Letter: "Writing as an ex-member . . . " (1987)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Writing as an ex-member . . . "

Dear Sirs.

Writing as an ex-member of your party who has recently taken out a subscription to the Standard I think I will derive very little pleasure at what I have to say, nevertheless, having lived for 62 years I am now coming to terms with "the facts of life" and endeavouring to learn to live with them.

Like "the old days" you have some very forthright and amusing writers. Steve Coleman seeming to be a leading light; and his June 1987 article about "Post Election Blues" was in the usual format, excepting for the last sentence. Predicting that June 12th would be "a bloody miserable day" (and it was!) Comrade Coleman concludes by writing — "and for none will it be more miserable than for those who know how easy it would be to change the whole rotten set-up and establish a society fit to live in".

Apart from the serious error of grammar, whether one is of the chosen few (i.e. members of the SPGB) or the abysmally ignorant majority it is a gross exaggeration to state that any change from the capitalist system to a socialist society would be easy!

May I quote the General Election figures for Islington South and Finsbury? Tory 8,482, Labour 16,511, SDP 15,706, Greens 382, Humanists 56, SPGB 81. It is a reflection of the idiocy of human beings that only 56 people voted for a party which has more sense in one of its little leaflets than in the whole Conservative and Labour manifestos, but the fact that out of a total of 41.218 Islington and Finsbury electors only 81 voted for the SPGB merely proves that what the renowned Robert Tressell wrote over 70 years ago. is as true today as it was then. I have formed the opinion that the working class are more dumb than Dumbo ever was. There is far more insanity outside than inside "mental institutions" and on the whole human beings are much more obsessed with erotica and religious myths than their well-being and happiness. "Look at them". Robert Tressell's character said, with a contemptuous laugh. "Look at them! The people you are trying to make idealists! Look at them! Some of them howling and roaring like wild beasts, or laughing like idiots, others standing with dull and stupid faces devoid of any trace of intelligence or expression, listening to the speakers whose words convey no meaning to their stultified minds, and others with their eyes gleaming with savage hatred of their fellow men, watching eagerly for an opportunity to provoke a quarrel that they may gratify their brutal natures. Can't you see that these people, whom you are trying to make understand your plan for the regeneration of the world, your doctrine of universal brotherhood and love are for the most part — intellectually — on a level with Hottentots? The only things they feel any interest in are beer, football, betting, and. of course — one other subject. Their highest ambition is to be allowed to Work. And they desire nothing better for their children. They have never had an independent thought in their lives . . .!" And so the brilliant monologue goes on. and. like a surgeon's scalpel cutting into a cancerous growth it reveals the monumental task that the changing of society involves.

I work in a small post office-cum-general stores and apart from the usual vast majority of customers who can see nothing beyond their daily dose of Murdoch's law (i.e. the Sun). 20J.P. (i.e.. coffin, or is it coughing, nails) and a bar of Cadbury's for the weekend. I was appalled at the time of the General Election by the amount of people "on the Social" who voted Tory!

When I informed one elderly gentleman that I was a Socialist and would not be voting in my constituency, he told me to "get back to Russia" On June 12th he came up to my counter to draw his pittance of a pension triumphantly wearing a cheap blue rosette and sneered. "Well. I suppose you're laughing the other side of your face now that we've beaten you!”

I conclude with Robert Tressell's immortal words which sum up my feelings towards The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Although you are light years behind the razzamatazz of the Labour and the Tory parties and you are probably right in your analysis of society (based, of course, upon Karl Marx's) "your party persists in regarding people as rational beings, and that is where you make your mistake. Labour are just learning, the Tories knew long ago the sort of people they have to deal with; they know that although their bodies are the bodies of grown men. their minds are the minds of little children. That is why it has been possible to deceive and bluff and rob them for so long." (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, 1905)

And please do not accuse me of arrogance. Anger, contempt, scorn — I plead guilty to these, but I make no claims to be proud of the fact that I belong to a species that will burn, blind and torture innocent animals for the sake of making a profit and kill and maim fellow humans in times of war.

Reg Otter 

Shepperton, Middlesex.

