No such thing as a national interest only class interest

We are often told that a certain thing has to happen in the national interest we need to make cuts to reduce our deficit in the national interest is one notable one. But what is this so called national interest?

It certainly doesn’t cover all of us as the 99% are facing all of the cuts while the 1% increases their wealth.

The politicians in the UK and across Europe whether on the centre left or centre right you can hardly tell the difference these days all talk of acting in the national interest but this can be translated to in the interest of the markets, the city and the capitalist system. When Ed Miliband told David Cameron he should be looking after the British interest he meant the city of London’s interest. It is clear to me as a Marxist who sees the world in a class based system not through wish but through reality and the ways things are.

As I explained above the rich and the ruling class do not share the same interests as the poorest in society and the workers the working class’s if you like. The workers wish to improve their life their pay, conditions and living standards all the time while the rich 1% look to hang on to their wealth and only look to invest when they can see a profit opportunity and increasing their already vast wealth’s.

So I for one do not believe there is such thing as a “national interest” a nations interests are bound up in a class based society whose interests are polar opposites.
For me until the class based system of exploitation is abolished for good this will continue to haunt us. With the use of language in a broad sense of a national interest the ruling class and their capitalist politicians who do their bidding like to try and distort class lines and try and catch all in affect claiming we are “all in this together” is another well known one from this present time. It’s to distort the true reason behind the capitalist crisis and also lay the blame at ordinary peoples doors, even though they played no part in such things. Its to pass the burden like is happening right now that we all must pay for this mess we are in and we all spent too much which frankly is just not true at all.
So I and others struggle for a new society a better society based in the interests of all not a fictitious national interest how about a socialist interest.

Under socialism there would not be nations as such any borders at least. This is not possible under capitalism due to the havoc it would cause but under socialism and eventually communism this would be possibly with free moving people as all would have access to what they need there would be no great reason to move about to a better area for a job or house as the idea would be that you could have that where you are if you so wish.

Socialism can only be democratic. At one time Socialism was known also as "social democracy", a phrase which shows well that democratic control would extend to all aspects of social affairs, including the production and distribution of wealth. There is an old socialist slogan which speaks of "government over people" giving way to "the administration of things"; meaning that the public power of coercion, and the government that operates it, will have no place in Socialism.
The State, which is an organisation composed of soldiers, policemen, judges and gaolers charged with enforcing the laws, is only needed in class society for in such societies there is no community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is in fact an instrument of class oppression.
In socialism there will be no classes and no built-in class conflicts: everyone will have the same basic social interest. There will be genuine social harmony and community of interest. In these circumstances there is no need for any coercive machine to govern or rule over people. The phrase "socialist government" is a contradiction in terms. Where there is Socialism there is no government and where there is government there is no Socialism.
Those who wrongly assume that government and administration is one and the same thing will have some difficulty in imagining a society without government. A society without administration would indeed be impossible since "society" implies that human beings organise themselves to provide for their needs. But a society without government is both possible and desirable. Socialism will in fact mean the extension of democratic administration to all aspects of social life on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. There will be administrative centres but they will merely be clearing-houses for settling social affairs.
But will not the administrators become the new ruling class? Democratic organisation does indeed involve the delegation of functions to groups and individuals. Such people will be charged by the community with organising necessary social functions. They will be chosen by the community and will be answerable to it. Those who perform the administrative functions in Socialism would be in no position to dominate. They will not be regarded as superior persons, as tends to be the case today, but as social equals doing just an essential job. Nor will they have at their command armies and policemen to enforce their will. There will be no opportunity for bribery and corruption since everybody, including those in administrative jobs, will have free access to the stock of wealth set aside for individual consumption. The material conditions for the rise of a new ruling class would not exist.
The purpose of socialist production will be simply and solely to satisfy human needs. Production solely for use will replace production for the market with a view to profit, in line with the social basis that the means for producing wealth will belong to and be under the democratic control of the entire community. The production and distribution of sufficient wealth to meet the needs of the socialist community as individuals and as a community will be an administrative and organisational problem. It will of course be no small problem but the tools for solving it have already been created by capitalism.


