Correct language (2000)

Book Review from the February 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Socialism and Communication: Reflections on language and left politics’. By Omar Swartz, (Avebury, 1999)

This short book, by an American self-styled communication professional, will prove both encouraging and frustrating to socialists. On the positive side, Swartz says a number of things that we say, or at least with which we don’t disagree. But on the negative side he says much that represents confusion about what socialism is as opposed to capitalism, much that is calculated to deter the growth of socialism rather than promote it.

The good news first. In the order in which they appear in the book, Swartz makes the following statements:

    * Socialism … can be usefully understood here as the system by which human beings—once their essential needs are taken care of—are motivated to work and create by considerations other than monetary profit.

    * The communist party cannot be hierarchical. It cannot be authoritarian.

    * The task of socialism is the battle against alienation.

    * Class conflict transcends racial or religious conflict, and is the root of all conflict.

    * The true socialist must reject the “beneficence” and “wisdom” of the so-called “vanguard parties”.

    * Socialism is about the abolition of all masters.

    * There are many different socialisms, some preferable to others.

    * [The communist party] cannot be anything more than a loose coalition of various leftist perspectives.

    * The left believes . . . that political decisions must be based on the active involvement of the people being governed.

    * In a very real sense, the world is crying out for a strong left leadership.

    * The choices before us are not between “socialism” and “capitalism’, but between better or worse forms of government and economics.

    * There is too much fragmentation and divisiveness in the ranks of the political left. This divisiveness must be transcended.

The basic trouble with Swartz’s position, and those who think like him, is that they are desperate to be part of a big movement, and are willing to sacrifice any long-term goals they may have for the sake of short-term expediency. The divisiveness that Swartz deplores is not between groups that share the same goal and differ only about how to achieve it. It is between a presently small group of convinced socialists who are organised to achieve their goal and a presently much larger group, some of whom pay lip service to the socialist movement and all of whom prevent the growth of that movement by supporting various reforms of capitalism.

Stan Parker