Reply

Before turning to the very real and understandable reasons for our correspondent's lack of hope, let us spell out what defeatism means. It means that you come to terms with a social system which you know to be exploiting you, restricting you, impoverishing your lifestyle and, with increasing ferocity, threatening you with destruction. Not only is capitalism doing that to you, but to your friends and family — people who you care for and want to help. And to millions you have never met. capitalism is doing even worse things. As a defeatist you accept that this is the way life must be. You give up on the struggle to transform society.

Reg Otter is clearly not a complete defeatist. He still tells fellow workers that he is a socialist. He no doubt argues with workers and may well be underestimating his ability to change the way some of them think. Our fellow workers do not always tell us directly when they have found socialist ideas convincing but we would not be surprised if there are a few workers scattered about who would say, "You've got to hand it to old Reg Otter, he talks a lot of sense about the problems of society".

What our correspondent most certainly does underestimate is the intelligence of the working class. After all, these creatures who are "more dumb than Dumbo ever was" make a pretty good job of running the trains, producing all the wealth in the factories, operating on bodies in hospitals, teaching children to read, delivering letters — and the thousands of other important and intelligent tasks which we, the workers, perform. Yes. plenty of workers are laughing like idiots and seem to have dull and stupid faces and appear to have eyes gleaming with savage hatred for their fellow men. Socialists do not romanticise the working class: we are of that class and know just how degraded the system can make wage slaves. But — and Reg Otter will know this very well — the human animal is highly adaptable. In a jungle s/he will behave like a beast. Given an incentive to leave the jungle society of capitalism workers could co-operate. Just as they are doing every day when it comes to producing and distributing wealth, just as workers are always doing when it comes to voluntary efforts to help make other people's lives better. Workers are not naturally programmed for capitalism; nor are we naturally programmed to forever reject the cooperative option of socialism.

Our correspondent is right if he is saying that now, in 1987, the political minds of the workers of the world are in a frightful mess. He is right if he says that this is dispiriting. He was right to feel miserable on 12 June. He is entitled to be angry, although it will do him little good. But should he dismiss the efforts of The Socialist Party as a waste of time? We perform an enormously important task in putting to workers the only alternative to the dangerous chaos of capitalism. We succeeded in persuading Reg Otter to join us and even though he later decided to leave, because he is not arrogant he will accept that there was nothing special about him which made him able to work for socialism while other workers could not understand. Every time we win one new worker to our cause it is proof that we could win a thousand more. And. in practical terms, each new member provides us with access to several workers who know him or her.

The 81 votes for socialism in Islington South and Finsbury was disappointing. We would like to have recorded all 41.218. We ran a great campaign in the area, as many workers living in Islington (even if they do not support The Socialist Party) will testify. Unlike any other party in the election, we consistently asked voters not to vote for us unless they agreed in full with our ideas. That 81 did vote for us — in a constituency which was a key Labour marginal, and in which the Green Party were there to take away the mere protest votes — is something to get working on. If we could persuade those 81 socialist voters to join our Islington Branch we would be very happy. Similarly in Swansea, where we recently recorded 50 votes in just one ward.

Of course, we could regard 81 and 50 votes as good reasons to give up and learn to live with capitalism. Well firstly, capitalism may not allow us to live with it for that much longer, because it is set to put an end to the live-in arrangement, and secondly society will one day change from production for profit to production for need and we are not going to waste a moment's time or withhold any energy to hasten that revolution. We are not defeatists and neither, perhaps, is Reg Otter: maybe he has made the comments which he has so that we can give him the answer he is waiting for. Get into the movement for socialism and do your bit to make history

Editors.

Letters: Human Nature (2005)

Letters to the Editors from the December 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human Nature

Dear Editors,

I’m aware that Socialists often have to face the criticism that Socialism is against human nature. According to this point of view human beings are naturally selfish and acquisitive, even when they have enough to satisfy their own needs. There would certainly seem to be plenty of apparent evidence for that point of view. I thought you might appreciate a section I came across in “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time” (1937) by Karen Horney:

“The irrational quest for possession is so widespread in our culture that it is only by making comparisons with other cultures that one recognises that it is not a general human instinct, either in the form of an acquisitive instinct or in the form of a sublimation of biologically founded drives. Even in our culture compulsive striving for possession vanishes as soon as the anxieties determining it are diminished or removed.”

