Short Story: The Bread of Life (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

Mr. Geldhaber sailed slowly. The superbly appointed private yacht coasted easily in the wind. He surveyed the smoothness of his bronzed skin with a fair amount of indolent pride. A fly settled on his stomach and rested utterly motionless in the sleepy heat. Time seemed to stand still for one beautiful moment as the sun reached its zenith and the sea seemed even darker than it had, enclosing vast depths of mystery.

This vacation had certainly been well earned, he mused. For months Heinrich had sat at his desk, nearly buried in a mound of papers, and had researched the activities of various prices and indices, deciding where to "stick his oar in" and where to pull it out. As a result of all this sticking in and pulling out he had amassed the funds necessary for the purchase and maintenance of this vessel of pleasure, whilst finding himself also the consumer of only the best. Reflecting on this, his eyes closed and his hearing faded. The calls of the swooping birds overhead became distorted into the bells that rang in his dream.

He dreamed of a station master somewhere near his home town, who let fall a heavy tear as each train entered the station. When Heinrich was just about to be told why, he awoke to find himself lying in about five centimetres of water. Was this the same substance as that which showed such depths, so darkly all around his boat? It was a good deal more transparent, but just as cold and wet. He tried to holler, but managed to produce only a whimper. His beautiful yacht was sinking, together with its owner, and nothing in sight but water. He ran about the leaky vessel in desperation, picking up the items which might save him, should he find land on which to await aid. Some he dropped on realising the encumbrance they would pose to his progress in the water; others he grabbed for their sentimental value, and then reluctantly threw them to the deck in their turn. His head swam, and a mad rage of frustration and panic swamped his faculties, both mental and physical.

Mr. Geldhaber's shoulders were aching and he could hardly feel his legs at all. As he swam (and it seemed to him now that this was the only thing he had done since he left the womb) he felt his waist to ensure that the leather bag attached firmly to his body had not been lost He did this many times. He was actually quite surprised at his own powers of endurance: still he had seen no land, no life, no boat or ship; and still he swam. From time to time he would tread water, float on his back, or plunge beneath the surface in order to provide variety and to retain his sanity. He even derived some perverse pleasure from pretending, a few times, that he had come to the end of his tether and was about to drown. At these moments he would sink feebly below the surface which was such a merciless dividing line between his life and his death, only to rise triumphantly to hear ripples of applause from his bewildered and indifferent audience: the rolling waves.

He thought he saw land or help so many times that when he was finally presented with the chance of survival in the form of a few large rocks, he had to approach and sit on them before he could believe that they really existed. He sat with his mouth open, like a great fish, panting for breath and stunned with shock and relief. He laid his leather bag carefully beside him on the rock, and urinated from the summit The rock was only an island of about ten metres in diameter and about four metres above sea-level at its highest point. But to Heinrich it was a mountain. Certainly, it was the largest of the several boulders which at that point broke through the sea's defiant uniformity. Laying out beside him the shirt and trunks which, other than the bag, were all he had brought with him, he stretched out his limbs like an enormous starfish, and closed his eyes. He assumed this posture both in order that his skin might dry thoroughly and so that any potential rescuers would be more likely to notice him. The overwhelming heat pounded down, breathing fire into his heartbeat, uncontrollably rapid now as he breathed deeply after his exertion. Panic floated slowly up into his throat like a big cold stone to choke him.

From fifty metres above, where the birds flew, his body seemed to have been carved out of the rock itself. After a couple of hours his pulse was almost back to normal and he was completely dry. All he could do now was to wait in the hope that he might be seen. On a few occasions he spotted boats which were simply too far away to be able to see him, although he stood and shouted into the air. He saw some aeroplanes and helicopters too, and this kept his spirits up and fed his hopes. He decided to wait as long as possible before resorting to the use of the provisions which had been so hurriedly stashed away in his leather bag.

"Jeremy, come away from that edge, we're going to have something to eat now!"

The speaker of these words was young and healthy, of slender frame and frivolous thoughts. His wife, a stocky woman who was even younger than her husband, ran towards their three-year old son and picked him up to place him before an inordinately oversized feed for a creature of his appetite. Meanwhile, the winds carried their holiday yacht nearer and nearer to the man whom the priests would say they were "destined" to save. Jeremy ate like a young bird, squealing between mouthfuls, and John and Sandra smiled gormlessly at each other across the deck As he was eating, their son looked up at the horizon. Seeing nothing, he returned his thoughtful gaze to the mounds of food before him. Nauseous at this sight he again lifted his eyes, this time spotting a grey smudge in the distance. As he stared at this intently, his parents turned their eyes towards it too, and all three remained silent as it grew larger and larger. The form of the rock, at first neither clear nor remarkable, gradually became more clearly defined. As the yacht moved quite quickly towards the island, the grey surface was observed to have a distinctly defined shape protruding from it As this form became that of a prostrate human body, Sandra gasped and the Saviours sped towards the fleshy star upon the boulder.

When they had approached to within a metre or so, John jumped, with considerable agility from his boat to the rock. He lent over Heinrich whilst Sandra helped Jeremy ashore. The sea and air were quite motionless, the misty heat heavy as lead. John looked over his shoulder at his family and, blinking his almost transparent eyelids into the sun, cooly proclaimed:

"He's dead".

Jeremy ran to see a corpse for the first time in his life. His mother sat down clumsily on the edge of the rock, overcome with shock. The circumstances were particularly mysterious, for the yacht of Mr. Geldhaber had of course disappeared without trace, and the coast was miles away.

"Perhaps he swam out from the shore without realising how far he was going," suggested John. "Must have been too tired to find his way back."

His son was approaching the leather pouch which lay nearby, apparently stuffed with supplies. It looked as if the dead man had begun to open it for the flap which formed the front of the bag had been partially lifted. Sandra's interest was roused.

"God, surely he didn't die of hunger, then?" John and Sandra both stared in horrified wonder as their son gleefully exposed the contents of Herr Heinrich's leather supply bag: several large bundles of banknotes, bound with elastic bands and chewed at the corners.

Clifford Slapper (Britain)

Energy supply: a world issue (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

In any consideration of existing social problems the question of energy supply is of prime importance. It is self-evident that the task of providing decent conditions of life for the whole human population must include providing an adequate supply of energy. To solve the world's housing problem, including provision for heating, cooking and lighting, to expand world transport services, to increase world food production, to provide a sufficient supply of durable goods .for all people, plus the expansion of the means of production which these would require, will arguably involve a greatly increased supply of world energy.

But the problem is not simply one of supplying energy using any means available in an indiscriminate manner. The production of energy makes a great impact on the environment so it is important that the methods used should take this factor into account. What is required is an integrated world strategy of productive development which is aimed directly at the satisfaction of human needs and which can be socially controlled so as to avoid any destructive effects on the environment How does world capitalism deal with this problem? The short and obvious answer is that it does not deal with it nor can it do so.

From a practical point of view society has available a wide range of technical options and there are large reserves of skill, labour and materials yet at the same time we suffer from a chronic inability to take these up in a free and consciously regulated manner. It is not simply that under world capitalism there are economic barriers to producing enough energy for needs, but what does become available on the energy markets is produced by methods which in themselves generate further social problems. The present structure of world energy supply involves an unnecessary waste of useful resources; it is destructive of the environment; it produces severe secondary problems and it is fraught with dangers. This is the position that we are in now and world capitalism provides no foreseeable means for getting out of it. What has been the background to the problems associated with energy supply, which at the present time are worsening?

The existing structure of energy supply and the particular production methods which are currently in use has come into being within a definite framework of economic forces and a military development which has resulted from them. It is simply impossible to freely deploy the technical options which now exist in response to human needs within this existing economic and military framework.

