When the diplomats and politicians of the various capitalist states get around conference tables, they very often snarl at one another and engage in mutual mud-slinging like of lot of spoiled children. They are looked up to as the representatives of nations and although they really represent only a small minority in each country, the capitalist class, workers are taught to regard them as great men. The average worker feels dwarfed and powerless beside these "mighty” minds, who have often met and not even been able to agree on an agenda or have had head-on battles over the shape of the table. Regardless of their different native tongues, they all speak the language of “King Capital” in the conference chamber. In the highly distrustful atmosphere which prevails among the highly dignified gentlemen who gather in these highly iniquitous places, there is a marked tendency to be regarded as naked unless clad in the “protective” armour of the hydrogen bomb.
Back in 1948 when the war was still fresh in everybody’s memory, these henchmen of the world’s ruling class were capable of sounding very lofty and humanitarian. Obviously after six terrible years of the unlimited butchery of working class men, women and children all over the world, the warlords had to make a show of peace-loving. The victims (or rather future victims) must not be allowed to get suspicious of the boss’s motives. Hence the vast propaganda agencies. Hence that elaborate white-elephant, the United Nations Organisation.
The Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed in December, 1948, by the General Assembly. It is worth while looking back at some of the articles in this declaration to see just how incapable of realisation these high-sounding ideals are under capitalism.
Article 1 of the International Declaration of Human Rights affirms “All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed by nature with reason and conscience, and should act toward one another like brothers!"
When capitalism really caught up with this U.N. dream in 1950, the U.N. became an instrument of war in Korea. Brotherhood and Reason were replaced with bloodshed and ruthlessness.
It is impossible to give here half the instances, where capitalism denies reason and brotherhood, but over-riding all else is the world-wide division of society into capitalist and working class The ownership of the means, of living by a few and the resultant exploitation of the many is the foundation upon which capitalism is reared. All antagonism arises from this fundamental cleavage of interest. What ”equality’’ or ”dignity” is possible within this relationship?
Article 2. "In the exercise of his rights everyone is limited by the rights of others and by the just requirements of the democratic state. The individual owes duties to society through which he is enabled to develop his spirit, mind, and body in wider freedom ”
The just requirements of the democratic state, find expression in things like conscription and often involves many people being blown to bits. Although this clause sounds very noble, because the “society” to which “the individual owes duties,” is capitalism, the freedom to develop spirit, mind and body, for the majority of people, takes the form of working all day in somebody else's factory, mine, or office.
Article 3. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race (which includes colour), sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, or national or social origin.”
What a prime piece of hypocrisy this clause is. Remember that America, Russia and Britain were parties to the Declaration. Russia has been a dictatorship since 1917, with only one legal political Party. America has its witch-hunts which produced the dreads of McCarthyism. Britain has, in its so-called family of nations, South Africa, with its brutal race laws.
“in the nation which has the world’s highest standard of living and a heritage of equality of opportunity for all men regardless of race, creed, or nation origin, approximately fifteen million Negroes in the United States have suffered from some of the most severe forms of economic, residential, educational and personal discrimination.” [page 19].” In 1919, when millions of servicemen returned and looked for their old jobs, no fewer than 26 race riots broke out in American cities. The worst of these took place in Chicago. Twenty-three Negroes were killed, and 178 Whites and 342 Negroes were injured. A second rash of race riots developed during and after the Second World War, coinciding with a second wave of Negro migration from the South to the North. Economic insecurity of the Whites, and fear that the Negro is ‘rising' have been the principal causes of these outbreaks” [page 135].
We have already mentioned the crippling limitations which “social origin” places upon members of the working-class of both sexes and all nations and colours; let us press on to Article 4.
“Everyone has the right to life, to liberty and security of person." While the lives of the working-class are spent making profits for the Capitalist Class, to talk of “liberty” is a mockery.
The world's populace has never had less “security of person” than today with the ruling classes represented by the same diplomats and politicians (or their successors) threatening each other with annihilation when they fail to agree about the division of the plunder.
Article 5. “ Slavery is prohibited in all its forms. ” If the capitalist class could not trust their legal word-spinners, this would be a very startling clause indeed. As it is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, is just an empty mass of verbiage. Not a finger has been stirred by U.N.O. to remove wage- slavery. In fact, as more and more countries develop capitalism (instance Africa, India and China), wage-slavery is invading every last corner of the earth’s surface. The wages-system will require more than a U.N. proclamation to prohibit it.
To sum up, the following observation must be made. Proclamations will never abolish the economic conditions or the ignorance and narrowness from which racial discrimination arises. The man standing in a London bus queue can be heard to say, on seeing a coloured man drive by in a car, “They know how to get in, don’t they? ” The resentment of individuals over housing and jobs find many petty forms of expression. These are rooted in the very nature of capitalism. In a society based on a privileged and an exploited class relationship, finding scapegoats is inevitable as an outlet for the frustrations and privations suffered by the working class.
The U.N. declaration was perhaps never meant to be taken seriously. It was never intended to touch the fabric of capitalist society. If it can help to kid the workers that something will be done to keep them happy, it will have served its purpose. The present position shows the hazards of having faith in leaders. The way out is for workers themselves to understand their subject position and by taking enlightened political action for the first time, make the means of production the common properly of all mankind. This will abolish their undignified status as wage slaves, and in the same move relieve the masters of cant and humbug of the task of drafting windy declarations.
Harry Baldwin
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