Capitalism has developed technology and social productivity to the point where plenty for all can be produced. A society of abundance has long been technically possible and it is this that is the material basis for Socialism. Capitalism, because it is a class society with production geared to profit-making rather than meeting human needs, cannot make full use of the world-wide productive system it has built up over the past two hundred or so years. Socialism, making full use of the developed methods of production, will alter the purpose of production. Men and women will be producing wealth solely to meet their needs, and not for the profit of the privileged few.
Using techniques for predicting social wants, at present prostituted to the service of capital, socialist society can work out how much and what sort of products and services will be needed over a given period. Men and women will be free to discuss what they would like to be produced. So with social research and after democratic discussion an estimate of what is needed can be made. The next problem is to arrange for these amounts to be produced. Capitalism, in modern computing machines, input-output analysis and information technology, has developed the techniques which socialist society can use.
When the wealth has been produced, apart from that needed to renew and expand the means of production, all will freely take what they feel they need to live and enjoy life. This is what we mean by "free access" There will be no buying and selling, and hence no need for money. What communities and individuals want does not vary greatly except over long periods and it will be a simple administrative task to see that the stores are well-stocked with what people want. If any shortages develop they will not last long. Planned reserves will be produced as a safeguard against unforeseen natural disasters.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is another long-standing socialist slogan. It means what it says: that men and women will freely take part in social production to the best of their abilities and freely take from the fruits of their common labour whatever they need.
Confronted for the first time with this proposal for free distribution according to need, many people are sceptical. What about the lazy man? Or the greedy man? Who will do the dirty work? What will be the incentive to work? These are objections socialists hear time and time again. These are perhaps understandable reactions to what seems, to those who have never thought about it, a startling proposition. As a matter of fact, behind these objections, is a carefully cultivated popular prejudice as to what human nature is. This is dealt in the section "Is human nature a barrier to Socialism?" Suffice it to say here the biological and social science and anthropological research conclusively show that so-called human nature is not a barrier to the establishment of Socialism.
Work, or the expenditure of energy, is both a biological and a social necessity for human beings. They must work to use up the energy generated by eating food. They must work also to provide the food, clothing and shelter they need to live. So in any society, be it feudal, capitalist or socialist, men and women must work. The point at issue is how that work should be organised. A very strong argument against capitalism is that it reduces so central a human activity as work to the drudgery it is for most people, instead of allowing it to provide the pleasure it could, and would be in a socialist society.
To suggest that work could be pleasant often raises a laugh; but this only shows how much capitalism has degraded human life. Most, but certainly not all work under capitalism is done in the service of an employer so that people almost without thinking identify work with employment. Working for an employer is always degrading, often boring and unpleasant and sometimes unhealthy and dangerous. But even under capitalism not all work, as we have defined it, is done in the course of employment. Men and women are working when they clean their cars or dig their gardens or pursue their hobbies -and enjoy themselves at the same time. So close is the misleading association of work and employment that many would not even regard such activities as work. They think anything that is pleasant cannot by definition be work!
There is no reason at all why the work of producing and distributing useful things cannot be as enjoyable as are the leisure activities today. The physical conditions under which work is done can be vastly improved. So can the relations between people at work. Human beings, as free and equal members of a socialist community, will no longer have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer for a wage or a salary. The degrading wages system will be abolished so that there will be no such thing as employment. Instead work will be done by free men and women co-operating and controlling their conditions of work, getting enjoyment from creating things and doing socially-useful tasks.
In socialist society there will be no social stigma attaching to any kind of work. Nor will there be pressures, such as exist at present, to continue - because they are cheap and therefore profitable to the capitalist -industrial processes which are harmful or dangerous to those engaged in them. In any event, with human needs and enjoyment as the guiding principle, there will be no need for anybody to be tied to the same job continuously. The opportunities for men ands women to develop and exercise their talents and to enjoy doing so will be immense.
Finally, Socialism must be world-wide because the productive system which capitalism has built up and which Socialism will take over is already international. There will be no frontiers and people will be free to travel over the whole earth. Socialism will mean the end to all national oppression -and indeed in its current political sense to all "nations" -and to discriminations on the grounds of race and sex. All the people of the world wherever they live, whatever their skin colour, whatever language they speak, really will be members of one vast human family. Socialism will at last realise the age-old dream of a world-wide community of interests.

The curious case of the middle class’s

Remember when the government tried to convince us we were all middle class ? Wasn’t so long ago. The idea that we are all doing well and have no need to want more was the myth. I will look here at the fact that this is a complete myth and I shall explain why.

