoid a deep recession at the turn of the millennium

The last major economic recessions in 1974/75 and 1979/80 saw a massive overproduction of goods and services with factories and warehouses stockpiled with unsold goods. Capitalist governments sought to stop a repeat of such a crisis of overproduction. One way was to find alternative avenues for investments; the other was to increase consumer demand for goods. The US and the UK in particular did this by privatising state industries. Excess capital flowed in and created a climate and appetite for credit amongst their working and middle classes.

One way this was carried out in the UK was to sell off council housing. This allowed spare capital to be invested in a growing private housing market and created a shortage of social housing meaning that ordinary people were forced to look at buying private housing rather than renting a council home.
The second way was to create a feeling of wealth through home ownership. This encouraged people to borrow money through credit – loans and credit cards. Thus, at the beginning of the 1980s, these factors started the great UK housing bubble.

Read the whole A-Z of the SSP here

Now Strike Together!

By Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

It was a human flood that clogged up the streets of London for several hours.

The biggest demo, by far, in the UK since the 2003 marches against the Iraq invasion.

The biggest trade union-led demo for several generations, some say for a century.

Half a million strong, loud, proud, colourful and determined to fight the cuts.

All ages represented, from kids in buggies to pensioners; veterans of many marches, complete newcomers on their first ever; mostly public sector workers, but supported by big private-sector contingents.

Overwhelmingly working class, an almighty display of the potential power of the organised trade unionists in this country; a devastating rebuttal of the sneering jibes and whingeing pessimism about the ‘death’ of the workers’ movement in modern Scotland and Britain.

Marchers were still trying to leave the assembly points four or five hours after the head of the march had arrived in Hyde Park . This was a mammoth display of unity and working class solidarity, attracting tens of thousands of young people not in a union, boosted by the sheer scale and sense of power on the streets.

The TUC’s 26 March demo against the cuts was a decisive turning point in the battle to save benefits, pensions, jobs, pay and public services from the millionaire assassins trained on the playing fields of Eton and Oxbridge. At least 10,000 Scots made the horrendously long trek by train and bus, from every corner of the country (including Shetland!) and from every section of public sector workforce – plus students, claimants and community campaigners.

What next?

The critical question on most people’s lips then (and since) was: what next? How can this powerful force be turned into an unbeatable army of resistance to the butchers of Westminster, Holyrood and local councils?

On the train from Glasgow , for instance, we held a succession of discussions – lasting four hours there and at least two hours on the return journey – with groups of workers on every coach, from every union present, where we discussed ideas on how to build on the TUC mass march.

Virtually everyone, from trade union veterans of struggle to new fighters, was wide open to the suggestion of a one-day public sector strike, as we advocated in the SSP leaflet and the Voice. The only real dissent was from Scottish Prison Officers’ Association members – who thought it didn’t go far enough!

Coordinated strike action

Everyone echoed the SSP’s view that the TUC demo should be just the start, a launch-pad to go into workplaces, communities and colleges with the call for further action – including coordinated strike action, as spoken of in resounding speeches at TUC conference as far back as last September.

Likewise, all those we discussed with shared the SSP’s opinion that there is absolutely no excuse for any cuts; that there’s more than enough wealth around, but that we need to tax the rich and make them pay for the crisis they and their system created – instead of attacking the poor and the working class, who played no part in causing the economic crisis.

This openness to a clear-cut plan of action and a principled socialist alternative to the cuts was confirmed by the response to speakers at the TUC Hyde Park rally. The more hard-hitting the speech, the warmer was the reception. And perhaps the best received of all was PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka’s demolition of the excuses for cuts from tax-dodging millionaires, and his call for those who had just marched together to now strike together.

The enemy prepares

The employers and their vicious puppets in government are deadly serious about imposing the cuts and preparing for a showdown with workers and their families, in mortal fear that they face mass resistance. That upper-class fear and ruthless preparations have increased with the spectre of mass resistance displayed on 26 March.