So constraining have been these economic forces that in the more industrialised countries the most used energy source is still coal, the source on which the industrial revolution was based over two hundred years ago (see table). The relatively primitive method of burning non-renewable fossil fuels remains the cheapest energy source available to capitalist production. Despite the wide range of technical possibilities which now exist, it is still the case that hundreds of millions of people throughout the world either gather or buy firewood as their main energy source. Hydro-electric power is generated and since the end of World War II there has been the development of nuclear power but this was never selected as a desirable energy source in its own right. Nuclear power arose on the basis of arms development. It is still a marginal energy source (3 percent of world primary energy production in 1983) though its use is increasing. The use of solar-based techniques is even more marginal.

Nuclear Power: The Military Option

Yet over fifty years ago, in the 1930's, two simultaneous developments occurred which involved wide potentialities for the future of energy supply. One was the theoretical work on the splitting of the atom and the other was the discovery of the photo-voltaic mechanism which enabled sunlight to be converted into electricity. From a purely technical point of view, research and development could have gone in the direction either of nuclear power or solar cells. Notwithstanding the merits, technical or otherwise, of either option the reasons why solar technology was pushed into a backwater of research and development were both economic and military.

It was the implications for arms development which gave impetus to the nuclear programme. It was the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb. This crash military project which in a perverse way indicates how quickly society can move when it becomes committed, involved tens of thousands of workers including the cream of scientific talent in the field of applied physics. By 1945 it had cost 2 billion dollars. The enormity of this effort can be understood in the context that in 1944 in America the value of the Gross National Product was 98 billion dollars.

After World War II this military application of nuclear technology did not diminish so that between 1945 and 1956 the Atomic Energy Weapons Programme had cost 15 billion dollars. This included the development of the Hydrogen Bomb and resulted in a huge scientific and industrial establishment committed to the nuclear arms programme. At this time companies such as Westinghouse and General Electric were manufacturing nuclear reactors mainly for the US Navy.

These developments in America were paralleled in other countries for the same military reasons so that in Russia, Britain and later France the same scientific/technical/industrial basis came into existence. It was on this basis that President Eisenhower introduced his so-called Atoms for Peace campaign in the 1950s. Essentially, the nuclear energy programme resulted from an attempt to capitalise on the immense cash resources which had been poured into the military use of nuclear technology.

Threat to vested interests

But this was not the only reason why research and development into the practical application of the photo-voltaic mechanism was not taken up. Solar technology was subject to attack by the powerful utilities in America whose industries were based on the use of fossil fuels. It is little known that in some places of climatic advantage, simple solar installations had been in use for some time. For example by 1897, of all the homes in Southern California 30 percent had solar water heaters. By 1940 in Southern Florida 80 percent of all new homes utilised solar water heaters. Once these installations, which were simply metal boilers under glass, were fixed in place, all they required was a cheap water supply plus the abundant southern sunshine over which no capitalist enterprise could hold a monopoly. These installations gave householders a degree of independence from the large capitalist utilities which were in the business of selling gas and also electricity generated from the burning of coal and oil.

The use of solar boilers for heating water was one thing but the possible practical application of the photo-voltaic cell for converting sunlight into electricity was a far more serious threat to the capitalist interests which were vested in the control and marketing of fossil fuels. Centralised power stations generating electricity from fossil fuels or nuclear sources enable capitalist enterprises or governments to maintain complete control of the energy source and the marketing of the products. With solar devices, once installed, the energy source is freely available. This is why particularly in America the public utilities launched an organised attack on research and development of solar energy, ranging from political lobbying to massive advertising campaigns.

In the face of the development of the nuclear arms programme and its spill-over into nuclear power and the pressure exerted by the heavily capitalised coal, oil and gas interests, the development of the highly adaptable and environmentally safe solar sources has been largely neglected. For example in the late 1970's, when the British government was spending upwards of £230 million per year on nuclear energy research it was spending only £11 million per year on renewable, solar-based technologies. During the seventies the Carter administration in America did express interest in solar techniques following a sharp increase in the price of oil and problems which nuclear power stations had encountered. This was set aside by the Reagan administration and funding for this kind of research was again reduced.

It is true that some research is being done by oil companies and other capitalist enterprises but this is inevitably suspect The bias arising from their profit-based interest in the subject will at best direct this research into channels determined by their economic interest

This interest is explicit in the following text from an advertisement:

The Arizona sun shines 296 days a year. APS solar engineers are working at the Sky Harbor Photo-Voltaic Solar Project to capture that remarkable energy source. We are proud to be the leaders in the development of solar energy.

22,000 solar cells in 80 arrays provides enough electricity for about 40 average sized homes. But Arizona has more than a million homes - plus factories - offices - plus farms - that need electricity.

Solar may supply a reasonable amount of electricity some time in the next century but it is simply not practical nor economical to meet Arizona's electrical needs to-day. This is why we are using coal and nuclear for large scale use now to meet Arizona's electrical needs.

Nuclear and coal now to meet Arizona's electrical needs.

Problems of present energy system

The factors which have determined the existing structure of the world's energy system have been the economic factors of the profit system in association with the military strategies adopted by the world's most powerful industrialised capitalist nations including state capitalist Russia.

There is now widespread concern about the problems arising from this system. Inevitably, the continued increase in the number of nuclear power stations results in a steady build-up of radioactivity in the environment, with an ever greater problem of how to deal with high level radioactive waste. Accidents like Chernobyl with their horrendous results are part of the existing nuclear energy programme.

Sections of the scientific community and environmentalists are also extremely concerned over the effects of the continuous release of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal. Accurate records of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere show that concentrations have increased from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 340 parts per million in 1982. Burning fossil fuels also releases into the atmosphere sulphur which is associated now with the destructive effects of acid rain including the destruction of forests in the northern hemisphere, the killing off of life in lakes and rivers, and general soil deterioration.

Together with this, a report issued by the National Science Foundation, Washington, produced calculations which show that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would lead to a heating of the surface of the oceans and the land by an average of about 4 watts per square metre, which in practice would mean a change from about 1.6 degrees to 4.5 degrees on different parts of the planet's surface. It is argued that the climatic consequences would be catastrophic, with fertile arid zones becoming arid deserts. This refers to what is now described as "the greenhouse effect". Even allowing that there is disagreement over the possible consequences of this greenhouse effect it would be foolish to ignore even the most pessimistic forecasts which are being issued by some sections of the scientific community.

Merits of renewable energy sources

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, California, as well as others have argued strongly that the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels should be urgently averted. They have emphasised the need to replace the use of fossil fuels with the use of renewable sources of energy such as wind power, wave power and photo-voltaic devices. The need for global consensus as a basis for carrying this through is also stressed by these scientists, though they are pessimistic about achieving this.

The advantages of these renewable sources have been summed up in a Ford Foundation Report as follows:-

Direct Solar Energy. Unlike all other forms of energy available to humans in large quantities, solar radiation is pure energy which is not associated with any material. As a result some types of solar energy systems, once constructed,can maintain a constant inventory of facilities and materials, releasing nothing but useful and waste energy at the same rate as the absorbed solar radiation. For example, operating solar electric cells convert some of the incident solar radiation directly into electrical energy and reradiate, reflect or discharge the rest. The process produces no waste materials that must be accumulated or released to the environment... In contrast use of fossil fuels or any type of nuclear energy requires the addition of mass (fuel) to an energy supply system and either the accumulation of increasing stockpiles of waste products (such as ashes, sulphur, carbon dioxide, or radioactive isotopes) within the system or their release to the environment.