STATEMENTS SUCH as "the working class has disappeared" or "the barriers between the classes no longer exist" have been repeated for many years. This is often backed up by pointing to the de-industrialisation of Britain especially over the last two or three decades.
In fact there are still around four million workers in manufacturing industry in the UK. It is true that increased globalisation of the world economy has meant a large number of manufacturing jobs being transferred to areas such as Eastern Europe and China. But manufacturing jobs lost in the west have often been replaced by low-paid jobs in the service sector, for example in retail, finance and tourism. The fastest growing job sector in Britain is those who clean, shop, child-mind, garden etc for others.
In "white collar" jobs, measures such as performance related pay, imposed targets and casualisation have been increasingly introduced. Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members in Revenue and Customs for example, have been fighting the introduction of 'lean processing' which breaks down tasks into small repetitive parts to create assembly line type work. Civil servants organised in the PCS have been one of the most militant sections of the working class in recent years and have elected a left union leadership. The con-dems and New Labour politicians and academics tend to talk of the poor being the 'underclass' living off benefits on council estates, or about 'social exclusion', thereby trying to separate the unemployed off from the rest of the working class. Effectively they repeat the old Victorian idea of the 'undeserving poor' and want people to be 'encouraged' into work by the threat of benefit cuts, such as with “the Tories plans to cap benefits at 26 thousand pounds.
It is a strange solution to poverty - to cut the income of the poorest! And by forcing people into low paid work, they do not eliminate poverty. Millions are now described as the 'working poor'.
Capitalist definitions of class confuse the issue. The term "middle class" is often used very broadly, from a white collar worker on low pay in local government or the civil service to a rich businessman.
Official classifications also obscure the real class divide. The highest category according to the Office for National Statistics is 'professional and managerial' which includes people such as teachers and nurses. These certainly do not constitute the ruling class!
Marxists however say that the main class divide in society is between the ruling class - big businessmen and financiers who own "the means of production" on the one hand, and those who have to work for a boss to earn a living and actually create the wealth (value) on the other.
In the past, the average worker sold their "labour power" in a factory. Today, in addition to the millions who still do this there are others working in different fields that also produce new value. Others again, such as many public sector workers, do not strictly fit into this category but are part of the working class because of their social outlook and economic situation. The working class is not homogenous; far from it, there are many sections and layers. There are also middle layers in between the working class and ruling (capitalist) class, what Marx called the petit-bourgeoisie, particularly the self-employed, including small farmers, shopkeepers etc - altogether a wide and varied range of people. Many of them however are in debt to the big banks and have much in common with "workers".
THE LATEST survey by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation confirmed again what we already know about the growing gap between rich and poor. It says that it is now greater than it has been for the last 40 years. There has been an increase in the number they define as 'breadline poor' to around a quarter of all households.
Another survey conducted by Save the Children pointed out that 1.3 million children (10.5%) live in 'severe poverty'. They say: 'for a couple with a child that means living on an average of £7,000 a year or less than £134 a week'. As a result, 'children are missing out on basic things like living in a warm house, having a proper diet or going on a school trip'.
This is increasing too as the cuts which we still have only seen about 8% of so far are going to compound this further still.

By contrast the wealth of the richest in society has vastly increased. This year's Sunday Times 'rich list' shows that the increase in wealth of the top 1,000 people in Britain has been 20% in one year to around £360 billion. You have to have £70 million just to get on the bottom rung of that list.
Rich list compiler Philip Beresford said: 'The past decade of Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown has proved a golden age for the rich, rarely seen in modern British history'. This is no overstatement when you realise their wealth has more than tripled in a decade!
The same trend exists on a world scale with the total wealth of 'high-net worth' individuals rising 11.4% to £18.6 trillion in 2006. There are 94,970 people with assets worth more than £15 million. This layer in society with enormous wealth and power is a minute proportion of the total population.
Whilst socialists support the demand for increased taxes on the super rich, this alone would not end the vast inequalities in society, nor solve the problems caused by capitalism. The rich don't even pay the low levels of tax they are currently supposed to
Exploitation and inequality are built into the system. To get rid of them, capitalism needs to be removed and replaced with a socialist society. The multinational companies owned by the rich need to become publicly owned.
An end to the chaos of the market and the introduction of socialist planning would mean an overall increase in the real wealth of society, not just a redistribution of the wealth that already exists.
IN THE last 20 years, there has been a relative lull in trade union struggle in Britain. In the wake of the collapse of Stalinism in the USSR and eastern Europe, there was a shift of former working-class based parties such as the Labour Party, towards being openly bosses" parties with a full acceptance of the market. This, together with the effects of a long period of modest economic growth, led to a drop in consciousness of socialist ideas.
Despite this, there is still clear recognition of the existence of classes. Surveys have consistently shown that the majority of people in Britain describe themselves as working class. The latest British Social Attitudes survey shows 57% of people consider themselves working class.
The report authors call this 'remarkable' considering that only 31% of the workforce is in traditional "blue collar" sectors. In reality it gives the lie to the idea that class politics is no longer relevant. How much more sharpened will class-consciousness be in the future when big workers' struggles take place and when economic downturn has an impact on millions of people?
Even those who see themselves as middle class, or who are on relatively comfortable incomes, have plenty of reasons to oppose the capitalist system, run for the benefit of big business.
Many problems created by capitalism affect them. The rising cost of university tuition fees for example, or the cutbacks in public services such as the NHS. For the vast majority of people who have private health insurance, it is very limited, only covering routine things.