Already reports have leaked out of plans to use the army against potential industrial action by prison officers. Tories like Boris Johnson and others more outwardly serious have called for bans on the right to strike in essential services (which of course they refuse to deem ‘essential’ when it comes to cutting them!). NHS bosses have let slip their plans to build up a strike-breaking force of volunteers in case their staff revolt against cuts to their pensions and jobs. And the Coalition is discussing “a war plan” on how to resist coordinated strike action across the public sector by use of the existing anti-union laws and the enlistment of a scab army to replace strikers.

Workers prepare for action

It is high time the national trade union leaders made similarly serious preparations.

The response to their call to demonstrate is a sure sign of people’s readiness to resist the cuts, given even half a lead, especially if it is not restricted to one union or one workforce, but coordinated across the board.

And already, several sections of workers are squaring up for action, balloting for work-to-rules and strikes on issues such as pensions – a common form of cut that lends itself to helping the unions coordinate common days of strike action.

The fifth-biggest union in the country, PCS, is about to ballot 250,000 public service members for strike action, in June, on pensions, jobs and pay. They are seeking coordination in their action with teachers’ unions UCU and NUT, and others.

EIS members are up in arms at a deal with COSLA being recommended by their national leadership – the same leadership who marched through London just days before – which would include a 47 per cent pay cut for supply teachers, a cut of two-thirds of training time for probationary teachers, a two-year pay cut of 10 per cent, and removal of payments to teachers on maternity leave or falling ill during annual leave.

NHS workers – contrary to the charming lies of Cameron, Clegg, Nicola Sturgeon and NHS bosses – are facing drastic cuts; £60m of them this year alone in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board.

Council workers are starting to feel the full force of the savage cuts, despite the pre-election delaying tactics by the SNP government.

Royal Mail workers face devastation if the planned privatisation of the service goes unchallenged.

Education is particularly in the firing line – which helps to explain why UCU members have been on strike, EIS members been on several rallies to stop college/university cuts, and why students have staged some of the most daring anti-cuts deeds to date.

STUC: name the day!

The role and duty of the trade union leaders who had the influence to muster a monster march of half a million weeks ago is to now pull together the different strands of struggle. They should give a lead, and name the day for a simultaneous strike across the entire public sector against the simultaneous attacks from all the governments of all the various pro-business parties.

Such a stoppage would dwarf even the impact of the biggest trade union-led demo in a century. It would hammer a wedge into the Demolition Coalition, whose retreats on woodlands privatisation and some benefits cuts have already shown how vulnerable they are to mass pressure.

One golden opportunity for such a call to ‘strike together after marching together’ is the forthcoming STUC conference.

Last week’s NUJ national conference passed a powerful anti-cuts motion, including the call for a 24 hour general strike against the cuts. A similar motion should be agreed at the STUC, and then a concerted campaign launched to explain and convince Scotland ’s 600,000 public sector workers that they can and should defeat the cuts by staging such united action.

Combined with direct action exposing the tax-dodging corporations whose wealth could pay for the protection of public services several times over, and occupations of threatened facilities in communities and colleges, united strike action could not only halt the cuts, but rock the entire Millionaires’ Cabinet.

United action – and socialist arguments

The fight against the cuts is also an ideological battleground. All four mainstream parties – Tories, LibDems, SNP and Labour – accept the case for cuts. They only fight over the scale and timing of the butchery, not the principle, not the fact there is absolutely no excuse for any cuts.

In contrast, the Scottish Socialist Party stands four-square with everyone prepared to resist the cuts, whilst arguing the case for measures to prevent any need for any cuts.

We have exposed the £120billion a year tax that is avoided, evaded or uncollected from big business and the rich.

We have exposed the simple fact that the 100 richest Scots have combined wealth of £16.4bn, which means a modest 10 per cent wealth tax on just these 100 parasites alone would raise £1.6bn – far in excess of the vicious cut to Scotland’s block grant, imposed by Westminster, spinelessly passed on by the SNP government, implemented by a rainbow coalition of cutters from all four mainstream parties in Scotland’s 32 councils. For 12 years, we have championed abolition of the Council Tax and its replacement by an income-based Scottish Service Tax, which could raise an extra £1.6bn this year for local jobs and services.