Horney saw “the irrational quest for possession” as one of a number of ways in which people try to cope with feelings of anxiety, and not as an expression of “human nature”.  She rejected over-generalised ideas about “human nature” and recognised how diverse people are in their attitudes and behaviour.

Adam Waterhouse, 

Bristol

Buying Life’s Essentials

Dear Editors

The aim of capitalism is to sell. I remember that in the 1939/45 war if we had food, warmth and shelter we wanted nothing, so I try to restrict my buying to essentials.

M. B. A. Chapman, 

Bath.

Reply:

We’re not too sure about this. If it caught on, employers would be able to pay us all less.

Editors.

Humanism

Dear Editors

Permit me to comment on your book review of Postmodern Humanism (November). The British Humanist Association was founded in 1896 and not as stated in 1963. A founding member was Charles Bradlaugh MP and when I ceased to be a member in 1997 there existed links with South Place Ethical Society, Rationalist Press Association and National Secular Society. I shall not comment on the reviewer’s claim “they still seem to be working out what their positive case is beyond promoting a non-religious but still ethical approach to life”. But I do assure you that they have taken an active role in the promotion of a large network of funeral celebrants and likewise for wedding and naming ceremonies. Whether these activities exist with the same momentum today, no doubt the book’s author (as a member of the North East Humanists) is  better able to judge.

E. Hirsch, 

Hockley, Essex.

Reply:

According to the British Humanist Association’s own website, they were founded in 1963. It was another body, the Ethical Union, with which they are now associated, that was founded in 1896.

Editors.

The Measure of All Things (2005)

Book Review from the November 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Postmodern Humanism. By Jack Grassby. TUPS books. 2005. £9.95

Until the 1960s Secularists, Rationalists and Free Thinkers as they were variously called had a reputation, rightly or wrongly, of being negative god-killers, bible-debunkers and priest-baiters. Then, in 1963, a group which felt the need to appear more positive set up the British Humanist Association. They still seem to be working out what their positive case is beyond promoting a non-religious but still ethical approach to life. Recently they set up a working group to examine their core values. Jack Grassby is a member of the North East Humanists and his book is intended as a contribution to this debate.

It is not certain that it will appeal to his fellow Humanists as he embraces two approaches most of them would not normally like any more than we do: sociobiology (with its biological determinism) and postmodernism (with its rejection of any universal human values). Also, it contains a number of embarrassing howlers, such as stating that homo sapiens emerged from the Neanderthals and that Socrates preached that "man is the measure of all things" whereas this was the view of the Sophists that Socrates set out to rubbish. Come to think of it, "man is the measure of all things" could well be the core-value that the Humanists are searching for.

Adam Buick

Not So Radical (2020)

Book Review from the November 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clear Bright Future: a Radical Defence of the Human Being by Paul Mason (Penguin £9.99.)

In Postcapitalism (reviewed in the September 2015 Socialist Standard) Paul Mason argued for what he called revolutionary reformism, a gradual transition to a supposedly new kind of social system. There would be a basic income for everyone, while essential goods and services would be made cheaper, with more and more of these becoming free. Yet there would still be money, markets, profits and banks, so it was hard to see how what he was proposing was really ‘post-capitalist’.

In his latest book Mason advocates a similar system, but he goes by a rather roundabout route to get to this proposal and then makes a detour at the end that promises very little. He looks at why people support Trump, a man who thinks facts are irrelevant. Racism and misogyny, he says, are the key factors driving white voters to Trump. We then get a discussion of many topics – including neoliberalism, the alt-right, post-humanism, trans-humanism, postmodernism – and various writers, such as Nietzsche, Arendt and Foucault.

Mason supports radical humanism, which means achieving freedom by transforming technology and society. Artificial intelligence should be placed under human control and made subject to an appropriate ethical code, and information technology (as argued in Postcapitalism) can be part of what makes economic abundance viable, as it creates goods that can be copied at minuscule cost. IT "makes Utopian Socialism possible: the appearance of islands of cooperative production for sharing, the massive reduction of hours worked and the expansion of human freedom and self-knowledge".

