THE SOCIAL JUSTICE PARTY

THE RATIONAL ALTERNATIVE PARTY

WELCOME TO THE SOCIAL JUSTICE PARTY WEB-SITE.

WARNING - THIS SITE CONTAINS SOME STRONG MEAT WHICH IS LIKELY TO DISTURB PEOPLE WITH A COMPLACENT, SELF-SATISFIED, "I'M ALRIGHT JACK" DISPOSITION.

The site is intended to be a forum in which anybody can take part in debates on political topics and register their views with some confidence that they will be recorded, noticed and have some influence.

It is also part of an experimental project to find out whether there are enough sane, rational, realistic, sensible, decent people left in this country (who appreciate that politics is a crucially important determinant of the quality of their lives and who don't lust for obscene wealth with which to display their disgusting egos) for it to be possible to form a political party that aims to try to create a more ethical, just, responsible and democratic society in which everybody can get a fair share of life's pleasures by working to the level of their ability. This society would probably have to exist within but, as far as possible be separate from, New Variant Feudal (Capitalist) society. Depending on the level of support received, such a Party, provisionally to be called The Social Justice Party, could be a think tank, a pressure group for reform, a haven of civilisation in an unjust world, a mainstream political party or even New Variant Feudalism's successor.

The Social Justice Party is founded on the belief that New Variant Feudalism has produced a profoundly unjust society; a better social and economic system must therefore be found. The difference between the lives of the rich and poor in Britain is as gross and obscene as in any Third World banana republic. Some people with very modest talent and merit are able to make vast amounts of money whereas others, more deserving , have difficulty making any money at all. The system is designed so that anybody who finds himself at a disadvantage for any reason has very little chance of improving his position. Capitalism is little different to Feudalism, which few people defend these days. Feudalism allowed the owners of land to exploit those who had none; Capitalism enables the owners of any sort of assets to exploit those without, it is the modern version of Feudalism, ie. New Variant Feudalism (NVF). Both variants are designed to give the better off an advantage over the worse off so that the former can control the latter and prosper at their expense. The better off gain more freedom to have what they want and do what is profitable, stimulating and enjoyable, the worse off are deprived of these freedoms and trapped in depressing, debilitating circumstances. The rich get richer and the poor poorer, the latter often in absolute as well as relative terms, particularly if they are getting on in years. In Britain, as elsewhere, the process has advanced to the stage where some people are obscenely rich while others are trapped in desperate poverty. The latter are expected to accept this situation as being perfectly satisfactory and to be content and law abiding. This isn't possible, hence the high and rising levels of crime. The situation must not be allowed to continue, radical reforms are needed now, not when it is convenient for the rich and prosperous, they are too poisonous and corrupt for it ever to be convenient for them.

The politicians who are governing us at present think the current state of our society is, broadly speaking, satisfactory, that it just needs minor improvements here and there. They think this society is fair and just, that it is perfectly acceptable for some people to be filthy rich and enjoy a profligate, extravagant, self-indulgent, sybaritic life style they have done little or nothing to merit while others are condemned to poverty and misery from which it is impossible for them to escape, they don't plan to do much about it. They think that New Variant Feudalism is an economic system that is so perfect it cannot be improved, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The Creed of the Capitalist is "Bugger you Jack, I am going to maximise my advantage whatever the damage it does to you or anybody else", it is morally indefensible. It's only possible defence is Darwinian Evolution, the survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle. In fact, under Capitalism, it is largely the foulest who prosper and survive, not the fittest. This is the antithesis of civilisation, it isn't acceptable at the present advanced stage of human development.

Can Capitalism be modified to make it more acceptable or does it have to be completely replaced with something else? What are it's main deficiencies? It is a competitive system, a race to obtain wealth and power; getting more of one increases the chance of getting more of the other thus enabling both to be accumulated at an increasing rate. Anybody who obtains an advantage is likely to be able to exploit it to gain a greater advantage. The system favours those who are voracious, greedy, ruthless, corrupt, self-serving egotists and enables them to exploit and cripple everybody else for their own benefit, this is it's principal fault. This fault is compounded by the fact that many people get a head start in the race while others are never able even to get away from the starting blocks, they are born into deprived circumstances from which it is almost impossible to escape. The rich get all the enjoyable, stimulating experiences that produce enthusiasm and energy, the poor get all the depressing, debilitating experiences that crush them and deprive them of hope. Every aspect of this society, the education system, tax system, legal system, management system in the workplace etc. is organised for the benefit of the prosperous classes so that they can become more and more prosperous at the expense of the poor. Radical reform is necessary across the board.

