A Socialists’ Guide for the 21st Century. By Jack Grassby. TUPS books, 2001.
In this 150-page book which sets out to “attempt to clarify what socialism means at the beginning of the 21st century” Jack Grassby shows himself well-disposed towards the Socialist Party. He devotes a whole page to reproducing our object and declaration of principles, and another page to a factual summary of our history and policy. Unfortunately he also devotes lesser space but similar tacit approval to nine other “socialist” parties and groups.
Grassby understands that “the SPGB…are totally opposed to the idea of a revolutionary vanguard and hold to the necessity of the working class capturing control of national and local government by democratic means leading to the overthrow of the capitalist system”. Yet he deplores the fact that “the SPGB and the SWP exemplify current divisions in the revolutionary socialist parties”. He faces both ways on which “division” to support: “It will be necessary for a political vanguard to break through the conditioning of the working class. However, experience of political vanguards has shown the dangers of elitism, authoritarianism and exploitation”.
Grassby shows himself to be rather gullible on the question of “human nature”. After quoting Peter Jay’s assertion that “after sex, wealth is the second great passion”, he declares that “it is clear that greed and selfishness are part of our genetic inheritance, and that capitalism meets that predisposition”. In a chapter that approves rather than critically examines the views of “sociobiology”, he questions whether human nature (he means human behaviour) “can be changed to become uniformly selfless, generous and just”. He also believes that “it is necessary to accept that rebellion and dissent belong to our genetic inheritance and will be difficult to eradicate or change”.
In a concluding chapter Grassby paints human nature as both a good guy and a bad guy: “We are genetically predisposed to fairness and altruism and co-operation – as well as to greed and selfishness and competition”. Obviously, he is over-influenced by recent questionable claims of status-quo supporting geneticists. In fact humans have a far greater capacity for acquired behaviour than any other animal. There is nothing in our biological make-up to prevent us living in a socialist world.
Stan Parker
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