Classic Reprint: Gus has a shock (1985)

A Classic Reprint from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The lies, distortions and omissions which characterise the bosses' press are hallmarks of a system which can only survive by ensuring the political slumber of the majority class. Anyone who thinks that capitalism is a genuinely democratic social system has only to look at the minority ownership and control of the means of communication to understand just how unfree present-day society is. In a socialist society the technology of social communication will be at the disposal of all members of society, and there will be neither owners (private or state) nor advertisers to determine what may be published. Indeed, any opponents of socialism will have free access to the press and other media, for the socialist majority will have nothing to fear from the open expression of the ridiculous case for capitalism. (Indeed, party political broadcasts might be shown on television as comedy entertainment.) 

The following classic reprint was written by F. C. Watts, one of the finest writers of the early years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was published in the Socialist Standard in January 1907.

GUS: You socialists ought to be grateful for the glorious institution of the free press instead of criticising the great newspapers as you do.

WILL: Grateful to whom? The so-called freedom of the press is, in reality, painfully limited; but such as it is, it was granted because absolutely necessary to commercial development. Material interests dictated it; not any love of the people. The capitalist class give us nothing but what it is to their interest to give, either to increase their profits or stave off their defeat, and we know from bitter experience that we have most to fear when our enemies profess a regard for us. 

GUS: But can you deny that the great daily newspapers are glorious and beneficient institutions, fearlessly standing out for truth and purity in public life? 

WILL: I emphatically and entirely deny every word of it!

GUS: Do you mean to say that the modern press is not free, or that it suppresses or perverts the truth?

WILL: I mean to say that the modern newspaper, by its very nature as a commercial venture, cannot exist except by perverting the truth; and that it is absolutely the slave of capitalist interests.

GUS: You surprise me. Explain yourself.

WILL: With pleasure. Now, newspapers are run by limited liability companies to obtain a profit, are they not?

GUS: That is so.

WILL: To get a profit they must sell; to sell they must please, to please they must suit themselves to the prejudices, ignorance or interests of their supporters.

     (Gus opens his eyes)

WILL: They cannot, then, afford to continue any line of policy when it does not pay, or when it is unpopular with the public or with that section of which they have constituted themselves the mouthpiece. To get the largest circulation and the greatest percentage of profit they must say what their readers or supporters want them to say, or else go under.

     (Gus looks startled)

WILL: Nor is that all; they have an even more important person to cater for — the advertiser. He is partly satisfied if the journal panders successfully to a large number of the public; but as a manufacturer he has important capitalist interests, and therefore would not support, by his advertisement, any journal that, through a love of truth, attacked his interests in any way.

    (Gus looks frightened)

WILL: Further, the various sections of the capitalist party have enormous campaign funds, and the newspapers, being run for profit, must slavishly support their capitalist party interest or forgo their reward. And the journalists who run the papers are the wage-slaves of the proprietors, compelled to utter, not what they think, but what their employers consider will sell best, and will please most the capitalist interest.

   (Gus tries to hide himself, Will holds him back)

WILL: Don’t run away, I’ve not done yet. The modern newspaper is thus, in the main, the reflection of the commonest, most superficial and most servile opinions of the public, and at the same time the advocate of the interests of its capitalist owners and advertisers. It is, therefore, against the financial policy of the modern newspaper to enlighten the working class; particularly in any direction that runs counter to capitalist interests. To satisfy its principal clients, the great advertisers and the political leaders, it must expound the views of the ruling class (or of a section thereof) and so doctor these views that the people may easily swallow them. It must, whenever the workers show a tendency to think clearly, carefully draw the wool over their eyes in order to keep them at the tail of the capitalist party and ignorant of the things that should concern them. For the rest, in order to earn its profits, the newspaper must batten on the ignorance and folly of its public.

GUS (who feels that the scales have fallen from his eyes): Well, but how can we alter it?

WILL: Only by abolishing the profit system. But we can help this on by doing all in our power to spread enlightenment among the workers and so show them the utter worthlessness of capitalist journalism; we can help by organising the workers for the overthrow of capitalist domination, and by pointing out that it is their duty to support a press of their own, not run by an individual or company (or profit, but owned and controlled by a genuine working-class organisation for the propagation of definite working-class principles. Thus alone can the education and emancipation of the working class be accomplished, and the freedom of the press from the curse of profit and capitalist domination become a fact.

F. C. Watts

Socialism: A free cooperative commonwealth (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

Many people pose questions about the state of human existence. It is obvious that we live in a deadly dangerous world in which survival is by no means certain. We are bound then to consider an alternative to this. The practical option is to establish a society in which useful work ceases to be a saleable commodity. This would be a world in which the means of production and distribution are used in common by the whole world community. A world in which the useful work of the individual would be given freely to the community, where the welfare of the individual becomes the responsibility of the community, and where the welfare of the community, in its turn, becomes the responsibility of the individual. Only with the end of private property and where human energy ceases to function as a commodity can the mutual interest of the individual and the community be made to serve each other.