1. You believe that New Variant Feudalism is an abomination and want to escape from it.
2. You believe that unbridled competition, the law of the jungle, the survival of the strongest and most ruthless is the antithesis of civilisation hence competitive forces need to be limited in their scope and be largely replaced by co-operation.
3. You believe that the gross differences in the wealth of people in this country are grotesque and obscene and that substantial redistribution of wealth is necessary.
4. You believe that inherited, or otherwise unmerited, power, position, privilege and wealth have no place in a civilised society.
5. You believe that life should not be a lottery and the quality of a person's life should not be merely a matter of chance.
6. You believe that an individual's right to freedom of action does not include the right to restrict the freedom of others, cheat them, deceive them or exploit them in any way.
7. You believe that everybody has the right to express their views on political issues and, if they are novel, have them assessed in a methodical, rational way to determine whether they should influence policy, ie. the brainpower of the whole population should be tapped rather than merely that of an out of touch, privileged clique.
8. You believe that Earth's resources are very limited and are quite likely to be about the only resources the human race, most of it at least, ever has access to so should be carefully preserved for future generations rather than being wasted profligately.
9. You believe that claiming that Gods, Spirits and other supernatural phenomena exist, without being able to provide reliable proof, then using these imaginary entities as a bogus source of authority is corrupt and that every effort should therefore be made to protect people from the influence of the promoters of these primitive beliefs.
10. You wish to play a part, however small, in solving the problems this country (and the human race generally) faces.
11. You are one of Capitalism's victims and need to vent your spleen to get some relief from frustration, anger and hate.

The hijacking of the Labour Party by opportunists from the middle classes has made a new left of centre party necessary.

The principal objective of the Party is to develop a viable and more just, alternative economic system to Capitalism and thereby to provide an escape route for those who are oppressed by it. It is recognised that this will have to be done from within the current environment and will be difficult but even in the fiercely capitalist USA there are successful precedents, for example, there are several groups of Amish Christians (one of which now owns a large proportion of the state of Montana) which thrive despite practising a very close approach to the ideal form of Communism, ie. the common ownership of all property, but their religious basis and rejection of most modern developments is not a model this party would want to follow. Other objectives:-

1. To create a civilised and just society that will give a decent life to all it's members.
2. To control the obscene conceit, greed and extravagance of the most prosperous section of society for the benefit of the majority.
3. To help the disadvantaged and oppressed.
4. To put an end to the present system that is designed to encourage one section of the population to exploit and cripple the other.
5. To find a viable alternative to New Variant Feudalism and the Lottery Society. (The land owning barons who extracted tithes from their tenant farmers in Old Feudalism have been replaced, in New Feudalism, by business owning/controlling barons who distribute the minimum funds they can to their workers and keep the maximum for themselves. Nobody defends Old Feudalism these days but, in the West, New Variant Feudalism is seen as the perfect social system. Strange!) The prosperous classes, by means such as the National Lottery and inane competitions with very large prizes, are also trying to dupe the poor into believing that whether one is rich and enjoys a wonderful life or poor and suffers a dismal life is just a matter of chance and this is the way it should be. It isn't. In a civilised society life shouldn't be a lottery (nor an I'm The King Of The Castle, Musical Chairs, Snakes And Ladders game in which one wrong move (ie. choosing the wrong career) can cripple one for life).
6. To start creating this alternative within the current political situation so that the disadvantaged can start to escape from serving the interests of the fortunate and privileged at the expense of their own, now, rather than when the latter find it convenient (which, of course, they never will): ie. to create a parallel system and thus gradually deprive the prosperous, self-satisfied and corrupt of their pool of serfs so that they have to do their own menial work or exploit each other rather than the rest of us.
7. To drastically reform the education system so that it provides everybody, throughout their lives, with the training they need to enable them to earn a standard of living that is (at least) not significantly lower than the average, fulfil a needed role in society and discharge their social responsibilities. (Instead of a system designed principally to be an inordinately long, largely irrelevant, extremely wasteful obstacle course that children from poor families cannot afford to complete, thereby making them unable to compete for the jobs the middle classes want to ensure their children get.)
8. To provide a range of social, welfare, education, health services etc. for members so that as successive governments hand these services over to armies of private sector profiteers members can avoid subsidising these people's profligate life-style at the expense of their own.
9. To encourage people to think and behave rationally on the basis of proven facts and methodically collected evidence rather than traditional beliefs dating from hundreds or thousands of years ago when the human race knew far less than it does now and was much more credulous and superstitious.
10. To take over the welfare and moral education functions of religion and, in place of faith in, and worship of, imaginary, supernatural entities, substitute: faith in the ability of good to triumph over evil: gratitude, respect and reverence for the efforts, achievements, suffering and sacrifice of those of our human predecessors who deserve it and a desire to learn from and emulate them: respect for the natural world and recognition of a duty to ensure it's preservation.
11. To create businesses, probably of a co-operative/franchise kind, to give members an alternative to working for Fat Rats and their feudal organisations. The businesses would cover every field of industry and commerce, including banking, insurance, agriculture, manufacturing, etc., etc. Members will be expected to invest in these ventures rather than the Capitalist sector.
12. To drastically reform taxation, the financial system generally and the management of companies to prevent greedy, selfish, corrupt egoists getting poisonously rich and living extravagant lives while less fortunate but more deserving people are crippled by poverty, deprivation and the consequent misery and hatred.
13. To define the principles on which political decisions should be made.
14. To make politics more like a science by trying to find a consistent set of principles on which to base decisions and by methodical analysis of the effects of alternative courses of action.
15. To give members the opportunity to influence those political decisions not determined by principle by participating in ongoing debates (by expressing their views on this web-site) and periodic polls on every political subject, ie to tap the intellectual resources and experience of the whole population rather than just a tiny, privileged, hopelessly unrepresentative, Oxbridge educated clique who judge themselves to be the elite although most of them are completely ignorant of, and not seriously troubled by, the difficulties the majority of the population face. The debates and poll results will be recorded, summed up periodically and published to be easily accessible to all, including non-members and future generations.
16. To provide a platform for organisations that otherwise have difficulty getting their concerns and views aired effectively. As far as is possible, submissions to this website from any representative organisation will be published.
17. To give environmental issues a high priority.
18. To encourage people to recognise their responsibilities towards everybody else, including future generations, and to show them that there is more satisfaction to be gained from helping others than from selfishly indulging every greedy appetite of their own (as seems to be the norm now).
19. To give the public the opportunity to vote for policies, not merely parties and individuals offering baskets of assorted good, bad, indifferent and undefined policies.
20. To give people who are prepared to face up to the reality of this unjust world and get off their behinds to do something about it, the opportunity to help put things to rights.
21. To provide a home for dissenters who don't worship New Variant Feudalism, the market and the lottery society.
22. To put pressure on other political parties to introduce reforms.
23. To cooperate with other progressive political parties and probably merge with some of them eventually.