And we have spearheaded the case for democratic public ownership of the vast fortunes stashed away in the banks, big business and utilities, as a means of freeing it up for the construction of a clean, green, nuclear-free, poverty-free socialist Scotland .

In the looming Holyrood elections, every opponent of the cuts has the opportunity to vote for these measures by voting Scottish Socialist Party.

Every vote cast is another voice of reason in revolt against the most obscene attacks on living standards in generations.

Claim the future

As two of the SSP’s banners on the TUC demo declared, No cuts – tax the rich, and Defy all cuts – unite, strike, occupy. The time is ripe for united strike action, occupations and an ideological struggle for a socialist alternative to the cuts. The SSP will play its full part in campaigning for the unions and community organisations to take up these twin weapons in a war to survive that could shape the kind of society the next generation inherits.

It is unfortunate that the alphabet starts with a as anti becomes the obvious starter. Hopefully the rest of the 25 words picked will give you an idea of some of the things we are for, but it’s probably justifiable to use Anti-Capitalism as an example of something we oppose – capitalism.

From Wikipedia

Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system.

(emphasis mine)

Some people often misunderstand what Karl Marx spent decades writing about. He spent very little time writing about religion, socialism or communism. He and Engels’ biggest work was entitled Capital: Criticism of the Political Economy. It was a study of capitalism, how it works and more importantly how it doesn’t work.

Socialists argue all the time about what socialism would be like, or what we want it to be like, or for some Stalinists what it actually was like.

What we all agree on though is that the current dominating economic system is a bad thing.

Some other people are also anti-capitalist – including anarchists and some fascists.

Being just anti-capitalist isn’t enough though. Being anti anything is never just enough. Hopefully through the rest of this series you will get a sense of some of the things we are for.

What other A words would you use to describe some aspect of the SSP? Post below and we can try to expand on them once we have completed the alphabet. SSP member who has a brilliant idea of what to write for the letter J or T? Contact us and we’ll see if we can fit it in.

Read the whole A-Z of the SSP here

Some bloggers have started an April meme of posting about a letter of the alphabet every day. We thought it was a great idea for stimulating ideas for blog content. Lots of the time we post about elections or campaigns or stuff we have done. Ideas and policies can get lost in that though.

We came up with a rough list of ideas to post for each of the letters of the alphabet. These aren’t set in stone and they aren’t the only idea for that letter we came up with. We just tried to make a selection covering more breadth rather than depth. None should be massively detailed and we may add some more later on too.

• Anti-Capitalism
• Banks
• Class
• Drugs
• Environment
• Feminism

The Scottish Socialist Party have announce the full lists for all 8 regions of the Scottish Parliament. Everyone in Scotland will be given the chance to vote for the SSP on May 5th 2011.

The North East List is as follows

1. Angela Gorrie
2. Euan Benzie
3. Alan Graham
4. Soraya Kasim
5. Helen Fortune

With your first vote you vote in your constituency – Dundee City West, Dundee City East etc. With your second you can select one party on the regional list. That’s where you can vote for Scottish Socialist Party – Fight the Cuts

To find out more about Angela Gorrie and all of the candidates for the other regions of Scotland go to the Scottish Socialist Party site.

The SSP welcomes the eventual abolition of Prescription Charges. You may have read the headlines on April the 1st and thought it was a joke, but it has finally happened.

When the SSP were in Holyrood during the 2003-2007 term Colin Fox put forward a Bill to do just that. You can read his reaction here.

If only Labour hadn’t voted against it back then, we would have had free prescriptions for the past 4 years too.

If you want more of the same then putting more SSP MSPs into Holyrood will push these issues onto the political agenda. The other parties could ignore these obscene charges for 50 years but when shown the level of support for the abolition of charges, were slowly won over to support them too.

The Dundee Pensioners Forum have organised a rally in Dundee for those who can’t make it down to London.

Location: Burns’ Statue, Albert Square, Dundee
Time: 26 March · 12:00 – 13:00

There is an event set up on Facebook for further information.