The land, factories, mines, railways and other productive resources would belong to no one. They would exist for the purpose of producing and distributing the things that people need in order to live, it would mean no shareholders in companies and no working for money wages or salaries. It means production and distribution solely for needs. This would be a society operated through cooperation. There would be no exchange of goods and no need for a medium of exchange—money. It would mean the end of competition and war. It would mean the coming of age of mankind.

Free Society geared to needs

These simple and practical ideas are contrary to the values we are taught at the moment. We learn the values of private property and that the means of life must be owned by some and therefore not owned by others. We are taught the relationships of ownership and non-ownership. These are the relationships which determine the quality of social life. In socialism the fact that no one will own "the means by which I live" will be the basis for a free society. On this basis, the means of production will be used solely for the purpose of satisfying human needs. Apart from such needs as food, clothing and shelter the needs of one person may vary from that of another. In a free society this would be determined by the individual as part of social co-operation.

The essential need in order to survive in our present society is to have money. In socialism all that we will need is to be human—and to co-operate as humans.

Some people might say that such a society is eventually inevitable, an ultimate stage of social evolution. They might argue that just as the taming of animals and the cultivation of land made it possible for organised society to emerge from hunting communities, and as the use of steam and electrical power gave rise to modern industrial capitalism, so automation and computerisation will give rise to socialism. But this change will not happen automatically; it requires the conscious action of political organisation. The main barrier which stands against this is that ideas are not in tune with the need to change society. In many counties democratic rights are not established.

Many people are still conditioned by tradition, religion and superstition. However, there can be no halfway house. Present society can be abolished and replaced by a new world system which is organised for needs, but it cannot be reformed to make it serve needs. So long as capitalism exists, and human energy remains a commodity and goods are produced for profit, society will remain dominated by the economic forces of the market and social divisions and strife will remain. The idea of socialism must be understood and acted upon by a majority of the world's people. Therefore this change must be the result of education, communication of socialist ideas and democratic political action on the part of people who must work for it. A better world is not "just around the corner", it has to be brought about by the conscious efforts of those who stand to benefit by it.

Competition not healthy

The problems caused by present world society extend to every country, even though they are at various stages of industrial development. Whereas in underdeveloped countries the vast majority are forcerd to endure abject poverty, with many starving to death, even in the so-called developed countries deprivation still persists. Poverty in industrialised countries is evident in several different forms. Many people are compelled through stress, tension and insecurity to indulge in drugs and alcohol to excess. The drug companies are making huge profits from the sale of drugs which people consider necessary in a stressful society. The threat of war, insecurity about employment, loss of health, and the social isolation of individuals are just some aspects of our lives which give rise to the need for drugs, and such "tranquillisers" as valium are amongst the best sellers in "developed" societies.

It is said that "healthy competition" is a desirable feature of human behaviour. Socialists deny this. We maintain that competition is a destructive feature of a society based on property. The quest for profit and the accumulation of wealth involves competition and not co-operation. Cooperation is a constructive force associated with the creative abilities of people which could provide for needs. Competition is part of the market system, it is a destructive force and ultimately results in war or the waste of preparations for war. Competition is entirely related to the acquisition of property on the part of some at the expense of others. The material security of the whole community in an assured future requires co-operation, not competition.

The most satisfying social activity is useful work carried on in co-operation. Work, however, is not to be confused with employment, or the sale of human energy in the labour market for wages. Such employment is carried on around the competition for jobs, it is motivated not by needs but by profit, and many employment occupations reduce workers to mere mechanical functions, and many are useless, or destructive of the welfare of the community.

Voluntary co-operation and free access

It is argued that people will only participate in social production if they are paid with money, yet this does not correspond with actual behaviour. The fact is that even in a world motivated and geared to the sale of goods, many groups of people successfully operate and manage projects which bring them no more reward than the satisfaction of being able to participate. For example, within the northern boundaries of Sydney is a radio station, which, except for two full-time paid people, and a further three who are paid on a part-time basis, is maintained twenty-four hours a day throughout the year by volunteer workers. Not only do they work for no money but it is also necessary for them to donate part of their earnings from their employment in order to pay the expenses involved in running the venture. Hundreds of people, electricians, engineers, electronic experts, carpenters, you name them and they are there, giving their time freely, in spite of the pressures on their time imposed by their employment.

In 1976, the year the station began, there were great problems such as building studios, erecting antennae, etc. The amount of required work was enormous. Today, nine years later, in spite of all the problems caused by the money system, the station, 2MBS FM, is working smoothly and reliably in the Sydney area, day and night, constructed and run overwhelmingly by voluntary co-operation.

Even now, under the present capitalist society there are many examples of such voluntary co-operation which provide the utmost satisfactions to those who participate in them. At the present time this can only operate at the margins of society because it is excluded from the means by which we live and from the natural resources of the world. In socialism, voluntary co-operation will come to its full fruition because it will operate with free access to all the productive means which could be at the disposal of the whole community.

It is a fact that in the common experience of ordinary people, in the main they behave decently to each other, and for the most part the spontaneous responses of one person to another are those of mutual concern and care. It is these responses which find their expression in the many examples of voluntary co-operation, without which no human society, not even capitalism, would be either practical or tolerable. For example, no family could function in a practical, day-to-day manner without co-operation, and the life situations of people would not be viable if they were governed at every point by ruthless competition.