The merits of solar-based technologies and the need for world cooperation in dealing with the problems of energy supply have also been stressed by Janet Ramage in her book Energy—A Guide Book. In her view, the challenge of solar techniques is one of utilising the energy which the sun delivers to the earth at a rate equal to nearly 20,000 times its primary energy consumption and that this challenge presents itself as a technique for collection and conversion. Postulating such a technical solution as a result of co-operation on a world scale she states:

How about a world-wide electric grid? It could use underground and ocean floor super conducting cables, and the power would come from solar farms in the world's major deserts, Ocean Thermal Electric Conversion plants in tropical waters, and wave power stations and wind turbine arrays in remote regions. No atmospheric pollution, no radioactive wastes, no use of valuable agricultural land or precious water. There are probably no insuperable technical problems. There is just one question. How do we get there from here?

Urgent need for world co-operation

This vital question is essentially about the reasons why the existing world capitalist system cannot take up the technical possibilities which now exist for the setting up of a safe and adequate world energy system. This question also takes us out of the sphere of applied science and technology and inevitably into the sphere of world economics and politics. The urgent need for world co-operation in dealing with the problems of world energy supply cannot be realised within the social productive relations and the existing economic and military framework through which these operate. Continued world capitalist society means inevitably that the world will remain staked out as an armed camp and the divisions will remain those of competing national economic interests. The organisation of world society will remain subject to the national economic and military strategies which express the prevailing national capitalist class interests. In the field of energy supply, as in every other field, such resources, skills and production methods which are taken up will be determined by the economic imperatives of the market system or consistent with the existing national economic or military strategies. It is completely impossible under capitalism for humanity to use the earth's resources for the benefit of all people, and it is equally impossible for it to deploy the accumulated knowledge, the skills and the techniques of production which now exist in a direct relationship with human needs on a basis of worldwide co-operation.

Yet there is in fact no barrier presented by any alleged inability of people to co-operate in their mutual interests. On the contrary, this ability to cooperate is universal. What is required is for this inherent ability to co-operate to be mobilised politically as a world movement acting independently of the existing economic, political and military power structures.

This movement already exists as the movement for world socialism, and it is vital that those who see the need for world co-operation in dealing with problems in the interests of all humanity should join its ranks to swell its voice of sanity and contribute to the work of preparing practical programmes of action which could be implemented once its political objective is achieved. This political objective is one of gaining political control with a view to taking the means of production and the earth's resources out of the hands of the world's capitalist class and placing them at the free disposal of the whole world's community.

Establishing a safe world energy system

How could world socialism set about the work of establishing a world energy system which would be adequate for the material needs of the world community but which could also work within the natural systems of the environment in a non-destructive way? Two factors have to be accepted. First, the overall amount of energy supply required in socialism as part of its general strategy of productive development would be immense, arguably greater than the amount which capitalism currently produces.

There would of course be great savings and a more efficient use of available energy supplies compared with what happens today under capitalism. Socialism would have no difficulty in adopting the various techniques of conservation which are well known. Moreover, under capitalism, a vast amount of energy fuels the world's military machines and its armaments production, and these amounts would become available for human needs. The anarchic pattern of capitalist trade involves more waste of energy whereas socialism would be to rationalise world distribution on a world, regional and local basis. At the present time there are millions of employments which may be necessary for the market system but which would be unnecessary in a society organised solely for human needs. These employments are serviced partly by the energy industry so this represents further amounts of energy which could become available for useful consumption. But notwithstanding these savings, it can still be argued that the strategy of productive development which would be necessary in socialism to establish a structure of production adequate for needs would initially require a vastly increased energy supply as for example with the need to solve the world's housing problem, even if a stable level would eventually be reached.

Secondly, world socialism would have to begin with the structure of energy supply which it had taken over. It could not scrap this overnight and this means that some production methods which may be considered undesirable would have to be used for a time. We can envisage that world socialism would have to begin the' work of adapting the existing system, phasing out its undesirable features whilst at the same time expanding the structure using methods which have been democratically agreed.

In this work socialism would be able to use the planet as a single resource held in common by all people. This means that socialism would be able to use the various geographical advantages which may exist in any location as part of an integrated world energy system.

Without anticipating any final decisions which would be made as to the particular technologies or combination of technologies which would be adapted and developed in socialism it is worth noting that the various solar-based technologies which at present impress themselves on some sections of the scientific community as being desirable would be well suited to socialism.

Removal of economic barriers

One point to emphasise is that with regard to any technique which might be developed, socialism would not be bound by the economics of market competition to use methods which embodied the least amounts of labour in their production. Nor could arms development play any possible part in determining the technology which is taken up. Though the solar-based technologies do not at the present time present themselves as the most labour efficient methods of energy production in relation to energy output, this would not be a barrier to their development in socialism in the circumstances where they were deemed to be the most socially desirable methods. Also, given the resources which socialism would be able to freely apply to the research and development of the solar-based technologies they do hold the promise of being suitable techniques for one important reason which can be added to the fact that they are environmentally safe. It is self-evident that in its various forms such as wind and wave power and direct sunlight, solar energy is available to the planet in vast quantities as part of a self-perpetuating natural system which requires no material fuel. The problem of solar technologies is one of effective collection and conversion into usable forms of energy such as electricity. What this could mean in practice is that once the social effort necessary for setting up the network of installations required for an integrated solar-based world energy system had been undertaken, this system would be available for permanent collection and conversion requiring only routine maintenance. This looks forward in a very practical way to a position of society whereby the problem of energy supply could be solved on a permanent basis. It could operate with a durable system of world-wide installations requiring no added materials except for those necessary for routine maintenance.

Moreover, the solar-based technologies can be highly adaptable in the scale of their use. They can include what Janet Ramage has envisaged as a single world-wide grid supplied with electricity generated by large and permanent power stations in different world locations. But solar techniques can also be used on a small scale with locally placed devices dedicated to specialised local functions. This can be single installations providing heat or electricity for single homes, factories or workshops.

It should be stressed further that the technical possibilities are wider than those which have been mentioned. There are the immense possibilities presented by geo-thermal techniques. In looking outwards at the solar sources we can forget that beneath our feet there exists a core of molten heat which could be tapped as it already has been in Iceland and other places. In the long run, humanity's greatest productive resource lies in the innovative genius of our species. The essential problem is one of how to establish a society in which this genius can find its fullest expression directly for human needs, and to answer the question of why this genius remains so constrained within the existing national economic, military and political structures.

World Socialism: the necessary precondition

What emerges from the existing structure of world energy supply— the fact that it is totally inadapted to meet the needs of humanity, plus the fact that it is so destructive of the world environment — is that these problems do not present themselves primarily as practical or technical problems. These are essentially economic and political problems which raise from the class relationships of production in present world capitalist society. The existing methods of energy production are not simply practical means of making energy available, they operate as deployed capital with the object of accumulating more capital. The primary object of the existing energy system is not one of generating useful energy but one of generating profits for a privileged minority. Therefore the practical work of setting up an adequate world energy system which would serve all human needs directly must be preceded by the practical work of establishing the only society which would be capable of doing it

Properly defined, the problem of energy supply is the problem of world capitalist society therefore the solution must be defined as the establishment of world socialism.

Pieter Lawrence (Britain)

Down and out in Toronto (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

"Thousands Hungry in Metro", scream the headlines of the Toronto Star (March 29, 1986) which proceeded to give details of exactly who is starving in metropolitan Toronto, which charity organizations are providing food and which reformist methods the Star advocates should be applied to solve the problem.

