Modern Society is made up of the working class, the great majority, who produce but do not own and a small section (barely 10%) who own but do not produce. For the protection of the latter’s wealth and privileges against the have-nots at home and against covetous and greedy competitors abroad, the possessing class needs coercive machinery, police and armed forces, and so it is that every technical improvement in the tools of production finds its primary application to arms production. The discovery of nuclear energy is only the most recent case in point, though unique in so far as it has “revolutionized the entire, foundation of human affairs and placed mankind in a situation both measureless and laden with doom.” Churchill, who spoke these words, “had no solution for permanent peace between the nations, although,” he said, “we pray for it.” He also said that “it would be folly to suppose hydrogen-weapons would not be used in case of war.” Apparently Churchill knows his men and also his God.
Now, there is a solution, and if it is not for avowed defenders of capitalism like Churchill and the other avowed anti-Socialists to advocate that solution, honesty and consistency would require of those calling themselves Socialists to urge that solution especially since it is the only way out of the present appalling dilemma.
Though an exposé of the genuine Socialist case, i.e., the abolition of Capitalism, lock, stock and band, in other words: a fundamental' change in the constitution of present-day society, from production for profit to production of the means of life for use, on the principle: From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs, though such a proposition would fall on deaf ears in Parliaments and be promptly derided as a Utopia.
Yet, though “we are all Socialists now,” there has not been to the writer’s knowledge, any reference to Socialism as the only solution of society’s problems from any “Socialist” quarters. One is bound to conclude that actually all of them—save that of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the companion parties overseas—look upon the conversion of the means of wealth production and distribution from private or State control to COMMON OWNERSHIP and democratic control by the people as a whole, as a Utopia, just as do the Capitalists themselves. There is, for example, Attlee, saying in the debate on Defence: “There is sometimes a need for something more dramatic if a H-bomb-war and the destruction of civilisation was to be avoided. He believed that it was felt by the rulers of Russia, as well as by the President of the U.S.A., and by the rulers of France, but somehow the thing did not get moving. We were looking for an initiative.” Just as 40 years ago, at the outbreak of World-War I, another pseudo-Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, confessed officially that they had been taken by a storm and “were waiting for a lead.” Attlee said he had had talks with Malenkov, for he was “a very important factor.” (That this “important factor” became only a few days afterwards a mere factotum, shows the political foresight and intellect of these Western Capitalist factotums). What a Socialist indeed, who received the praise of H.M. Government for getting the atom-bomb for Britain and who is now “looking for an initiative” to avoid the destruction of civilisation—as if he had never heard of Socialism!
Others of Attlee’s ilk talked about the “tremendous catastrophe of another war, and that a superior ideology to put over to the people had to be found.” Any ideology will apparently do for these Socialists, as long as it does not end Capitalism and the good old “transition- period" on which these leaders and job-hunters prosper and thrive.
R.
No comments:
Post a Comment