Anti-social behaviour has to be prepared by definite programmes of social conditioning. We are taught that commercial competition and social inequalities are "normal". The justification for war is given by the attitudes of nationalism and prejudice which have to be learned. Against this background of conditioning people are inclined to regard the possibility of a society based on voluntary co-operation with scepticism even though such voluntary cooperation is within their everyday experience.

Prejudiced ideas about human nature

In 1978, the Australian Broadcasting Commission published a book entitled It's Only Human Nature. It was based on a series of broadcast discussions between people who had spent a great deal of time studying human behaviour in varied social and geographical environments throughout the world. In speaking of prejudiced ideas about "human nature", Dr Anthony Barnett from Canberra, stated:

I think it is just a casual mode of speech that sometimes is used as a weapon in argument, I think, illegitimately. Suppose you are supporting a particular kind of political system and someone else comes up with another idea, you describe this other fellow as an "idealist"; you can't change human nature, you say, you'll never achieve these "ideals". That kind of argument is one of the most commonly used on occasions when people talk about "human nature", but they are talking about their own particular "nature" produced by their own particular environment.

Margaret Mead also participated in this discussion:

The way English-speakers use the term "human nature" has very little to do with anything; I mean they invoke "human nature" to support any prejudice they happen to have at the moment. So people say, well, you believe in heredity don't you? Identical twins are alike, aren't they? And doesn't that prove whatever they want to prove, that white people are superior to black people, or that black people are superior to white, or that people will always fight, will always have aggression, or any of these things? Now what one can safely say, scientifically, is that human beings are capable of an incredible range of behaviour, and we haven't tapped a tenth of it. All we need is a greater understanding of the interaction between individuals (in society) and innate abilities. We are now in an entirely new ball game where we can use everything we have learned to date about the potentialities of human beings to build the kind of society that will make this planet safe. If we don't—we won't be here. Societies are built by men and women and they can rapidly adjust to living in totally different societies.

The establishment of a new world socialist society in which people throughout the world will have free access to all the means of living and natural resources which exist, and in which they will therefore be applied solely for human need through voluntary co-operation, will not require any "new" forms of human behaviour. The establishment of socialism would eliminate from daily life the present destructive economic forces which engender competition, violence, and all forms of civil strife. This will enable the better sides of human behaviour which already exist, such as co-operation, creative individuality, and mutual care, to find their fullest expression. In a society which would be united in the common purpose of providing solely for needs, and which would operate on the basis of free access to the means of living, what place could there possibly be for the divisive attitudes of competition, nationalism, race prejudice and class antagonisms? On the contrary, co-operation will mean that individuals would see each other differently, as fellow human beings, expanding the diversity of skills and talents which would enrich the quality of life of all people.

Chas Lawrence

(Australia)

Political shadow-boxing in Canada (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist 

The following article is based on the leaflet issued by the Socialist Party of Canada for last year's federal elections.

The material needs of every individual on earth can be met with only a few hours of work each week from all able-bodied people. This situation is not only practical now without man-made pollution, but has been for years, if existing industrial capacity with some enlargement, in conjunction with available natural resources and current technological knowledge, is used solely for satisfying the needs of humanity. There is no physical barrier to a world virtually as full of the good things of life and as free as air and water is now.

A democratic world community without frontiers must be established, in which the natural and industrial resources of the earth have to become the common heritage of all humankind, and used to provide a cornucopia of material wealth which people can take and use freely according to their own self-defined needs.

Such a moneyless, stateless world commonwealth is the only framework within which current social problems can be permanently solved, since it is exclusively on this basis that production can be oriented towards satisfying human needs. Such a basic social change can only be carried out when a majority of wage and salary workers in the industrialized parts of the globe is aware that the means of production and distribution under world capitalism are not used for social purposes, because they are privately or state-owned by a minority. They are restricted, wasted in the profit interests of that minority. The awakened majority will want this social change, fully understand its implications, and organize democratically and politically to achieve it.

The global village is here now, technologically, not socially.

When a sane society has been organized, so that people are free to voluntarily co-operate according to their ability, death by starvation can be stopped immediately with present food supplies. Food consumption in third world countries can be brought up to European standards in ten years. Rewarding, meaningful work will replace wage-slavery. The working population will be expanded through the addition of people now engaged in socially harmful occupations. For instance, production for sale-profit will be finished. This means that international competition and armed conflict over markets, materials and trade routes will cease. Members of armed forces, arms industry workers, scientists will disband, and together with that equipment, these techniques and materials, will make themselves available for socially useful production.

This basic social change will involve the abolition of the state and the conversion of any useful government functions for the democratic administration of needs, operating through a decentralized system of decision-making on world, regional and local levels. The wages system will be replaced by the voluntary co-operation between people.

As astounding as this solution may seem to be, it is based upon the following analysis of present-day society.