The Party philosophy draws from Socialism, Humanism, Utilitarianism and Rationality.

From Socialism: The principle that the good of the community as a whole is more important than that of the individual and should normally take precedence when there is a conflict between the two. Co-operation is morally superior to competition. Competition and the rewards and penalties of success and failure need to be carefully controlled to ensure that they are fair and just. The principles of Social Democracy (particularly as developed in Sweden?) are seen as being perhaps the closest approach to the ideal basis for the organisation of society.

From Humanism: The affairs of the human race are, and always have been, determined by the actions of the human race itself and the forces of nature. There is no convincing evidence of any divine or supernatural intervention. Every event in the history of the world can be adequately explained without recourse to the supernatural. Many puzzling events which appear to require it can be explained scientifically or by the frailties the human species is subject to. It is therefore irrational and counter-productive to allow supernatural fantasies to influence human decision making.

From Utilitarianism: The doctrine that actions are right because they are useful. The doctrine that the achievement of the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the principal aim of public action.

From Rationality: Correct decisions are most likely to be arrived at by methodical consideration of all the alternatives that can be found, evaluation of all the possible consequences of selection of each alternative and the application of the principles of logic.

Principle:- Policies should be based on principles wherever they can be established and agreed on.

Democracy:- When decisions cannot be arrived at by the application of principles, the vote of the majority will have to be resorted to. Every reasonable effort should be made to ensure that those eligible to vote are well-informed. Those who are not well-informed on the subject of the decision should not be encouraged to vote. Democracy must be improved far beyond putting a cross against a name once every four or five years: the name only represents an ill-defined set of good, bad, changeable and ill-defined policies and attitudes. Real democracy means voting on issues, not voting for political parties or party representatives. It also means letting every opinion get a hearing and proper consideration. At present good points are often made in the media, in articles or letters in newspapers etc., but due to the ephemeral nature of the media they probably aren't registered where they can have the effect they should, ie. in Parliament or Government Offices. It is also difficult for individuals to get their views aired in the media, especially if they are unorthodox. Democracy must also be drastically improved in areas other than politics, ie. in the workplace.

Freedom:- The developed Western nations are often described as free democracies and most political parties and politicians extol freedom. The freedom the prosperous classes most want to preserve is their present freedom to control, cripple and exploit the less fortunate section of the population so that they can attain their own Utopia by making their victim's lives Purgatory or Hell. This freedom must be ended. The freedom to improve their position, of those who find themselves at a disadvantage, must be enhanced.

Capitalism:- Anglo-American, red in tooth and claw Capitalism is not a good basis for a civilised society. Excessive, unfair competition is destroying people's lives and even the planet on which we live. This Party believes that some form of Social Democracy (perhaps the Scandinavian form) can give a good life to everybody except those who put satisfaction of their own greed and egos above everything else.

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