Two chapters are devoted to the views of Karl Marx, with both positive and negative comments. Marx suggested that humans can set themselves free by changing their social circumstances, which would involve abolishing private property. But he did not give an adequate account of women’s oppression or of reproductive labour as a specific form of exploitation. There is something in this critique, but no merit at all in the claim that Marx saw the revolution as "the blind actions of a single class", as it would in reality be the achievement of class-conscious workers (it is not clear, but it may be that Mason sees the working class as manual workers only). His vision is of the networked individual taking part in collective action, but this differs only in that it would now be far easier than just half a century ago for a revolutionary working class to communicate with each other and co-ordinate their activities.

Later comes a totally pointless chapter which argues that what passes for Marxism in China is nothing like the real thing. The book ends with a chapter on how to ‘live the anti-fascist life’ that is pretty vague and makes little connection to what has been said previously. More on the supposed ‘Utopian Socialism’ and how it could be a global system rather than just ‘islands’ would have been a more appropriate conclusion.

Paul Bennett

Scottish Green (2015)

Book Review from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Humanity at the Crossroads: A Political and Humanist Dialogue’, by Raymond Garbet. Newton Books. Edinburgh, 2015. 260 pages.

This is a self-published book by a long-term member of the old Communist Party of Great Britain who is now a member of the pro-independence Scottish Green Party and so shares the illusion that an independent Scottish government would be able to buck the economic laws of capitalism and put people before profits.

He is also a member of the Humanists (hence the book’s sub-title). As such he rejects religion (which he defines as any belief in the exist of a ‘soul’) but doesn’t call himself an atheist because that is saying what you are against not what you are for, preferring ‘Secular Humanist’; which is fair enough. Basically, he sees the way forward for humanity as the UN taking action to deal with climate change, world poverty and human rights abuses; a worthy internationalist perspective but another illusion to expect that collection of capitalist states to do anything about any of these.

If you buy the book you get a Trotskyist pamphlet thrown in free as he has a 20-page interview with Colin Fox, ex-MSP and leading member of the Scottish Socialist Party (which Garbet annoyingly refers to as the Socialist Party) and representative within it of the old Militant Tendency. The trouble is that it is outdated as Fox puts his group’s pre-Corbyn line that the Labour Party is finished and so for the need for a new union-based workers party, stressing ‘the enormous obstacles that exist in reclaiming the Labour Party as Jeremy Corbyn has been attempting for years.’ But, to be honest, we didn’t see it coming either, not that it makes any fundamental difference. That Fox is no socialist is summed up in his last word: ‘we want to create a society where everyone receives a decent wage.’

Adam Buick

Human Nature and Morality (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Marx died there grew up a legend that his theory of social causation was too narrowly mechanistic to provide accommodation for any sort of ethics. No doubt Marx, in combating the sentimental “moralising” of certain Utopian contemporaries who called themselves “the True Socialists”, had leaned so far backward as to give semblance if not substance for fathering on him views whose alleged paternity he would have disclaimed.

The humanistic socialism combated by Marx, like its contemporary counterpart, was a pseudo-political trend, inspired by the literati, philosophers and pundits. Moses Hess was for a time their most representative spokesman. For the early humanists as with the latter day ones, socialism was not a question of “by bread alone”  – even though bread might be included. Socialism was primarily a question of moral values. Stress was laid on brotherly love, the dignity of man and concern for the individual. From such political piety, socialism came to be defined as “the ethics of love”. Then, socialism took the guise of contemporary humanism. Now, humanism assumes the role of contemporary socialism.

Like many of the views Marx fought against, the arguments of the True Socialists have turned up over and over again in a variety of social situations, tricked out each time in fresh frills and flounces, as if making their first bow on the stage of world history.

