Letter: Could do better? (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Could do better?

There are some cases where workers have got out of the position of being workers and made a bit of a fortune by some means or the other — hook or by crook — and Socialists are the first to oppose them doing this! Namely because Socialists give no incentive to workers in getting out of the position of being workers.

What comments have you to make on this ? Don’t be aloof and good. What are your comments, in detail ?

F. S. Steele 

London N.4.

Reply:

Have you confused us with someone else ? If we should hear of any working men or women making “a bit of a fortune” and escaping from wage-slavery, we don’t oppose it: we (individually) wish them luck

However, the belief that anyone can do it or have it happen to him is part of the mythology which sustains capitalism. Anyone cannot; very few can. If you were thinking of football pools the chances of a quarter - million - pound win are statistically about the same as those of being struck by lightning. If you were thinking of famous men who have “advanced by their own efforts”, such stories have practically never been true.

Our case is simply that workers who think on these lines are like the beast of burden following a carrot on a stick in front of it. Escaping from wage-slavery is a most desirable aim, and the only way for the great majority — with exceptions so rare that they don’t matter — to achieve it is by abolishing the wages system, i.e. establishing Socialism.