Exploitation

The only way a wealthy minority class can live without having to work is to exploit another class which is forced to work to try to "make ends meet". Exploitation simply means that wages are less than the value of what workers produce. Workers are legally robbed of an unpaid-for surplus where their jobs are. Employees produce all the luxury goods and services that the rich enjoy, but are denied consumption of these things themselves because they are confined to what wages and salaries will buy. This is the cause of the relative poverty, insecurity of the mass of "ordinary" people. It is a losing proposition. Leftists, religious crusaders and social workers who try to alleviate poverty and destitution while ignoring the cause of deprivation, that is the working class's subservient position in society, are not friends of the workers. They are aiding the employing class.

Normally any member of the working class found in any factory, mill or other parts of the boss's property who is not busy working, that is, being robbed by his employers, is trespassing.

To protect its privileged social position the owning class is obliged to spread confusion about the source of its opulence. Its media spread ideas such as, the rich are more ambitious, smarter or harder working than "ordinary" people; or that they stay rich by evading taxes, making the rest of society shoulder the burden; or that corrupt or naive politicians make unnecessary expenditures, adding to the government deficit that keeps workers poor through over-taxation. Confusion is accentuated by the fiction of a common interest within each nation. The national interest is really a mask for the bosses' interest.

Unemployment

Every party in the political spectrum, large or small, is promising that it can do something substantial about unemployment. Alas, as much as they would like to, or as sincere as some of them may be, this is a pipe dream. Governments have no more control over fluctuations in supply and demand on world markets than grain farmers have over hail storms. It ought to be obvious that if governments had the ability to end recessions, they would also have the capability of preventing them from occurring in the first place.

Unemployment helps to show what governments really are, guardians of the existing state of things of private property in the means of production. Governments are at the mercy of capital. No investments are ever made by that small minority which owns capital unless there is a potential of profit. No profit and industries shut down; no production.

A form of cruel and unusual punishment awaits the workers who swallow the vote-gathering promises about recovery. Even if the dreamers could do it, the promised land of low unemployment with rising wages and doles would be merely a matter of getting out of the fire into the frying pan. The ordinary people's degree of insecurity would become elevated to the level of the last boom. For instance, after 40 years of the "prosperity" of the last business crest, Canadian workers had sunk into a consumer debt of $44 billion more than the value of their steady job wages. (Weekend, 6/1/79) And this was way below their needs. Naturally unemployment is high in Russia and China too, since their state capitalist economies are integrated with the rest of the world.

Reforms

Contrary to what many "leftists" have thought, capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence. On the contrary, reforms to the superstructure of the system are necessary to preserve the base. The system has been reformed since 1849 when Robert Owen's Factory Act in the British House of Commons limited the hours of work for children, allowing them to get some education to increase their profitability in the factories.

Some reforms alleviate problems, often while other problems are being created by the system. Where the disadvantaged majority are concerned, reforms deal with effects, leaving causes untouched. Workers are encouraged to think that revolutionary change is impossible, the failure of "Communism" in Russia/China being cited as proof, when the change in those countries was really from feudalism to state capitalism. This tied in with the deception that nationalization was socialism.

Reforms are wonderful for the owning class (1) They give false hope to the workers that something can be done, without basic change. (2) They lower wages and increase productivity which equals increased profits.

Those 1,500.00 dollar bottles of wine would not be for sale in Calgary if there were no idle recipients of profits of the upper class there to buy them.

Even before this recession, some workers were agitating to reform existing reforms so that they would work according to the ideals involved in their establishment. Some are now being eliminated, after years of struggle to get them.

Perhaps it can now be seen that "social services" were never for the people, now that these crumbs are being cut back at the same time as the needs of the poor have increased. Medicare cutbacks for instance, where elderly workers die after months or years of waiting for treatment. Reforms are back-to-work measures, subsidies that lower wages and raise the productivity of labor. More of these services for the rich are required when more producers are required, in periods of business booms.

Voting for reforms is something like voting for a bed of thorns, then spending a lifetime trying to dull the thorns.

Left Wing Parties 

No one thought it unusual, during the time the NDP governed B.C., when "prosperity" was still with us, that some elderly people had to eat pet food. Some eyebrows were raised when Dave Barrett ordered 50,000 striking workers back to servitude, helping to push wages down. There was some union objection, as there was in Saskatchewan and Manitoba when CCF/NDP governments broke strikes.

Generally leftists and rightists parties advocate and bring in the same reforms. For instance the first Socred government of B.C. brought in some nationalization and extensive welfare measures. If the NDP had done this, the bosses' media would have called it socialism, to help induce working class voters think there is some basic difference between the organizations of what can be called the capitalist party.        .

About half of all the world's governments are "left wing" all presiding over capitalism. Mother Theresa has recently been asked to send nuns from third world countries to the slums of Winnipeg to fight destitution a few city blocks from an NDP administration.

The "Political Spectrum" 

The shadow boxers of the so-called left-centre-right are only arguing about rearranging the worm-eaten social furniture. From the "Communist" party to the Western Concept Party, they are not much more than wings of the national capitalist party. There are some differences but they are united in their support of the present world social division of society into "haves" and "have-nots".

They steal each other's policies, hop from party to party with no ideological effort.

Some people are Socreds provincially and Conservatives federally. "Leftwing" and "rightwing" parties have formed coalition governments. Some individual candidates have run for office on a combined "leftist" and "rightist" ticket.