Humanism the classless ethic

Common to all shades of this humanistic approach is the tenet that socialism is not basically a question of economic interests but humanitarian ideals. Not a matter for the stomach, but an affair of the heart, and that a moral revolution must be the prelude to the social revolution. Not only, argue the humanists, have men and women altruistic feelings, but implicit in these feelings are the ideals of communism. All that is necessary is to encourage and help promote these altruistic tendencies, to actualise the Brotherhood of Man based on universal love.

If our true nature is some residual and permanent quality of the human species, then every individual is at least in embryo a communist. But what the right kind of social conditions necessary for this are, the humanists all through the ages have been very vague about. Again, if our essence is our “true nature”, then this human essence transcends all social systems and classes. Landed proprietors, capitalists, peasants and wage workers are all equally capable of actualising their “true nature” into the communist way of life. Thus, while many humanists have called for the abolition of all classes they have done so in the name of an abstract classless ethic. While they will admit that the class struggle itself is inevitably engendered by the competitive character of capitalist society, they nevertheless hold that it militates against the growth of humanistic ideals by giving emphasis to material differences instead of stressing human sameness. Many humanists have even talked about the necessity of prosecuting the class struggle, but how can one ask people to disregard class interests and then call upon one class to oppose another?

Human nature as an historic variable

The ethical assumptions of all varieties of what is called the humanistic socialist view are based on the fixity of human nature. They share this view with theological theorists, the difference being that the former hold that this basic human nature is good and the latter that it is bad. Marx denied that human nature can be placed in such absolute categories. Both Marx and Engels held that human nature was not an absolute constant but an historic variable. In fact, they always insisted that the “human nature” to which humanists and the clericalists appeal, each in their different ways, cannot serve as a guide to social organisation. It is not human nature which explains society, but society which explains human nature. There is no given human nature independent of time and place. There is only an historical human nature, that is a specific expression of human nature in a definite social context. To put it more precisely, to understand the nature of the human one must understand the nature of the society in which humans live. When we adopt such a criterion we discover that there is no immutable human nature, no homogeneous pattern to which a universal appeal can be made for the justification of concrete social questions. There can be no overall moral agreement or ethical unity in a social system split by class interests and antagonisms.

Class demands v. ethical neutrality

Contrary to what humanists believe, all ethics can be shown to have a class bias in a class system, and further there can be no genuine class ethic unless backed by class demands. That is why on concrete social issues one cannot appeal to “Man” or “the normal human”. Neither is there some ethically neutral tribunal to which opposing class rights can be impartially referred.

Capitalist society consists of buyers and sellers of labour-power. The worker as a seller of labour-power cannot assert his or her “right” to maintain or improve living standards via ethical appeal or moral law. Nor is the capitalist under a moral obligation to waive or even remit in any way the unpaid labour of the worker — profit — back in the form of increased wages. Not only has the capitalist a legal right to profit, but from his standpoint a moral right as well. Behind this moral right stands custom, tradition, religion, the classless ethic — and the State. As Marx points out in Capital, “There is here, therefore, an antimony, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchange. Between equal rights, force decides”.

In a society such as capitalism, based on a permanent class conflict, there can be no genuine appeal to a neutral ethics. That is why Marx never invoked Humanity, Justice or Mercy as agencies for solving social struggle. For the same reason he rejected the abstract classless morality of Kant and Christ. Morality for Marx is not eternal or natural but active and social. Morality to be genuinely effective must be based on needs, and in a class society on class needs. It is true that ethical ideals, like truth, duty, honour and human rights, acquire a seeming eternal form. But social analysis shows while the forms of these ideals are the same, their nature differs from social epoch to social epoch and from class to class. So if the question is posed: whose truth? whose duty? what human rights?, one will find in the answer a class standpoint. Crack the shell of a classless absolute ethic hard enough and the kernel of a class interest will be found. Marxist ethics do not invoke “Truth”, “Duty” and “Altruism” but demand a state of affairs where these things have a different content from the existing ruling morality. Humility or self assertion, unselfishness or selfishness are themselves neither virtuous nor vicious; it is the actual social situation which gives them their truly moral quality.