For socialists it is not just that the working class is exploited under capitalism and therefore has good reason to end it, but also that it has the power to do it. Through struggles to defend and extend their own livelihoods, working-class people develop a greater class-consciousness. On a mass scale this can go together with a growth in socialist ideas.
But in particular, workers have the power to change things because of their role in society - their position in relation to the functioning of the economy and the "means of production". Even small groups of workers taking strike action, especially in an era of high technology, can have a massive effect. This power will be decisive when the working class moves together.
The removal of capitalism, led by the working class and with the support of most of the middle layers of society, can create the beginnings of conditions for a genuinely classless society.
This would be a socialist society where, for example, you would not have a higher chance of dying early simply because of where you were born, and where the resources of society would be democratically planned and used for the benefit of all.


With extracts taken from www.socialistparty.org.uk

Why social mobility is a myth

Social mobility is a myth, those who are born in the bottom 20% have a 97% chance of remaining right there in the bottom 20%..

We hear all the time from various parties and governments that the harder you work you can get yourself up the ladder out of the situation you are in. This is not the case at all as the statistic aabove suggests you can work dam hard all your life and still remain working class. It is a common myth that you can work hard and reach the fruits of your labour.

It is a difficult thing to explain to people but it is a fact that we live in a class based society where the working class are oppressed by the ruling class, the capitalists. The working class must sell their labour to get by.

Several recent studies have punctured the conception, assiduously fostered by the media and political defenders of the profit system, that capitalism makes possible the rapid acquisition of wealth for anyone motivated to work for it.

The truth is very different. A study by economist Tom Hertz of American University, “Understanding Mobility in America”, finds that a child born into a poor family, defined as the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, has an infinitesimal one-in-a-hundred chance of making it into the top five percent income level.

Hertz’s report, issued by the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress (CAP), studied both “intergenerational mobility” and “short-term mobility.” Intergenerational mobility, comparing an individual’s economic status with that of his or her parents, is taken as a measure of equality of opportunity, since economic success independent of the status of one’s family would seem to indicate that merit and work are the principal sources of material rewards.

As far as intergenerational mobility is concerned, it is not only the children of the poor in the US who have little chance of becoming wealthy. Children born in the middle quintile (the 40-60th percentile of incomes in the country, $42,000 to $54,300) also have only a 1.8 percent chance of reaching the top five percent, a likelihood not much higher than in poor families. These findings were based on a study of over 4,000 children whose parents’ income was determined in 1968 and whose own income was then reviewed as adults in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1999.

Breaking the data down by race showed that, within the framework of increasing pressure on the working class as a whole, black families continue to face higher burdens. While 47 percent of poor families remain poor in subsequent generations, this figure is 32 percent for whites and 63 percent for blacks. Only 3 percent of African-Americans jump from the bottom quarter of the income distribution to the top 25 percent, while for whites this number, still small, is 14 percent.

The second feature of the study focuses on short-term mobility, which is a measure of annual income volatility. Large changes in annual income correlate with economic instability and insecurity.

On the subject of income volatility, the report’s findings also contradict the claim of equal opportunity and rewards for hard work. Those in the middle income levels—the majority of whom consist of both industrial and service sector workers who are commonly lumped together and labeled “middle class” based on their income level—experienced increased “insecurity of income” between 1997 and 2004, compared to 1990. Downward short-term mobility—an annual income decline of $20,000 or more—rose from 13.0 percent of the population in 1990 to 14.8 percent in 1997-98 and 16.6 percent in 2003-04.