Their reaction upon hearing the ideas of the Socialist Party of Canada is open hostility, ridicule or taunts about utopianism. Whenever they are in office, they administer the profit system in the only way it can be, by assaulting the living standards of the majority who voted for them.

Human Nature

Is the voluntarily co-operative world of socialism impossible because of innate human aggressiveness and greed? If the world's rulers believed this fairy tale they feed to their victims, they would immediately stop funding their arms race from their own abundant coffers and start financing potential destruction through voluntary, door-to-door donations from the humble, mortgaged homes of their underlings. Conversely, they would abandon the crusade to encourage the majority to help others who are worse off than they are through huge charity programs.

Society can only be operated in the interest of all when the downtrodden majority becomes conscious of its inferior social position and wins elections to end the imbalance.

Leadership

When workers accept the ideas of leaders, that is, follow them, they have no real say. They are leaving their lives in the hands of politicians and governments, who are preserving the profit interests of the masters who live off the workers. They are mis-using the ballot to hand power back to a parasitical minority.

Political leaders need no special talents except how to deceive ordinary people. When the NDP's John Schreyer began his final election bid as the Premier of Manitoba, he wore his "lucky shoes". When Pierre Trudeau was trying to decide for the last time to step down, he walked into a nocturnal Ottawa blizzard to consult the stars.

It mattered not that a millionaire, university graduate playboy, holding a flower and spouting philosophy took over the helm in 1968. Nor does it matter that a possible new messiah is a corporate board member and lawyer. The idol of 1968 is the scoundrel of the '80s. The search is on for a new shepherd to become tomorrow's scoundrel.

The world's rulers, in one-party police states, as well as civil rights countries, take the class war of ideas very seriously and spend millions on presenting their side. Generally, the workers' only retaliation so far has been to reject some of those ideas. The owning class fervently hopes the world's workers won't carry the struggle any further than the defensive one on the economic field, over wages and working conditions, merely involving the terms of their exploitation.

Therefore, no government on earth can afford to care about the majority who are wage and salary earners. They are running a system where share and bondholders live parasitically off workers.

It doesn't matter who takes on the job of running the wages-prices-profits system. Or how it is done. No party, including the Socialist Party of Canada, could humanize the system or make it run in the interest of the class it exploits.

By voting for reforms and promises in the last election what did wage workers actually vote for? What has been happening to workers since then? This election is the same. The parties and issues spotlighted by the bosses' media are irrelevant to the interests of the ordinary people. To deal effectively with their problems they must win elections so that they can control, and change society.

The Socialist Solution

The socialist solution to the problems of the non-owning majority can be achieved with only a fraction of the heroism that is required to cope with the present social arrangement.

Since the formulas of the past have been proven wrong, why opt for more of the same? It is not necessary to vote for any wing of the capitalist party in acquiescence because there seems to be nothing better, or in a vain hope that it will do something right, or that someday it might conform to a fond ideal.

The "ordinary" people should become somebodies. They have a potential power at their disposal, brains, logic and the vote. They should assume control of their minds, and claim the world for themselves. They are the class that produces everything in it. There is no third option. Some of the 20 to 30 per cent eligible voters who consistently abstain are undoubtedly knowledgeable enough to not want to vote for any wing of the Capitalist Party. Canada's electoral system is not democratic enough to allow 20 per cent space for a write-in ballot.

But the word "socialism" can be written over the names of the capitalist wing candidates wherever an SPC candidate is not running.

Those who wish to hear more, or wish to join write to: Socialist Party of Canada, Box 4280 A, Victoria, B. C. V8X 3X8 or phone 382-5927 or 479-26-26

Read "The World Socialist" — International journal produced by parties, groups and individuals of The World Socialist Movement. Printed in London. Available (in Victoria) at Griffin Books, 587 Johnson St. $1.00 or postage free $1.50.

In Duncan at Don's Book Store, Sun Valley Mall.

Socialist Party of Canada

Classic Reprint: New Zealand Election Message (1984)

A Classic Reprint from the Winter 1984 issue of the World Socialist

Classic Reprint: New Zealand Election Message

In July this year the Labour Party took power in New Zealand with a majority of 17 seats. We reprint below the election message which was published by the Socialist Party of New Zealand when it put up a candidate for the first time, in the Tamaki constituency of Auckland, in the November 1972 General Election — which was also the last election won by the Labour fakers who replaced the outgoing Prime Minister "Mr. Marshall and his cronies" of the National Party. Now as then our message to workers is the same: Don't rely upon leaders of left or right to solve your problems but use democratic political action for your own conscious emancipation.

To The Workers of Tamaki . . .

When a political candidate stands for a moneyless world in which people take what they need when they need it, in which there is no army, navy or airforce, no police, no banks and no national boundaries, you are expected to dismiss him as a crank. Without a full examination of the Socialist case it does sound crazy.

But the Socialist means exactly what he says and what is more he is prepared to argue logically and scientifically that, not only is this possible, it is the only solution to the problems of today's world.