As pathetic as the Star's attitude is, the very fact that such an article was published has its positive side. All too many highly-salaried workers in the major industrialized countries, who live pretty well by capitalism's crummy standards, think of hunger and homelessness — in a word the very 'pits' — as being problems folks have in Ethiopia, other parts of Africa and various sundry banana republics, but don't realize the same problems face some folks in the same city. This further emphasises one of capitalism's greatest contradictions: though the tools of production exist to supply an abundance of the necessaries of life, people still live in want, and in the parts of the world where those tools have reached their most developed form.

Toronto is a bustling modern metropolis with over 2 million people, most of whom, we are told, enjoy the good life — whatever that might mean. However, it would seem some are not, according to that arch-epistle of conservatism, the Star. The hungry in Toronto, it informs us, are single mothers with children, unemployed youths, unemployed men with families, pensioners, the homeless, the disabled, ex-psychiatric patients, refugees and working families whose pay cheques can't stretch to cover rent and food.

"Hunger in Toronto is not the same as hunger in Ethiopia. It's not a child with big eyes and a swollen stomach", Karen Shaver, manager of Second Harvest, a volunteer agency that picks up surplus food throughout Toronto and drops it off to agencies and shelters that need it, told the Star. "Hunger in Toronto is a baby getting sugar-water during hunger week just before the cheque arrives. Hunger is a child eating catsup sandwiches and mother not eating at all. Hunger is eating popcorn to fill you up, it's malnutrition and obesity caused by a carbohydrate diet. It's not knowing where your next meal is coming from and having to make that your daily struggle". As Shaver points out, the specific situation maybe different to Ethiopia, but it doesn't mean a thing particularly when every winter many homeless die from hunger and cold in Toronto.

How many go hungry? 

It is difficult to determine exactly how many people are hungry in Toronto. Both city and provincial governments admit they don't know the extent of it because they have not yet begun to collect data from the dozens of agencies and churches that provide emergency food aid.

Some agencies, however, do keep records and publish them. It was found that in February, 1986, 43 received requests (if begging can be called a request) for help from 15,198 people with families at home; that provided food for 37,327 people. These figures leave little doubt that hunger exists, and also indicate that the crisis once thought limited to the inner city, has spread to the suburbs.

• The Salvation Army, Toronto's largest distributor of food aid, receives an average of 5,000 requests a month for emergency groceries and food vouchers. Every month it takes on more than 400 new cases. Last year it assisted 37,000 families who needed help feeding 40,107 children.
• The St Vincent de Paul Society, which provides emergency food vouchers through chapters operating in 110 parishes, gave out $226,000 in aid to 20,000 people last year. Their headquarters receive 20 to 50 calls a day from families seeking food aid.
• When Second Harvest began in April, 1985, it distributed 2,500 pounds of food. Now it moves more than 7,500 pounds of surplus food every month, contributing to about 50,000 meals.
• Two hostels run by the City of Toronto provided 69,000 free meals. The Salvation Army provided 20,000 meals in its two hostels.
• In February, Stop 103, a food depot, supported mainly by Anglican churches, provided groceries to 2,100 families.

Besides the 70 or so charity groups which help feed the poor, the provincial government itself, in its benevolence, sometimes lends a hand. The Ontario government's Emergency Shelter and Assistance program was started in 1984 as a one time grant to selected agencies throughout the winter months. It is now in its third year of operation with funding increased from $1.1 million to $1.8 million. This year $456,300 was provided to help feed Toronto's hungry. Ontario Community and Social Affairs Minister, John Sweeney, is now reviewing the program to determine if it should be extended.

The majority of the thousands who line up at the food banks — the present-day equivalent of the depression era soup kitchens — are people on social assistance programs that were designed to provide people with the basic necessities of life, but are hopelessly failing to do so for the simple fact that production of these necessities are with view to profit not to satisfy human needs.

In February, 70,073 Toronto people were living on family benefits, a long-term form of direct provincial assistance available to single parents, the disabled or others unable to work while raising a family. A single mother with one child receives $558 a month, with up to $155 in shelter subsidy, while a mother of two can receive up to $832. Another 34,119 people were supported by general welfare, a short-term program for those considered able-bodied, but who are unemployed. The maximum paid to a single employable person is $394 and a man with a wife and two children can receive up to $882 a month.

Despite the government's hand-outs, the plain fact is that more and more recipients are unable to make their cheques last throughout the month. In the words of Salvation Army's Captain Bobbitt, "A lot of people are relying on agencies as part of their budgeting every month, they're saying if we can get through to the 23rd, then maybe we can go to the food bank for a couple of days." Bobbitt points out it's not only welfare recipients who are relying on charity for food: "We're now seeing a significant number of working people, working for low incomes and paying high rents and just not managing especially during the winter months when they have to pay for heat" (Toronto Star, March 31, 1985).

As usual the more brain-washed members of the working class believe the poor are poor because they are too lazy to work, ignoring completely the high unemployment rate. Particularly outspoken in his criticism of this attitude is Rev. Dennis Drainville, an Anglican minister, who runs Stop 103, and author of a report called Poverty in Canada. Drainville believes the majoritv of people who rely on charity to stave off hunger are undeserving victims, but he said, affluent people would rather believe the poor deserve their lot. "This is an affluent consumer-oriented society and people tend not to look beyond the things they know — their friends, families and careers", he said, "if people really took seriously how many hungry people there are in Toronto, they might have to do something" (Toronto Star, April 2, 1986).

One wonders what Rev. Drainville would consider as "something", though, like most, he would probably opt for doing something about it within capitalism, like a wishy-washy reform. Most people involved in agencies like Drainville's lay the blame on Toronto's shortage of affordable housing. Too high a percentage of income is going into rent, leaving less for food, they argue adding that this is greatly aggravated by high unemployment and social assistance which is a pittance. So let us take a look at the housing situation.

The worsening housing crisis 

Tens of thousands of people are estimated to be poorly housed, in substandard apartments, public housing projects, rooming houses, hostels and drop-in centres. According to tenants, landlords, politicians, housing experts and government officials, plus numerous housing studies, these thousands are the victims of an unprecedented housing squeeze.

Forced to either pay rents that have out-stripped their budgets, or to compete for run-down accommodation in cockroach and vermin infested buildings, they are plunged ever more deeply into a cycle of poverty, spawning all kinds of other charming social ills. The situation is worse still in Toronto for the thousands who are completely homeless, with an underground parking lot as their place for the night. "We have reached a real crisis", said Bob Couchman, executive director of The Family Service Association, an agency that provides counselling and assistance to about ten thousand families in crisis. "I've never seen the problem as severe as it is now," said Couchman (Toronto Globe and Mail, April 5, 1986).

Severe, means a family of five sleeping in one bedroom and a ten-year old afraid to turn on the light because she'll see cockroaches scatter. Severe means a single mother lining up at a food bank because the rent took all her grocery money, or a father who can't sleep because he worries about feeding and clothing his new-born twins. Severe is an elderly couple forced out of their apartment after thirty years because the owner began renovations which would have raised the rent beyond their reach. Severe is an unemployed fisherman too proud to take welfare, who spent winter nights sleeping on a church floor with more than seventy other homeless men.

Their struggle for adequate shelter continues in the shadow of demolitions, conversions and renovations that eat away at a shrinking rental market. Thousands of low cost apartments, flats and rooming houses are being turned into single family homes for the more affluent From 1981 to 1985 to almost 9,000 rental units were lost in the city of Toronto alone.

The Housing Hostels Coalition, a lobby group of churches, hostel workers and community clinics seeking improved housing for the homeless, estimates that fifty percent of the central care rooming houses have been lost in the last ten years. The shortage of rental housing is so severe that the Metro Council may soon be hanging "No Vacancy" signs at its borders. At present, only two out of every 1,000 apartments are empty.

