A realist writes
The Editor.
Socialist Standard.
Being a realist rather than an optimist. I have to state the obvious fact that there are very few good points about being unemployed. Not because I feel particularly depressed, ashamed, useless, or guilty about not performing some type of so-called productive task, and thereby helping to maintain the coffers of our profit-orientated society. No, my reasons for finding my situation unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unenviable are purely financial, for I still recognise the truth that I am no less a person as a result of my lack of paid employment.
But there is one advantage to being unemployed it gives you plenty of time to think And during the past 14 months or so of serious mental application to matters political, social, and religious. I have definitely concluded that the only solid hope for this overcrowded and sadly exploited little planet is to be found in socialism. There can surely be no doubt any more that virtually every crime, either individual or international, originates from the obsession with profit and the motivation of material greed. I have finally come to understand just what my venerable, white-haired granny meant when she used to tell me that "money is the root of all evil"; although 1 would qualify that by saying that it is not money as such — for it is merely a shorthand mode of exchange, being slightly more convenient than conventional barter — but it is rather the hunger for money that causes the problems. Hunger for money, hunger for power, and obsession for the temporal and temporary superiority which money and its power confer upon their holders, those are the evils which must be beaten before our species can begin, as a race, to become truly mature, social, human beings.
But all I have done so far is state the obvious, and repeat in my words some of the things which 1 could read in your magazine any time. The thing is. what do we do about it? Sure, we can write letters like this, we can hold meetings, we can even talk to our friends about our creed of world socialism. But this letter will only be read by people who are already convinced of our truths, and our meetings will usually only be attended by others with our interests, and friends have a tendency to become alienated by heavy political statements. So the question remains, what positive action can we take to throw the outmoded and genocidal politics of the present into the trash-can where they belong, so that they may be replaced with the only remaining logical system in which we believe?
The voting public of this (and most other) countries are very conservative in their attitudes. They are conditioned to the apparently comfortable limitations of party politics. They vote only for "acceptable" parties and candidates, in this country meaning Conservative. Labour or Liberal/ SDP. and they do not even consider voting for someone who, as far as they are concerned, does not stand a chance of success in an election.
Worse than that, our public image is not good. It is not yet viable The average person simply translates "Socialist" as "extreme left" or "Communist", and consequently we are doomed before we start. Of course, in order to promote our replacement social system, we must to some extent compromise our position by fitting into the existing system. Before we can become viable, we must have a public platform of some sort, which means finding public representatives of sufficient conviction and of strong enough image to become feasible candidates in public elections. The system will not change by itself, and we will not change it until we can get inside it. People form that system, and they will not change either their social attitudes or their political affiliations unless they are given a very sound and convincing alternative to their present ones.
So instead of wittering to each other from somewhere on the sidelines, let's work to build ourselves into a solid group — I try to avoid the term "party" because of its old connotations and then maybe we can really begin to change this world into something we can live in with humanity, justice and peace.
Yours fraternally,
R K Chalmers
(Newton Abbot)
Reply:
We have some minor differences with Mr Chalmers but we think his letter is an interesting comment.
Editors.
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