As cranks we have been around a long time. Our first members got together in 1904 and formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and in 1930 the Socialist Party of New Zealand sprung into existence. Today there are thousands of Socialists in parties with identical objects and principles in USA, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Canada, Jamaica, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. More parties are in the process of starting in other countries.

Politics for us means something quite different. We maintain that the ever present problems of war, pollution, racial prejudice, crime, housing, industrial unrest and unemployment are not caused by governments or leaders, sincere or otherwise, but by the way society is organised throughout the world. This system, which we call capitalism, is a system whereby the means for producing wealth, the factories, the mines, the sources of raw material, the airlines, shipping and transport are all owned and controlled by a small minority (about 10%) of the world's population.

That society is organised on the basis of producing goods and services so that vast profits may be accrued by that small minority is the basic cause of 99% of the problems that face us.

When you grasp this rather basic fact that society is run in the interests of the profit-making machine you are very close to understanding our case. You will realise, of course, that despite what Mr. Marshall and his cronies would have us believe, profits are far more important than people in today's society. You will also realise that any political party that pays allegiance to the profit-making system can only ever run society on that basis.

The alternative, which we call socialism, does not exist anywhere in the world yet. Socialism calls for the co-operation of the peoples of the world to work together on a democratic basis to produce the needs of the people. We maintain that society today has reached that stage in production where, if we used the world's resources and our technical and scientific knowhow in a sane and sensible manner, we could produce an overwhelming amount of wealth to satisfy everyone's needs on a very minimal amount of time and effort.

Free access would be the order of the day with no need for money, buying and selling, wages and profits. This would eliminate all the problems that exist today because of the buying and selling of commodities. War, economic crises, slumps etc., on the international scene and strikes, lock-outs, unemployment and poverty on the home front. People would be engaged on a work basis of producing the best possible under the best conditions that man can create.

. . . Satisfaction and pride in our work could exist for every man and woman. WHAT ABOUT US?

The Socialist Party has no leaders. Leadership is a myth which still lingers in a so-called democratic society. We are democratic in the true sense of the word and do not regard democracy as a device for keeping people quiet while we bamboozle and rob them.

We do not seek power. Our purpose is to abolish it forever. We do not aim to benefit a working class, except by abolishing it along with all classes.

We are realists. We do not think that praying to a god and trusting a leader is going to do us any good.

We are not patriotic. As workers, we have been dispossessed of our countries and our allegiance is only to the 90% of the world's population who make up the international working class.

We do not compromise. As a working class party we are opposed to all other political parties and governments for all respect capitalism in its various stages of development. This is true of state-capitalist Russia and China as it is true of Britain or USA — National, Labour, Social Credit and so-called "Communist" or what have you.

We are workers. We sell our physical and mental energies just like 90% of the rest of the world. We know capitalism from the receiving end, not from the privileged, superior level which sees people as objects to be managed.

We are cranks because we are few against a world owned and controlled by non-cranks who murder, steal, lie, cheat and condone the possible destruction of man.

We know that as working men and women living under capitalism, leisure time is a scarce and precious commodity. But think for a minute — can you honestly say a night's television is more important than dying of cancer from adulterated food and polluted atmosphere?

Is a round of golf or an afternoon at Eden Park more important than the possibility of seeing your children die in a nuclear war? Do you value a night in the pub more than allowing your family to be subjected to the rat race that this society has to offer?

Listen to us, argue with us, doubt everything you hear from us, but remember, the onus is on you and each and every member of society. Parliamentary Committee SPNZ

IF THERE IS NO SPNZ CANDIDATE IN YOUR AREA, REGISTER YOUR PROTEST AGAINST CAPITALISM BY WRITING "SOCIALISM" ACROSS YOUR BALLOT PAPER.

On campus—USA (1984)

From the Winter 1984 issue of the World Socialist

The educational system functions to serve the needs of the capitalist society in which it resides. Its objective is to produce educated and competent workers, including managers and military personnel; in addition, knowledgeable, sophisticated members of the capitalist class. The subjects and training cover a vast complex field that assures the owners of a qualified work force that can do everything that is necessary to produce, distribute and market commodities for sale and profit, in line with existing technologies. And of vital importance is the fact that initially a working class is produced that has been subtly brain-washed and seduced into social and political acceptance of capitalism. The majority of students, when their formal education has been concluded, embrace the wages system without question. Their labour power is ready to be marketed. They, in turn, are willing to conform with docility and eagerness to all the standard norms of capitalist society which, in effect, will maintain their rulers in power in contrast to their own commitment to subservience. Although they have been informed of revolutions in the past, they enter into their new careers with a tacit acknowledgement that the existing society is the beginning and end all for them, and for everyone else; imbued with personal ambition which is devoid of a proper understanding of the social nature of their new environment. Sure, capitalism may always need improvement—but never elimination. This latter, they are not taught—nor ever will be within the boundaries of their formal education.