Tracking the number of poorly housed is a difficult task, but housing experts and community agencies have identified various trends and produced numerous reports showing how wide-spread the problem is. Their statistics show that about 95,000 rental households struggle to pay their rent

An estimated 19,500 people are waiting for subsidized housing. Almost 175,000 income-earning rental households in Toronto are paying 25 percent or more of their income on rent and utilities according to Statistics Canada's most recent data. Of the 447,955 income earning households in the census area, 125,427 were paying 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. About 41,000 of those households are paying up to 40 and 50 percent of their income on rent, according to the Metro Social Planning Council, which also stated that in January, 1986, 22,721 of the 32,287 people on welfare were renting on the private market and paying an average of 64.1 percent of their total income on rent.

A survey for the Provincial Housing Ministry found 25 percent of all low-rise rental housing in Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa in need of "rehabilitation". Those hardest hit are society's most vulnerable groups: the elderly, single parent families, the unemployed, low-wage workers, students and the disabled. Working families earning $15,000 a year must struggle to pay Toronto's high rents. And some single people in social assistance may have as little as $47.00 a month left over after paying average rents. Social service agencies blame the housing crises for other social problems, including family breakdown, domestic violence, psychiatric disorders and prostitution.

However, not so disturbed is Don Richmond, general housing manager of the Metro Toronto Housing Company, who said, "Show me a growing city that doesn't have a housing crisis and you've got a city that's decaying and dying" (Toronto Globe and Mail, April 1, 1986). Without intending to, our friend Mr. Richmond, provides a pretty potent indictment of capitalism.

No one knows the exact number of homeless people. The last study released three years ago, found there were 3,440 and there are probably more now. Community, church and hospital workers say it could be anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000. The metro government say it's as low as 1,300, but their figure excludes people who spend nights in donut shops, bus stations, cheap hotels and jails, instead of a home.

No profit in rental accommodation

One thing is for sure, and that is the crisis has gradually worsened over the last twelve years. The specific reasons are the disappearing stock of rental housing, made particularly worse as so many rental apartments have been turned into condos, with heavy mortgage payments, high utility costs and of course, a high down payment, with the tenant told "buy it or get out!"

Skyrocketing costs for land financing and energy have also been a factor. Changes in the world economy have made construction of new rental housing uneconomical. Builders and developers moved into ownership housing; since 1979, 1,000 condos a year have been built, mostly selling for $100,000 or more, while the non-subsidized construction of low-cost rental units tapered off.

Beginning in the 1970's rooming houses and houses divided into flats became single family homes. In many cases houses in slum neighbourhoods were gussied-up (or as city hall calls it, "gentrified"), and sold to two people, whilst up to ten previous occupants were kicked out

The imposition of rent review scared many landlords out of rental construction; they feared they would not get a fair return on their investment. In Toronto an average two-bedroom apartment costs approximately $60,000 to build; landlords say limits on rent hikes make it difficult to earn more on such an investment than they could by putting the money in the bank.

Though there is a rent review board, the government's only major attempt at reform, it isn't beneficial to many because of the high annual rental hikes, which are usually higher than any salary raise. Many landlords circumvent the regulations of the board by making renovations and claiming they need the increase in rent to pay for it

The number of boarders and lodgers in private homes in Ontario was 200,000 in 1961, falling to 122,000 fifteen years later; the figures for 1986 were unobtainable, but it will certainly be less. Also, the average family size in Toronto fell from 4.2 to 2.4 from 1951 to 1981 (isn't it amazing how capitalism has us expressing people as a decimal point?). Both these trends increase the demand for rental housing. According to Keith Ward of the city of Toronto Housing Department "with the same population, smaller size households give more households; that creates a greater demand for housing generally. The forces that have given rise to smaller household sizes, the creation of single parent families, have stacked the deck in favour of rental demand."

Another factor contributing to the problem is the end of large public housing projects. By the mid-1970's, politicians were unwilling to risk the social problems they fear from such projects that integrated people of different income levels.

As you can see, the whole housing situation is a typical capitalist cock-up which, given the false nature of capitalism, couldn't be anything else.

Reforms of no lasting value

One only has to listen to workers explain their point of view to know that all too many look at these matters from the good guys/bad guys premise, which has nothing to do with it. Typical is the view expressed by Leslie Robinson, a spokesman for the Federation of Metro Toronto Tenants Associations: "in the past governments have had political and ideological blinkers on. We are looking for strong new initiatives from the current government" (Toronto Star, April 11, 1986).

What is needed is an understanding of the way capitalism operates. Production is with view to profit; if it is not thought that returns on investment will be sufficiently profitable (and businesses won't last long without profits, and sometimes without increasing profits), there v/ill be no investment hence no production, which in this case means fewer rental accommodations. If it can be shown, as it has, that there are more profits in turning rental buildings into condos, for sale to a more higher income section of the working class, then it will be done. This occurred, among many places, to buildings where the majority were pensioners who had lived there for twenty to thirty years; most had to leave because they couldn't afford to buy.

It is also pointless complaining about governments. One need not expect anything from a party in power which stands for the interests of big business, but by the same token, a party of well-meaning people, who wish to reform away the harsher edges of the system, are in many cases powerless to do so once elected. For various reasons; the one concerning us now is their own lack of understanding of how capitalism works. Some years ago, the New Democratic Party said if elected it would to a certain extent solve the housing problem by lowering the mortgage rates to 6 percent The financial people who put up the money for mortgages said, that if that was so, they would invest their money in areas of the economy that would give a better return; therefore, few members of the lower income section of the working class, if any, would get houses.

Any party elected to power without a mandate for socialism can do only one thing, whether they stand for the interests of finance, commerce, heavy industry, light industry, shopkeepers, the working Joe, or Uncle Tom Cobley and all, and that is administrate the affairs of capitalism in general, to the limited extent that it is possible to administrate the affairs of such a crazy system. The means giving in to certain pressures once in office. Though these pressures may be different specifically, in the broad, general sense it all amounts to the same thing — profits.

All major government decisions, long-term and short-term (directly and indirectly), are with view to the interests of returning a profit This is something the working class have no stake in; it's their failure to realize this that makes some of them hungry and homeless.

Reforms are of no lasting value to the working class. They can only be of benefit to the capitalist class, directly through profits or indirectly because reforms are conducive to perpetuating capitalism. Reforms, and those who advocate them, deceive the working class into thinking that their problems can be solved within capitalism. Some reforms may indeed seem to reduce some particular pressure on some part of the working class for a while, but with the passing of time become obsolete and new ones are called for. All kinds of reforms have been introduced and none have solved humankind's problems and none will. Capitalism, because of its basic nature, can never be made to work in everyone's interest.

There is only one answer—socialism; and one way to get it by political organization. In a socialist society the fundamental basis of society will be totally changed: from a society based on production for profit it will be a society based on production for use. All will have free access to all they need for a full and happy life. Problems concerning food, shelter and clothing, will no longer exist and this being the case, people will be able to satisfy their other needs, recreational and intellectual.

All will be free to develop their personalities and abilities to the fullest possible extent and all will contribute according to their various skills and abilities. Because the premise of production will be based on serving humankind, people will get satisfaction that is unknown under capitalism.

Ray Rawlings (Canada)

End capitalism to end war (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

Recently two leading war protestors, who are also "leftists" were given space in the Times/Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia, to update the age-old "guns versus butter" controversy which flares up during every economic depression.