The demand for the abolition of classes is a concrete class demand, engendered by a specific social situation. For the working class to be concerned with the plight of its “enemies” is itself a policy of despair whose ultimate logic is the perpetuation of capitalism. That is why we reject the classless ethic of religious theory and the school of bourgeois morality with its intuitive ethics based on the private individual. For such moral views turn out to be a disguised defence of the status quo.

Letter: Socialism and Religion (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

Having subscribed to the Socialist Standard for a while and having read several letters about the party’s attitude to religion would you kindly confirm, or deny, if I am eligible for membership.

As a humanist I believe that mankind’s salvation comes about through his own efforts and not through a deity or a life hereafter. As a Buddhist I believe that everything comes about through cause and effect, which precludes a god or a life hereafter. I believe that the mind is not material and is not subject to the laws of physics. It does not die when the body dies nor does it continue as a soul.

As a Marxist I believe in “each according to his ability and each according to his need” which denies a system based on profits and suggest a system based on co-operation.

I feel that Mohammed, Buddha and Christ were socialists and that it is the followers of the religions they founded that have debased them. I do not think you should deny people who profess to follow a particular religion unless they deny the basic precept of socialism.

Paul Pettit, 

Maidens Green, 

Berkshire

Reply:

Obviously we can’t deal with a membership application through the columns of the Socialist Standard. You’ll have to go along to a branch and take your chance. We can, however, already identify a couple of snags.

1. The mind is not the subject to the laws of physics any more than are society or hipster. But, as the mind is real, statements and claims about it are subject to the same rules for admitting and judging evidence as in any other field of scientific research. Your claim that the mind “does not die when the body dies” does not satisfy these standards as all the evidence leads to the conclusion that when the brain ceases to function then the mind ceases to exist.

2. You feel that Mohammed, Buddha and Christ stood for the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production with production for directly for use and not for sale or profit? You can’t be serious. Buddha wouldn’t even have understood the idea (he’d be too busy contemplating his next re-incarnation). Christ (if he really existed) would have been some sort of Jehovah’s Witness preaching non-engagement with the real world while awaiting the coming of the Kingdom of God the day after tomorrow. Mohammed was a merchant and war lord who certainly had no interest in the abolition of private property, buying and selling and money —Editors.

Materialism & Religion (1967)

Book Review from the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Survival of God in the Scientific Age by Alan Isaacs, Pelican, 5s.

Socialists are materialists. We see no reason for concluding that a supernatural agency, popularly called “god”, has operated or is operating in the universe. The origin and evolution of the physical world, of life, of the mind, of man and of the idea of god itself can be explained adequately without recourse to the concept of a supernatural agency. As for the so-called ultimate origin of the universe, in seeking this we may well be begging the question by assuming that it has an origin.

Religion claims to be able to prove the existence of an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing being both from logic and from experience. The arguments from pure logic have long since been discredited Indeed, we might add, though Isaacs does not, that the atheist—who tries to prove the logical impossibility of god’s existence—always seems to fare better, his trump being “Why did a perfect being produce an imperfect world?” Interesting as these arguments may be they really get us nowhere. What we want is evidence. There have been people who have claimed that god or some other supernatural being like the so-called virgin Mary has revealed itself to them. However, their claims cannot be checked and such people are generally either mentally abnormal or ill (psychopaths) or have worked themselves by chanting, self-flagellation or starvation into an abnormal state of mind.

Nobody with the least knowledge of scientific method, would accept such testimony as evidence for the existence of a supernatural agency. Yet millions upon millions of people put faith in such revelations as set down in such books as the Bible, and they do so even if, as in the case of the alleged Christ, there is some doubt that he lived at all.

Why? Why do people not see the so-called religious experiences for what they are, the ravings of psychopaths? Clearly there must be other factors, psychological or social, disposing people to this blind faith. Isaacs concentrates, perhaps too much, on the psychological—the fear of death, infertility and loneliness. We, as historical materialists, would look rather to the social: the function of religion as “the heart of a heartless world” and later as a prop for class societies.

Isaacs covers all this very well and we can recommend this book to all seeking to understand the problem of religion, especially as Isaacs, as Humanists are wont these days, leans over backwards to be fair to religion.