We do not imply that there has been some malevolent conspiracy at work engineered on an in-depth discerning level by the capitalist class and their agents. In most instances, both the rulers and the ruled are unaware of the economic causes and social consequences of the system they uphold. The superstructure of society, in this instance the educational system, is determined and conditioned by its economic base—the dynamics for its existence. Capitalism is a social organization wherein a minority own and control the means of production and distribution for the purpose of capital accumulation through the realization of profit based upon large-scale wage labour. The educational system is locked into this process in every conceivable manner, both directly and otherwise. There has never been a practical need for the capitalist class to properly understand their own system, notwithstanding the fact that Karl Marx in Das Kapital had most thoroughly accomplished the analysis. Capitalism, regardless of manipulation, follows its own pattern, and conditions the education of the working class to conform to all of its many requirements under the tutelage of the exploiters and their agents. This immense task is by no means an easy one, cut and dried, without its problems, complications and financial burdens. It is always an ongoing operation, subject to continuous reformation which revolves around the "quality" of the education supplied together with its costs and sources of revenue.

Political indoctrination 

Political indoctrination commences with millions of school children, throughout the land, starting the day by reciting in unison the patriotic litany:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

To quite literally add injury to insult (which such trivia is to a young, uncluttered mind) it was reported in a news item on January 2, 1983, in the Arizona Daily Star, and I quote:

Each year, 1.5 million school children in the United States are physically punished under the authorization of principals and other school administrators. This figure does not include informal slappings or beatings meted out by teachers, coaches, bus drivers and other school employees. The schools most inclined to punish are those in Florida, followed by those in Arkansas and Mississippi. In Florida, one out of eight public school students receives corporal punishment in a typical year. The national average is one out of 28. Black school children are victimized most often; one out of three is punished nationwide in a typical year.

An award of commendation goes to Hawaii's board of education, which refuses to allow corporal punishment.

I presume that this treatment prepares the recipients somewhat for the brutality of capitalism that they will eventually encounter in later life.

The state, which exists to preserve, maintain and administrate capitalism, bears the responsibility for the bulk of the educational system; in addition, there are schools, colleges and universities that are either privately or parochially endowed, in many cases receiving added subsidizing from the government. It is therefore surely obvious that such a structure can never be expected to allow or instigate any teachings that will directly challenge or threaten its position. All educational reforms will ultimately prove of prime benefit to the rulers, because to the extent that the educational system is successful in producing competency and political acquiescence within the working class, so to that degree profits will be generated and protected to the highest maximum possible, subject to general market conditions and the prevalent militancy of the workers. This does not imply that the education received by workers cannot be used by them for their own interests. In fact, the mandatory exposure that they receive, especially in subjects exclusive of the social sciences, provides the basis for their ultimate comprehension of the socialist case.

Subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, mechanics, geology, accounting, languages, law, medicine, computers, business administration, engineering, architecture, pharmacy, military science, aerospace, agriculture are all essential to the pursuit of profits and are approached scientifically within the confines of budgetary allowances. But the social studies such as history, economics, sociology, political science, theology, anthropology, are handled with biased restraint and the investigations are by no means impartial. Evidence unfavourable to the existing scheme of things is either suppressed, ignored or perverted.

Weeding-out process

The whole curriculum, from start to finish, is conducted within an atmosphere of competition and stress together with a weeding-out process which segregates those with supposedly superior talents from those less fortunate. This is accomplished through the use of tests, examinations, and grading, all of which have a direct bearing upon ultimate occupations and potential earnings. Such an environment prevents the pleasurable pursuit of education as a primary end in itself. The young find themselves involved in an intensive training programme, presented under the guise of education, which will ultimately affect the price of their labour power and in many instances can prove disastrous health-wise.

In an article on February 5, 1978, in the Arizona Daily Star, it stated that:

Why are child suicides increasing in Japan? Last year more than 700 children and teenagers took their lives there. Japanese authorities offer two reasons: (1) the country's fiercely competitive educational system in which the road to success in later life is linked to passing difficult examinations to leading universities; (2) the reaction of some children to the mounting pressures of excessively regulated lives.

A further quote in the same article stated:

The educational pressures in Japan are unremitting and not only cause ulcers in children but in many cases lead to suicide. Prof. Masayoshi Namiki recently told an international medical convention that he had come across 19 children, none older than 14, with ulcerated stomachs, "dramatic evidence of the unnatural life-style our children are forced into under the pressures of our educational system".

An article in the Wall Street Journal dated June 10, 1980, entitled "Why Are They Cheating?", written by a member of the Journal's Washington bureau which covers education, states:

In addition, statistics show that the rate of campus homicides, suicides, illegitimate births and drug abuse has been steadily increasing for more than two decades, says Edward Wynne, associate professor at the University of Illinois and editor of a magazine called Character. Cheating is just another indication of a "change for the worse", he says.

It is common knowledge that drugs and violence are two of the major problems to be found within the school system today—coupled with large numbers of students who are leaving school with an inability to properly read and write or perform well in simple mathematics. The International Reading Association in Newark, Del., estimates that some 20 million English-speaking, native-born American adults read or write so poorly that "they have trouble holding jobs or suffer loss of self-esteem." In the Wall Street Journal on January 22, 1981, Samuel Halperin, director of the Institute for Educational Leadership at George Washington University, was quoted as follows:

Schools can't teach drug abuse, sex education, driver's education and still teach reading, writing and arithmetic well. And you can't buy that much these days with $2.39—the average hourly amount spent last year on each public-school student.