Nobody is ecstatic about the immense financing of weapons of destruction while people starve in Third World countries. However, such contradictions are inevitable where the human race is torn into two antagonistic classes, the exploiters and the exploited. The world is organized as a predatory system, not as a humanitarian one. The means of production and distribution, whether operated privately or under the aegis of the state, are monopolized by about 10 per cent of the population and are used by them to accumulate capital by exploiting the other 90 per cent. Production is for sale/profit and "no profit, no production" the basic economic law.

The human race is further divided into competitive, geo-political units called nations, for administering this dog-eat-dog system. Commodities accumulated in one country from the exploitation process come into conflict on the international market with those from other countries. The struggle is also for trade routes and exploitable populations. During a world depression the struggle intensifies. Fewer workers are needed. More armaments are required. The profit priority is King.

It is a myth (and not a new one) to think that if money was not spent on arms, it could be used to feed the destitute. The economic laws of capitalism (including the state variety of Russia and China) dictate that money be invested to reap profits by appropriating the unpaid part of the labor of the producing class, not by feeding hungry people.

The two "leftists" were probably no more appalled than Gorde Hunter, the "rightist", when he reported in the Times/Colonist that Ethiopia was air freighting 5 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables weekly to London, England, probably at high prices to rich consumers. This report is understandable in the light of capitalism's market laws. The starving people in that country have no legal (money) right to an adequate diet. The profitability of that food has to be realized through exchange for cash.

Likewise, in the United States, destitute people sleep on the streets. In the USSR elderly women wait in line at 7.00 a.m., outside grocery stores in subzero temperatures for rationed food in limited supply. While the ruling Russian élite revels in luxury.

People are led into wars

Both the aforementioned Times/Colonist writers (one was a member of the New Democratic Party, the other seemingly a closet Leninist) seemed to realize that the arms race does not exist in isolation from other social issues and that the solution for one is the answer for all. This is a forward step. But both referred to national political leaders being at fault, one urging the peace movement to work for a change in attitude by those "who are set in authority over us".

It is precisely because the function of leaders is to wield the authority of the ruling class over the mass of ordinary people that there is only one kind of leader regardless of attitude. Trusting leaders is like trusting the Mafia to guard the bank. And such trust, or faith, arises from ignorance.

Leaders use ideologies to conceal the sordid commercial conflicts between nations. "Communism" versus "Democracy" is used by the two super-powers on their people to justify the cold war and the development of today's military insanity. Fear and hatred for "the other side" is instilled in workers' minds, as in other wars.

Likewise, if the super-powers could agree to a freeze on more nuclear weapons, their respective leaders could tell their workers (who are discouraged from thinking) that the danger of a holocaust was gone. Or if they reduced the number of missiles by 50 per cent Meaning that humanity could be blown off the earth only half as many times as before. Also, how about a few more crumbs allowed to fall from the banquet table to prove that progress is being made against poverty? The majority can be deluded on war if they can be made confused about society.

The disarmament movement is based upon a dangerous and perhaps fatal illusion, lulling millions into a false sense of security in the belief that something is being done. The movement also allows itself to be manipulated by the political ideology of the rulers of this divided, antagonistic world social system of selling and profits which can no more avoid war than a tiger can subsist on hay.

For instance, a basic ingredient for every war has been the mental conditioning of the workers of each country into believing that "our freedom", "our democracy", "our fatherland" was at stake or that "our country" would be invaded by evil people (who are always on the other side). This is just ruling class ideology since there is no evidence that the workers of the world own any country. Yet there has not been a peep of protest or informed rebuttal from the peace groups about the war potential in working class nationalist, chauvinist indignation over a US firm manufacturing EXPO emblems or a US icebreaker going through "our" Arctic waters. In fact the peace activists themselves use the possessive expression when referring to whatever country they live and are exploited in.

The only way to end nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons can only be ended when wars end, which cannot happen until world capitalism is replaced by Socialism. All night vigils in the rain, those three tipis and three or four pup tents at Nanoose Bay where pacifists were trying to stop renewal of a Canadian-US agreement for the US to test torpedos, or banging pots and pans in Esquimalt Harbor, Victoria, where US warships dock not saying whether or not they carry nuclear missiles, are activities which are as impotent as they sound.

War protestors are in the position of beggars asking governing politicians to do something vital in the interests of society, but which would clash with the interests of the owning class. Not much chance. Beggars can't be choosers.

A familiarity by the majority of the cause of war and a commitment to build the new society is the only guarantee that war will not occur and that nuclear weapons will not be used.

Socialism will involve the basic change in social organization from class ownership to common ownership and democratic control by and in the interest of the whole human family. Work will be carried out on the basis of voluntary co-operation to produce society's needs. Consumption will be free according to individually determined requirements. No minority class, dictating through the state, will impose forced labor on a subservient class to keep parasites rich and idle. The social cause of war will be removed since profit-making, competition, buying and selling and allied activities will end.

George Jenkins (Canada)

J. A. Dawson and the Socialist Party of Australia: A reply to Thesis Eleven (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

The first issue of Thesis Eleven, published in 1980 by a group of academics from Monash University, Victoria, carried an article by Steven Wright on "Left Communism in Australia: J.A. Dawson and the 'Southern Advocate for Workers Councils'". Since Dawson was for a period a member of the Socialist Party of Australia (now called the World Socialist Party of Australia after the original name was usurped by a break-away from the Australian Communist Party in the 1960s) and since Wright used this as a pretext to criticise our principles and policy, a member of the World Socialist Party who was acquainted from first-hand experience with the historical events discussed by Wright sent in an earlier version of the following article as a reply. As it was not accepted for publication we must assume that the editors of Thesis Eleven are merely interested in interpreting the world in the course of academic discussions amongst themselves.

"You rightly consider yourself as a herald of uncompromising fight and clear opposition to capitalism, enabled to do that by clear understanding of capitalism and Marxian science". The writer of these words was Anton Pannekoek, who had been a prominent theoretician of the Second International and was later a leading exponent of Workers Council Communism as a system of society based on workers' control of industry. Pannekoek's words were addressed to Jim Dawson, an active political propagandist in Australia during the first half of this century.

In an article in Thesis Eleven, a publication announcing itself as "a new journal working at the crossroads of socialism and scholarship", the editors made way for an article on Dawson by Steven Wright. One of Wright's major objects in dogging Dawson's political peregrinations was to attack the Socialist Party of Australia and its companion party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Wright steps off on the Dawson trail, saying:

The beginning of the second half of the 1940s, in the wake of the military defeat of fascism, marked a time of resurgence of working class struggle in Europe and America, a wave whose crest the left seemed to be riding everywhere, much to the consternation of both Washington and Moscow. This was the time of victorious Labor governments in Australia, of the Australian Communist Party's peak in membership, of Labour MPs standing in their seats in the House of Commons to defiantly sing 'The Red Flag', and of partisans, Soviet tanks and 'Socialist Unity' parties in Eastern Europe.

Whatever significance this "resurgence" had for the working class, it was certainly no indication of increased actual socialist understanding on the part of the workers.

The rise to power of Labor governments was no new phenomenon in Australian political history and the sordid records of such governments in the second half of the 1940s was merely a repeat of past history, the second half of the 1940s was merely a repeat of past history. The "Australian Communist Party's peak in membership" was merely a reflex of the influx of numerous fellow travellers who had been attracted to the CP after the belated entry of Russia into World War II. Together, the Labor Party and the Communist Party had hopped on the Tour de Triomphe of the Red Army on the Eastern Front While triumphantly proclaiming the "defeat of Fascism" (German variety) the Labor Party pledged support for the Red Fascists — Stalin and Co. The degrading and hypocritical spectacle of British Labour MPs singing the Red Flag in the House of Commons was a miserable vote-catching stunt.