However, for a man so competent at sweeping away religious superstitions in the physical and mental worlds, Isaacs has some odd prejudices about man in society. He holds that leadership, and credulous followers, are necessary for any community to survive; and that no civilised society can exist without coercion and punishment. He is also committed to the views that wars arise from human nature.

Certainly Isaacs does speak of a coming “rational civilisation” and holds out the prospect of a time when mankind will

Be able to settle down to the massive task of planning its food production, its families, and its resources so that the benefits of human endeavour can be shared equitably amongst its members.

But he suggests that this could only come if the leaders of society change their ways and he’s sceptical about this:

. . . in the event one knows that there is about as much chance of homo sapiens learning to live in peace and prosperity, as there was of homo habilis producing the quantum theory.

So a world of peace and plenty is not possible with homo sapiens. For this we must await the evolution of, quite literally, a new man. This is what comes of reading too much of Julian Huxley! Seriously, though, this is just a sophisticated version of the “human nature” objection to Socialism.

It is possible for human beings, as they are now, to create a world of peace and prosperity. What is required is not a further evolution of the mind, but a change in the basis of society. Clearly the people of the world cannot use the resources of the world to satisfy their needs unless they own and control them. It is only on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production that a world of peace and prosperity can be created. For this, men need only apply their existing capacity to reason to the problem and then act to change society.

Isaacs suggests that no society could exist today without coercion and punishment to maintain order. So means are needed, he argues, for “the suppression of greed in the common good.” Ironically, this low view of man has a religious origin. It is a secularised version of the theory of original sin, of the doctrine that man is born evil and so must be tamed to live in society. This argument used as a defence of all authoritarian religion, all government and all class rule. Socialists reject it as a slander on mankind. Man acts from a great variety of motives, conscious and unconscious, but are we justified in arguing that his psychology is a barrier to a free society? Socialists say no. Quite apart from the fact that a man’s psychology cannot be separated from his social background, how man acts depends to a very large extent on the social environment in which he is brought up and lives.

For instance, Isaacs lists three types of defectors which he thinks would have to be dealt with in any society: the instinctive (mentally abnormal people); the emotional (people whose judgement is temporarily blurred by emotion); and the rational (“the professional criminals who I are confident of their ability to outwit the system”). The first two types would exist, in any society, including Socialism, but to deal with them why would there be need of “an elaborate judicial system and an effective police force”? Instinctive defectors are clearly in need of medical treatment or supervision. The best way to deal with emotional defectors would be, as William Morris suggested, to let them be and their “punishment” (if it can be called such) would be their own remorse. But what about the rational defectors, the professional criminals? Yes, what about them? Why in a world in which every member of society has free access to the things needed to live and enjoy life should anyone set about trying to outwit the system?

Thus in a classless world of peace and prosperity the case for a social organ of coercion breaks down. In such a society it would be unnecessary.

Adam Buick

Not a Private Matter (1996)

Pamphlet Review from the January 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Foundations of Modern Humanism by William Mcllroy (Sheffield Humanist Society. £1.)

The Socialist Party doesn’t take the position that religion is a private matter, beyond rational criticism. All religions have something to say about how we should live our lives on this earth and, when looked at dispassionately, what they do say is thoroughly objectionable. Of course not all religions say exactly the same thing. They can be viewed as a spectrum: at the one end there are religions such as Taoism which are more philosophies of life than religion proper. Moving through the spectrum we find numerous religions, each offering salvation only through their God, and at the other end we find the three main religions of the twentieth century: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

In Britain the most important of the specifically atheist organisations is, and has been for over a century, the National Secular Society. Its monthly journal. the Freethinker, is the best of its type and well worth reading for the ammunition it provides against religious superstition. Bill Mcllroy was for many years its editor and is the author of this pithy pamphlet He shows how, as a general rule, religion upholds the existing state of affairs. For instance, take this little ditty penned by a bishop's wife:

"The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate
God made them, high or lowly
And order’d their estate"

His explanation of the foundations of modern humanism, as a rejection of religious beliefs, is a history of the doings of liberal reformers. The writings of Thomas Paine is the most obvious example (although Paine himself was not an atheist). As is usual in this sort of account there is no mention of the socialist argument against religion. But it is from Marx that we have the most useful way of looking at religion—as a narcotic growing out of the material circumstances of life. For humanists, criticism of religion is a process towards the eventual triumph of reason. But they ignore the material conditions which give rise to superstition:

     "Consequently, in his worship of the ‘idea' the bourgeois freethinker is, like the Christian, attributing miraculous powers to the figments of men's brains" (Socialism and Religion, Socialist Party pamphlet, 1911).

