The point is often made, and in the material sense has some truth, that workers in some of the Western countries have never had it so good, and in relationship to the “Hungry Thirties” in Britain, it looks good. Unemployment in this country is very low, and the majority of workers in comparison to the Thirties are not so badly off. Capitalism is, of course, in a boom period that in some countries seems to go on for ever. If this is true, and we accept it for the sake of discussion, does this mean that our case has lost its validity? The answer is no. Socialism is a world wide system of society and we cannot reiterate this too much, so let us look at comparisons of wealth.
In America, surplus wheat which is rotting in storehouses, costs the Administration $370,000 a day rent to store after the Government has bought it at fixed prices. There is also a world surplus of sugar of some 13.7 million tons. On the other hand, 1,700 million people are today living without sufficient food and shelter, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. Again, the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief reports that food production in North America is up 20 per cent, and surplus wheat amounts to 1,382,000 bushels a year, and yet in the Far East there is less to eat than before the war. It follows therefore that the problems of the underfed and under-clothed is also our problem, wherever workers may be throughout the world.
There are both sympathisers and opponents of our case who say we do not support the struggles of these peoples to improve their conditions: this is not true. We support them in the only way that we can—with Socialist propaganda, showing that the movements to which they often give support are nationalistic in outlook and that they are aiming at changing masters and not the social system. A classic example of this is India, where they threw off the yoke of British Imperialism, but the Indian workers remain wage slaves.
Our task is not one of defending capitalism, in whatever guise. If we were to deviate from our purpose, of the establishment of Socialism, we would completely lose our identity and become another reformist party, one of the many who have made promises that could never be kept, within the framework of capitalism. No, the only solution lies in the understanding by the working class of the working of capitalism and the need for a classless, moneyless society.
Wheat farmers in America may not even be aware of the needs of society their first concern must be the profit made by sale of their corn. Wheat can rot in the storehouse of the North American continent and Indian workers can starve rather than sell the food at a loss. That is the stupidity of a profit making system. Socialism can and will provide the material and cultural needs of society as soon as the working class abolish for all time throughout the world a system that can produce super-abundance and poverty hand in hand.
Workers in the western hemisphere may think they are having it good. Many families who run a car can now join the harassing and killing queues that line our roads every weekend or in the evenings they can watch .the “goggle-box" that churns out in the main a load of rubbish. And in the background the frightening spectacle of rockets with nuclear warheads that can traverse the world. Real wealth in human labour power that is dissipated on Blue Streaks, rockets or nuclear powered submarines could be put to the job of solving the real needs of the backward peoples, food, clothing and shelter and the right to live sane and intelligent lives.
The truth of the matter is we never had it so bad, and until workers realise that the problem of the eastern workers is fundamentally the same as that of his western counterpart, the capitalist world will blunder from crisis to crisis. To African workers we make a special plea. You are throwing off the yoke of imperialism and taking on the characteristics of national capitalism. Don't ask or expect us to support the various movements for Colonial freedom. We will not jump onto any nationalist bandwaggon in order to gain your support. Your problems in the last analysis are the same as ours. We want you to have a better life, and this you can only attain in a Socialist society.
Johnny Edmonds
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