As we claimed at the time, the mushrooming "socialist" and "communist" parties were all part of the Soviet con-game, directed towards trapping unwitting workers into the ranks of Soviet supporters. The only significant feature of the Wright-styled "resurgence" was the willingness of the politically ignorant workers to fall for the political bunk pedalled by self-appointed leaders who were impatiently preening themselves for the romantic roles which they visualised they were to play in what they regarded as the impending world revolution.

What really happened in Russia 

It was merely history repeating itself — a replica of the aftermath of the first world war, with the rise to power of the Bolsheviks, when the self-appointed workers' leaders of the day were lining up for the favours of the Kremlin. Numerous outfits, lefts, rights, centre, and others, sought handouts from the Kremlin coffers, including trips to Moscow with all mod-cons, while battening on the credulity of those they regarded as sheep to be led. Ample proof of this to be found in the belated admissions of these "ambassadors" to Moscow, some of whom were later relegated to "lower mass work" and resigned, while others were unceremoniously kicked out because they offended the local commissars.

One of the few organisations which understood what was really happening in Russia was the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties in the rest of the world, including the Socialist Party of Australia (which had been founded in Melbourne on 22 January 1924). Unlike our critics and adversaries, we did not wait for fifty years after the Russian Revolution to realise that it was impossible to establish socialism in the immature social, economic and industrial state of Russia. We based our analysis of the situation in accordance with the scientific theories of Karl Marx. Subsequent developments in Russia, China and their satellites vindicated our position.

Still, we can't keep that Wright man down. He pops up again with the old jargon:

October 1917 changed that irrevocably. The new star in the East rendered obsolete the time-honoured charts by which revolutionaries had previously navigated the path to socialism . . . The SPGB was simply left behind From being one among many small socialist sects in Britain, the SPGB found itself standing haughtily out in the cold, watching the rest of the far left fight amongst themselves for official recognition from the Communist International.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was not left "out in the cold"; it had never been in the hot romantic furnace of the Moscow pseudo-revolutionaries. Nor had it been involved in the frantic fight for recognition by the Kremlin. Hence it did not have to suffer the frustrations of those who saw their former comrades liquidated by the very bureaucratic dictatorship they had, in their stupidity, helped to create.

Furthering flaunting his bias against the Socialist Party, Wright asserts:

. . . the Socialist Party of Great Britain sometimes gave the distinct impression of wishing that the October Revolution had never taken place.

By this he has in mind our strongly-held view that the Russian Revolution helped put the clock back as far as the development of the socialist movement in the West was concerned. But far from wishing that the revolution had never taken place, we said that a capitalist revolution was inevitable in Russia because the material conditions were not there on which to establish a socialist revolution.

Notwithstanding the ridiculous apologetics from Lenin and his supporters, we were proved to be correct when Lenin, with the backing of the bureaucracy, introduced the New Economic Policy. Announcing NEP, Lenin admitted that it was "a step back to capitalism". Actually, except in name the dictatorship had never been in any way socialist

Other superficial changes in nomenclature were introduced in place of the long-recognised definitions used by Marx. These have been recognised and are too widely known to be set out here, but we might mention two: the substitution of "surplus product" in lieu of "surplus value" and the deliberate falsification of one of Marx's most well-known aphorisms "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" into "from each according to their ability, to each according to their work" (our emphasis). In this falsified version it became the key for the Soviet classification which cleared the way for piecework, "socialist competition", subotniks and the Stakhanovites who were used to con their fellow workers in the speed-up gangs. Then there came the "Heroes of the Soviet Republic" who, like the Chief Commissars and the military leaders, carried more decorations on their chests than could be found on a Christmas cake.

All these measures have vindicated our attitude, but Wright castigates the Socialist Parties for telling the truth about the lamentable history of the Russian dictatorship and those who supported or apologised for it.

The Dawson enigma

One of those who had been associated with these disappointing ventures was Jim Dawson, the subject of Wright's political and industrial biography.

On Dawson's own testimony he had been through numerous organisations before seeking salvation for a while in the Socialist Party of Australia. Starting off in Britain he was taken in by the "Clarion Socialism" of Blatchford; then he turned to the Single Tax theories of Henry George. Returning to Australia he voted and propagated for the Australian Labor Party. On the outbreak of World War I, he opposed it in accordance with his Christian ethics which he was taught as a child.

After hearing their speakers he joined the Industrial Workers of the World. By mistake he enlisted in the Detroit IWW Club and became hostile to the real IWW. Later, he found his way into the Socialist Labor Party, explaining to Paul Mattick, a well-known US radical, that his reason for doing so was "on account of their 'Plan' — the average worker 'wants' something in the nature of a blue-print".

Once again divesting himself of his previous political and industrial garments, he adopted the garb of the Australian Socialist Party. At that time the ASP had joined the scramble for recognition by the Kremlin during the early years of the Russian dictatorship. However, they were out-manoeuvred by what became the Australian handmaid of Moscow, the Australian Communist Party. This comprised disgruntled ALP members, One Big Union advocates, ex-IWW remnants and other non-socialist opportunists, all led by Jock Garden, secretary of the Sydney Trades and Labor Council.

Referring to these events in 1946, Dawson said:

The Russian Revolution of 1917 burst upon us like an atomic bomb. We went crazy about it. I wrote it up in lengthy articles in the International Socialist (Sydney organ of the ASP) and like most zealots distorted the facts to fit in with our theoretical yearnings (our emphasis).

Dawson then made another switch. He returned to the Detroit IWW, which by then had become the Workers International Industrial Union, and edited its journal the OBU Herald. Later he discarded this outfit accusing it of "sectarianism", a term adopted by the Australian Workers Union which at that time was considered to be the biggest union body-snatcher in Australia because it stood over members of other unions forcing its victims to pay levies to the Labor Party irrespective of what their political leanings were. It was a case of "no ALP levy coupon, no job".

Bad health kept him out of active participation for a time. In the early years of World War II, he set up his Workers' Literature Bureau, stating his reasons for this was to offset the flood of Stalinism by spreading the views of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. At this point Wright finds another excuse for his unsupported attacks on the SPGB, beginning with the caption "Principles First — The Small Party of Good Boys" and continuing:

Of all the schools of revolutionary thought toward which Jim Dawson was drawn in the 1940s, the Socialist Party of Great Britain was undoubtedly the most peripheral. Despite boasting a higher membership than previously by the end of the decade, the SPGB commanded a smaller audience within the labour movement than on the eve of the Russian Revolution thirty years before.

Seeing that the so-called labour movement was always hostile to the Socialist Party, what significance is there in this subtle charge? Fluctuations are common in most organisations, political or industrial. But when Wright uses numbers as a criterion of truth or sincerity he thereby adopts the sneer of the large political parties throughout the world which contain hugh majorities of unenlightened adherents.

By this time Wright is beginning to analyse the Dawson enigma, asking "what had led Dawson to join the Socialist Party of Australia in the first place?". According to Wright,

What attracted Dawson most to the Socialist Party was its vision of a 'genuine' socialism free from such Stalinist distortions, a society 'based upon the common ownership and democratic control' of the means of production and distribution.

Dawson himself had already provided this answer. Having read about the SPGB attitude towards Russia, he found himself in agreement with it Quoting an article from the Western Socialist (official organ of the Workers — later World — Socialist Party of the US) which had pointed out that "the wage system still prevails in Russia", Dawson said:

the exploitation being no different there than in any capitalist society. That is sufficient for us. The existence of a wage system indicated clearly that neither socialism or communism prevails. The wages system, no matter what form it takes, indicates that capitalism exists.