On the new basis of material security and social co-operation, provided by socialism, individuals can gain a sense of meaning in their lives, with hope for a future free from the dead hand of religious belief. Rather than being abolished, religion can be expected to (as Engels said about something else) “wither away”.

Lew Higgins

Ulster: the origins of sectarianism (2000)

Book Review from the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ulster's Third Way by Brian McClinton, Ulster Humanist Association. 76 pages.

The title of this booklet is something of a misnomer. It does not really propose an alternative political or economic scheme for Northern Ireland. What it does do is outline the religious conflict that was, and is, interwoven into the politics of Ireland and which has played a vital role in confusing the working class. Unfortunately, the author gives religion an independent role in the Irish conflict whereas it was a weapon, albeit a powerful one, used by contending economic interests in fashioning the politics of the country.

Protestantism, in its most virulent form, as McClintock shows, came to Ireland in the shape of the Plantation of Ulster in 1603. But the Gaelic tribes that resisted the Planters did not do so because of their opposition to Protestantism. Had the Planters been Catholics, or even Humanists, intent on dispossessing those already there, the latter would still have resisted and the ensuing violence would have become a marker in Irish history.

The belief is common in Ireland, where it was ruthlessly promoted by the Protestant Ascendancy, that the Church of Rome strongly favoured Irish political independence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Inevitably some local clergy, reflecting their upbringing and the sympathies of their local communities, were Nationalist or Republican in outlook but the Irish Hierarchy remained consistent in its opposition to Irish independence through the ages. Rome's aspiration was to use Ireland as a springboard for the re-conversion of England, where, despite sometimes ferocious persecution, the Catholic Church retained many influential allies.

According to McClintock, Wolfe Tone and the Society of United Irishmen succeeded in persuading a group of Protestant and Catholic Irishmen to abandon their religious affiliations in the 1790s in pursuit of a common interest and that is the way forward. That is a half-truth that has sustained much Republican fiction. True, some northern Presbyterians and some southern Catholic peasants were united in an organisation whose purpose was to overthrow English power in Ireland. But the interest of the northern Protestants and the southern Catholics were certainly not identical. In the North the Protestants were farmers who enjoyed a modicum of prosperity as a result of the benefits of what was known as Ulster Custom. These, in turn, were led by a Presbyterian petite bourgeoisie, largely inspired by the French Revolution and the writings of Tom Paine. This revolutionary zeal was inspired by what they perceived to be adverse trade sanctions operated by London and, it is no accident that in later years, when their grievances were put right, the political heirs of these Presbyterians became the bitterest opponents of Irish Home Rule.

Conversely, in the south, the Catholic peasantry were motivated by their wretched conditions as tenants-at-will and, while the rebellion in the North was directed against the English military establishment, the Rising in the south was primary aimed against landlords, and their land stewards, who were invariably Protestants.

The working class and small farmers, who constituted the voting and cannon fodder at the turn of the last century and who are still burdened by the slogans of bigotry which disguise the true nature of the Irish conflict, did not mysteriously arrive at a sectarian consensus. This was the work of political opinion-formers, politicians, the business community and, of course, church leaders acting in a political capacity. Where the churches are indictable is in their willingness to be used by the profane business and political interests whose ultimate power resided in the numbers they could enlist into their battalions.

As a Humanist McClintock does a good job in helping to clear away the ignorance and superstition on which religion is based, but because in Ireland he finds more justification for his case in the story of what happened, he wholly neglects the more important question of why it happened. Thus he disregards the conflicting economic imperatives of the fledgling southern capitalists and those northern capitalists who had got fat on the benefits of the British connection imperatives, which lay behind an apparently religious conflict.

Richard Montague