The perpetual conflict within the educational system is the attempt to produce the desired results, at a budget price, within a competitive, stressful environment harmful to both students and teachers. The teachers themselves, in similar fashion to their students, have been graded and selected to perform at certain levels in different categories. Their own education has been, in many instances, limited by economic and material circumstances beyond their control. They find themselves frustrated by rigid guidelines that apparently do not bring out the best in their students, especially those who come from broken, badly poverty-stricken homes. In addition, just like their fellow workers, they are forced to eke out a marginal existence finely honed to a limited wage. And when they sometimes are forced to rise in protest and strike, they are criticized and condemned for having acted in a supposedly anti-social manner, ignoring the needs of their pupils.

Direct relationship with business world

The educational system abounds with a never-ceasing variety of seemingly insoluble problems which relate to the economic considerations of a cost-conscious administration where the individual needs of the student rarely, if ever, get priority. Instead, education receives the same approach as that given to commodities which have to be produced in a given period of time, at a certain price, for a particular market, with a quality-control that leaves much to be desired. In a Washington (AP) news item on February 1, 1978, Kenneth Clark, in an address sponsored by the US Office of Education, and I quote:

attacked the system of "tracking" in which talented students are steered to elite high schools or courses while the majority of young people are considered "educationally expendable". Clark said American high schools neither facilitate upward mobility nor promise equal opportunity. 

"In fact, under the guise of democracy in selection and the maintenance of standards of merit, they are very effective instruments for the maintenance of racial and class distinctions and the resulting discriminations and inequities," he said.

One might well ask, whose needs are being served here? Those of the students who have been discarded along the wayside, or those of the prospective employers who eventually will be presented with a selected so-called "cream-of-the-crop", the result of a weeding-out process accomplished on a cut-rate budget basis.

There is an interdependence, a direct relationship, between the educational system and the business world. The capitalist class are forever watchful that their source of future wealth, the embryonic working class, receive adequate preparation for the jobs that lie ahead, notwithstanding the prevailing shortcomings. Beyond this point, at the university level, business and higher education in many instances are inter-locked in associations that virtually incorporate the educational machine into the production process. The Associated Press, in an article on December 14, 1982, states:

Scores of universities have entered research contracts with big business, in partnerships that both sides believe will help America regain pre-eminence in world markets such as automobiles and electronics.

And further:

Industry-funded research centers are springing up at Princeton University, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford University and elsewhere. For business, it means a valuable source of brainpower. For cash-trapped universities, it means millions of dollars, new facilities, and a way to keep top faculty members in the thick of developments in their fields.

Starting with first grade children, a concept called "career education" has been used which in theory is supposed to permeate all academic subjects at all levels of education, from kindergarten through junior college. Typically, simple field trips are made into stores, etc.; workers are observed at their jobs, and high-school students sometimes have mock interviews with prospective employers in order to develop their job-finding skills. In an article in the Wall Street Journal dated November 26, 1976, it was stated:

Career education began taking hold five years ago when Sidney Marland Jr., then US Commissioner of Education, coined the phrase and gave the concept top priority. Since then, according to the American Institutes for Research, some 9,000 of the country's 17,000 school districts have launched programs.

The article further states that endorsements have poured in from numerous big organizations which have included the US Chamber of Commerce and several blue-chip companies. For those who support capitalism, such a program no doubt seems practical and worthwhile (although many teachers have been critical and have not jumped on the band wagon). However, to the socialist such exposures to the existing system that are obviously done in an uncritical, prejudiced manner, without an in-depth economic evaluation of the exploitive nature of present-day society, are a flagrant one-sided approach to reality.

Education true and false

It would be Utopian thinking to expect the educational system under capitalism to be different from what it is, or to anticipate anything radical in the way of change. It is a creature of its environment, tailored to the needs of the ruling class that it serves. A vast conglomeration of facts and misrepresentations have been assembled, masqueraded under the banner of "education". This knowledge, liberally interspersed with falsehoods, is crammed into minds that assimilate a proportion, become bored with much that is offered and quickly forget a great deal after examinations are over. Frequently, the unhappy student seeks escape in various unhealthy pursuits.

True education, whereby the pupil is taught in an environment without stress and competition, where time is not at a premium, where financial considerations are non-existent, where individual needs are in harmony with society's, has never been given an opportunity to work its potential wonders. Education, properly organized under these conditions, will become delightful— pleasurable, without undue burden. The process will be a continuous one that will not commence and finish at a given age, but rather will be recognised as a never-ceasing quest for individual improvement throughout the whole of our lives. Blueprints cannot be supplied until socialism has been established, but it should be obvious that education will not be prostituted to the needs of a class minority or the demands of a market place—because neither will exist. All healthy individuals will be able to satisfy their desire for knowledge unhampered by economic restrictions or barriers. The whole of society will in a sense become a perpetual seat of learning wherein schooling, travel and the productive process can become beneficially interrelated. In socialism, assuming intelligent organization, the world itself can become the classroom.

Samuel Leight

(World Socialist Party of the United States)