Wright himself then quotes an article written by the present writer that appeared in the Socialist Comment (official organ of the Socialist Party of Australia) at that time:

If the people of Russia own and control the instruments for producing and distributing wealth, why do they pay themselves wages to buy back from themselves the things which already belong to them?

Having acquired this knowledge from the SPGB's Object and Principles Dawson discarded it. Claiming that the Socialist Party of Australia was loath to fulfil the role he expected from it he decided to shoulder the job himself and set up his own propaganda concern. After his wide experience in almost every organisation available to him, Dawson could never understand why a socialist party, based on Marxist principles, could not compromise those principles.

In effect Dawson sought to seduce an impoverished party with his personal wealth. But the Socialist Party of Australia always safeguarded its socialist integrity by refusing to accept donations with strings attached. We had seen too many so-called socialist parties slither down the opportunist path after their wealthy self-seeking patrons demanded the conditions tied in with their apparent benevolence. SPA finances were — and are — controlled democratically by the party, that is by the members themselves.

Dawson could never understand that; it didn't suit him. It does help, however, to understand his disappointment at being denied his paternalistic and condescending offer to become a socialist sugar daddy. It also throws light on this pique at our refusal to cooperate with him after he left the party. Wright seems to have missed these points.

See the blogger's note at the end of the article.

Socialist activity in Melbourne

Trying to further explain Dawson's peregrinations, Wright takes another slam at the Socialist Party of Great Britain, accusing it of championing "a 'pure' parliamentary road to Socialism" that was anathema to the "outside left". Revealing no understanding of the Socialist Party attitude towards the machinery of government he says:

. . . the SPA and SPGB called upon workers to vote into government representatives 'whose sole business will be to abolish capitalism and introduce socialism' . . . What this meant practically was that, apart from at election times, the Socialist Parties refused to dirty their hands with the real world, concentrating instead on weekly classes designed to clarify the participants' grasp of the Socialist program, or public debates where every opportunity was taken to 'prove the case for socialism' through the forcefulness of the argument, and where necessary humiliation of the opponent.

In other words, Wright claims that educating workers in socialist theory is not participating in the real world.

When we contested elections, as socialists we told the workers that if they didn't want socialism we didn't want their vote. At elections where we had no candidate we urged socialists to write "Socialism" across their ballot paper. For the Victoria State election of 1945 Dawson wanted to abandon this position and give support to a non-socialist candidate.

The candidate in question, Jim Coull, who had at one time been a member of the Socialist Party of Australia, was standing as a "communist-socialist" candidate. An official of the Liquor Trades Union he, along with the rest of his Communist and Labor supporters had jumped on the "people's war" (as the war became for them after the German invasion of Russia in 1941) bandwagon and had been rushing around the country boosting war bonds. Incidentally, as the government had exempted union officials from military service, these latter fought the war at their firesides, urging workers to defeat the Nazis and that when "we" had done that "there would be a brand new world" for mugs. Coull had become one of Dawson's darlings and Dawson gave him every support during the election.

Wright says that Coull "performed impressively" in receiving 3514 votes. But he does not mention (perhaps he never knew) that an SPA candidate standing in the same constituency before the war, in 1934, had polled 12,173 votes [see the blogger's note at the end of the article] and against a much stronger opponent in the person of Jack Holloway, head of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council who had defeated the Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, at the previous election. And during the election the "communist comrades" dubbed us "social fascists".

Now, let us look closer at the picture: Coull lost his deposit, we polled more than the "half-pie communist" whose showing Wright calls "impressive". What price numbers after that? Most irrelevant, one might say.

Over the years the Melbourne branch of the Socialist Party of Australia had been conducting open-air meetings on street corners in Elsternwick, Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Albert Park (we just about founded the Red Square there), Brunswick, Newport and Williamstown. On Sundays we held meetings on the Yarra Bank, lectures in the city on Sunday evenings, classes on economics, industrial history and other kindred subjects, speakers classes, all based on teaching workers Marxist history and philosophy.

We never claimed to be supermen and the work fell on a limited number of workers. Some were class leaders, others lecturers, some good at debating, and there was a regular number of the Jimmy Higgins type who sold the literature, arranged meetings, carried the platform, and all contributed to the work of the party to the best of their ability.

All our meetings, business and propaganda, were open to the public — we had no secrets, no air of conspiracy and, chief of all, there were no leaders. When people know what they want and where they are going, they don't need leaders. To get socialism, the working class must understand what it is all about. The activity of the Socialist Party of Australia was directed towards this end. Can Wright suggest any other way?

We were always willing to meet our opponents but we could not meet them all; we regret that we could not accommodate Wright's choice of opponent, namely Dawson. Wright demands more. He complains that we allowed only accredited speakers to address our audiences or in debate. We had no mere spouters. We selected representatives who knew and understood the socialist position on many subjects. Our representatives had to be well-versed in their subjects. We could not depute a novice to tackle skilled anti-socialist opponents, including MPs, leading Communist Party speakers, Labor politicians and university professors.

But Wright says that we disdained to get our hands dirty in a world known only to him. What sheer effrontery!

Knowledge is power

Why Wright should constantly criticise the Socialist Party of Australia on its policy of insisting on Marxian education, it is hard to understand. One striking feature of the pseudo-communist and socialist organisations is their muddled politics. This is reflected in the lack of understanding in their rank and file of the import of the policies put forward by the upper echelon.

Constant pandering to ignorant political prejudice to obtain support from any quarter can never bring success to any real socialist party. Nor will it ever, in the long run, bring support to those who practise it. Sooner or later some of their members will wake up. In any case, as all such parties are aspiring to run the capitalist system, it is always the capitalists who win. All the non-socialist parties are reformist and their reforms can never bring success to the cause of socialism. Whatever the result, it is always the worker supporters who suffer the backlash. The more sincere the well-meaning members of these parties are, the more they suffer for the sins of their treacherous "leaders".

Wright himself seems to be infected with the old IWW slogans "Put the Boss in Overalls", "Smash the Ballot Box with an Axe", "Sabotage", etc, to which the boss class responded with the all-powerful reply "Put the Lot in Jail", much to the chagrin of the well-intentioned but misguided followers in the rank and file. The majority of the IWW officials in Australia, together with their rank and file followers, finished up in the Labor Party or in one of the various so-called communist parties. Many of the rank and file suffered for the whims of their inconsistent leaders.

When he criticises the Socialist Parties for their insistence on socialist understanding on the part of ordinary workers Wright decries the one important safeguard against their being misled by "leaders". He twits when we say "Knowledge is Power". When we use this phrase we equate it with socialist understanding. And an understanding of the capitalist system and how to get rid of it is the greatest power that the working class can possess. As Marx said, "Knowledge, too, is a force". And the knowledge of the need for socialism is the greatest force the working class can acquire in their struggle to abolish capitalism.

Bill Clarke (Australia)

Blogger's Note:

". . . that an SPA candidate standing in the same constituency before the war, in 1934, had polled 12,173 votes"

It has to be pointed out here that the Socialist Party of Australia candidate, W. J. Clarke, did not receive 12, 173 votes at the 1934 election. He polled a [still impressive] 3,872 votes at that election. 

In the above article, the votes of The Socialist Party of Australia  and that of the United Australia Party candidate have been switched around. The correct result is recorded on the wiki page for the Melbourne Ports parliamentary constituency, and the correct result is also recorded in this article from the April 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard.  I can only surmise that this misinformation in the article was a genuine mistake by a man in his 80s, who had misremembered the result of the election contest in 1934.

Bill Clarke's obituary appeared in the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard issue of the Socialist Standard. It's worth reading. He was a remarkable man.