In the early days of motor vehicle production, Henry Ford confessed that he was not in business to make cars. “I’m in business to make money.”
A century later, with equal clarity, the Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, summed up the essence of corporate capitalism.
“The one and only responsibility of business is to make as much money as possible for its shareholders. Executives who choose social and environmental goals over profits are acting immorally.”
The economic system we live under has no conscience. Its primary driving force is the basest of human motives - greed.
It is greed for profit that spurs the production of ё600billion worth of weapons a year, enough to wipe out world poverty 25 times over.
It is greed for profit that tears up the Amazon rainforest and threatens the future of the planet.
And it is greed for profit that condemns millions of Scots to a lifetime of drudgery and poverty pay.
Last year, North Sea oil companies Shell and BP piled up profits of ё25billion; equivalent to the entire annual spending budget of the Scottish Parliament.
Five UK banks made combined profits of ё33.4billion, more than the annual GDP of Bangladesh, with a population of 150 million.
Scotland’s four mainstream parties are fanatically pro-profit and pro-big business.
Their remedy for all of Scotland’s ailments is to encourage the private sector to pile up even bigger profit margins. The Scottish Socialist Party’s People Not Profit campaign will challenge the politics, the economics and the morality of free market ideology.
It aims to shatter the cosy consensus that accepts poverty, inequality, greed and exploitation as a natural state of affairs
It will argue that big business is not the solution, but the problem and that rising corporate profits do not signify progress, but symbolise plunder.
The People Not Profit campaign is based around a simple ten-point programme, which includes opposition to war, low pay and privatisation - and support for free school meals, cheap public transport and an independent socialist republic.
It won’t appeal to the average fat cat company director, rich banker or landowner.
But we are confident that the campaign will strike a chord with millions of ordinary people who want good quality public services, wealth redistribution and a clean, safe environment