This downward mobility was concentrated among those earning between $34,500 and $89,300 a year, while those in the top 10 percent of income earners ($122,880 or more) saw less negative shocks during this same period. Moreover, the middle income household was no more upwardly mobile in 2003-04 than it was in 1990-91, although the early nineties was a period of recession and the more recent years were ones of officially strong economic growth.
Untill the banking crash in 2008.


Hertz’s findings parallel those contained in a number of similar recent studies. A report prepared by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon for the National Bureau of Economic Research in December 2005 shows that those in the top 10 percent income bracket received 49 percent of the growth in wages and salaries in the period between 1997 and 2001, while the bottom 50 percent received less than 13 percent.




SO there is clearly mass inequality in society and around the world. In every capitalist society and system there is always teh myth be it the "american dream" or hard work gets you far. Of course working hard can get you so far but to the top very rarely. We as socialists must be at the front pointing these class inequalities out and preparing alternatives to all of these situations.

Of course our alternative is radical and would result in a class less society where there is no upper or lower class a equal fair society where you would be paid a fair wage for a fair days work.

So when you hear a polititian peddling the line that social mobility has increased or decreased its a myth. It simply does not exist and on the odd few ocasions people do move class's and i stress very rarely there are often exceptional circumstances to explain this. So lets not buy the political class's myths and rubbish and start fighting the class war to end the class system for good and bring equality and prosperity to all not just the few.

Are we really living longer ?

One of the governments arguements for the upcoming pension reforms and their reasoning behind making us work longer, for less is apparently due to us all now living longer.

So at our branch meeting one of our comrades raised the point has anyone actually proved this. It is very subjective as i will outline below and you cant just throw around such a statement.

Whilst it may be true some of us may be living longer, It is hard to prove this.

The three big reasons that people in the UK are living increasingly longer lives are:

1.Food supply and nutrition
2.Health
3.Hygiene
These three things have all seen marked improvements in standards since the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, another important factor is our knowledge of their importance to our health and life expectancy, and of the steps we can take to ensure that we lead a healthy lifestyle. Our access to relevant information has also improved dramatically as a result of scientific research and methods of information dissemination (e.g. the Internet).

For example:
The packaging of food products at increasing numbers of shops and supermarkets displays the nutritional content of food and uses colour coding so that we know whether it is good for us. The importance of eating a balanced diet is widely known.

Government and charity websites provide information about the lifestyle choices we can make in order to reduce our risk of developing diseases. The effect that smoking cigarettes can have on our health is widely advertised, and warnings included on packaging. In the UK, a smoking ban in public places has been introduced and the age at which young people can buy cigarettes has been raised to 18 years.
Adverts on buses and tubes inform us of the importance of washing our hands and covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze in order to reduce the spread of illnesses and diseases. Health and safety legislation provides strict regulations for hygiene in restaurants, hospitals and factories.

But following a healthy lifestyle is still a choice that we make, and not everyone chooses or is able to do so.

Key concepts:
Place
Human Processes
Cultural Understanding and Diversity




This is key to my point really that as we live in a class based system under capitalism not everyone has the luxury of eating the healthy food all the time or can afford the best in housing and living conditions.

As i previously blogged about before about the documentary poor kids on the BBC a few weeks ago it can dramatically affect how long you are likely to live depending on where you live in the country and the make up of the area you live in.

So for example there will be a stark contrast between someone living in Knightsbridge in London from someone living in Glasgow in a working class area.

It is important to stress these points when the government is trying hard to push through these pension reforms which will leave many working longer, getting less and a worse off pension as a result.

So i'm opening this up now can the government or anyone else find quantitive evidence that proves we are all living longer than ever before so we need to work longer.

Another point is if we are having to work longer to claim our pension it is our pension they are not wanting us to have because realistically although there may be exceptions like the 73 year old man who still works as a builder or the old example of someone who smokes 30 fags a day and drinks lots and lives till they are 99. You will always find exceptions to any rule but generalising and saying we all live longer now where some do not and some families never live that old due to various reasons is it not safe to say this arguement the government are trotting out is a bit misleading.

So therefore i will be supporting thursdays June 30th strikes as i believe a public sector workers pension is just as important to us and the long term future of this country. It has been proven these pensions are very affordable and backed up by the daily telegraph not known for lending support to the public sector.

But if we can afford more money to be spent on illegal wars and occupations and new nuclear deterents we can surely afford for our hard working public sector workers including teachers and civil servents who keep this country going in many ways.