From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard
In presenting our case to the working class of Great Britain, which we have been doing for over forty years, we do not waste our time and space on issues such as humanizing the workhouses, that is to say, whether such workhouses shall be bigger or better. Neither do we bother as to whether there shall be central heating in the waiting rooms in the Labour Exchanges or not. Neither do we waste our time as to whether there shall be a return to the Gold Standard, or whether the Pound Sterling shall be devalued, or whether Military Conscription shall endure for 18 months or 12 months.
But what we tell the working class is something like this. We explain at length the REAL causes of their poverty, squalor and war. We take great pains to explain why they must continue to live for the best part of their lives in rat-hole tenement houses. We tell them the REAL causes, that in the near future that the already overcrowded waiting rooms of the Labour Exchanges will be still more overcrowded. We also tell them that from the overcrowded waiting rooms of the Labour Exchanges will only be a short step to the already overcrowded cemeteries of the battlefields of Europe and elsewhere.
We don’t just leave it at that. We always tell them that the remedy for those horrors lies entirely in their own hands. In short, they will have to do some hard thinking. They will have to acquire that revolutionary knowledge and understanding to organise politically and consciously to obtain control of that piece of machinery known as the Powers of the State. They will have to use it for their own advantage, namely, to dispossess the ruling class of their ownership of the whole earth and the fullness thereof. That includes the factories, railways, steamships, airways, etc. They, the working class of the world, will have the task of emancipating the whole of society themselves. No leaders can do it for them, and certainly no Messiah or Saviour. No other political party can tell that. Indeed they dare not tell them that.
When the working class arrives at that stage of revolutionary knowledge and understanding, cries will be heard from many lands. “What are we waiting for? ” They won’t wait very long. Startling things will happen. They will take possession of all the flour mills and bakeries of the world. What will be done with that lovely bread and beautiful cakes that will be produced without money or price? Even children will reply, “You will eat them, of course.”
The working class will not be content with this alone? They will take possession of all the textile machines and all the millions of yards of beautiful cloth and produce beautiful clothing. What will be done with those beautiful clothes? Again even children will reply, “You will wear them, of course.” This will be done without money or price.
Still the working class won’t be content. They will take possession of the whole earth and the fullness thereof. They will take possession of all the stone, clay, concrete and the steel. They will then produce beautiful strong houses. Again without money or price. What will be done with those beautiful strong houses? Again children will reply, “You will go and live in them.” They will do so without let or hindrance. There will be nobody to stop them now. In a very short time it will be obvious to everybody there won’t be required such things as rent books, estate agents, no mortgage or building society.
Then as private property has been abolished, and the causes of war removed, there won’t be required such institutions as armed forces, etc. There won’t be necessary such things as Secret Police, such as F.B.l or M.I.5, Gestapo or Ogpu. There won’t be needed such people as a Prime Minister or any other Cabinet Minister. There won’t be any Labour Exchange or a Stock Exchange or banks of any description, and many other institutions of a slave order of society.
Finally, when the working class almost throughout the world proceed to act on those lines, they will then cease to be a working class. At the same time there will cease to be what is known as a ruling, privileged class. It will then be the end of what is known to-day as Capitalist Society. A new social order will be born, and it will operate throughout the whole world. It will be known as Socialism.
Nat Posner
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