Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo! column from the January 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

When singer/songwriter John Lennon was penning the 1971 song that envisaged a world with no states, but common ownership of the means and instruments for distributing wealth and no religious societal power, can he have imagined the furore that it would generate in some future quarters? If he had been familiar with the Socialist Party he might have included a nod to a moneyless, leaderless society too but given the strong nod within the song to a rational sane society different to the one we have then we might easily surmise that the necessary elements of a socialist society were contained therein.

Reasonable to say that Lennon was an advocate of Make Love, Not War, and Jaw Jaw is better than War War. As youngsters we were aware that it was far better to engage in a ‘verbal’ punch up rather than a physical altercation.

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words cannot hurt me’ was the riposte in the school playground when insults or spite were being hurled at one’s person. Slightly provocative perhaps if one’s adversary was still determined to show that sufficient might does overcome right. As we now know, hurty words can result in hurty feelings. Which may result in a van load of the ‘you’ve hurt their feelings thought police’ arriving on your doorstep, or, if you’ve really shaken someone’s beliefs to the core, the arrival of the riot squad or equivalent.

Back in 2006 children at a church-run primary school must have been a little miffed and confused when their headteacher pulled the plug on a particular song they had been rehearsing because some of its lines were, ‘not appropriate words to be sung at the Church of England school for four to eleven-year-olds. Was it ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ by Ian Dury?

The local curate fully backed the decision; ‘The song was not suitable for the occasion. It has an appealing sentiment of love but its vision is of a world in which people do not need religion.’ A school governor said, ‘The song expresses longing for a different world and for eternal happiness. But it says you can have this without religion.’

The headteacher said, ‘We have not banned the song. We chose not to perform it at our public concert but to perform another song we had practised which better reflected the theme of Songs for A Green Earth. We are a Church school and we believe God is the foundation of all we do. As such we did not feel that was an appropriate song to perform at a public concert’.

Sophistry! It wasn’t censorship, but it was. What lesson did the pupils of the school draw from the whole happening? God’s a music bigot? A life lived without the constraints that religion implants in it is a much happier one.

‘Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, No hell below us, above us, only sky.’ ‘No religion too.’

DC

Dropped the ball . . .

Okay, that's the NYC NYE reference out of the way. Paul Anka singing Imagine in Times Square to Eric Adams, Flo-Rida (resplendent in a gold lame bomber jacket) and a few thousand vaping tourists a couple of minutes before midnight was not on my 2023 Bingo Card. 

Sadly, hitting 2000 posts on the blog for 2023 was on my Bingo Card and I came up short. Family life, another bout of Covid and bingeing Radio 4's Clare in the Community all played their part in sabotaging my efforts sometime around mid-December.

Here's to 2024. Another 12 months of trying —  and failing —  to finally finish the digitisation of the Socialist Standard project.  Note to self: I will need to concentrate more on the Edwardian Socialist Standards in 2024, which is okay with me 'cos I find the period fascinating but impossibilists battering John Burns and Will Thorne unconscious with a rolled up copy of Wilhelm Liebknecht's No Compromise month after month is not everybody's cup of tea. You have been warned.

Posted below are the 20 most popular posts on the blog from 2023. Disregard the number one, 'Political Notebook: Boo, Hiss', from 1979. It always crops up in the end of year lists but only because people are randomly searching the words 'Boo, Hiss' on the internet and stumble across the blog. The British pantomime tradition has a lot to answer for. 

20. The morality of slums (1987)

19. Morris and Revolution (1990)

18. Imperialism Part 2: Super-profits and the labour aristocracy (2020)

17. At Home and Abroad . . . (1971)

16. The persecution of Taslima Nasrin (1995)

15. Marx and Keynes (1972)

14. Why are prices always rising? (2023)

13. World Bankers (2008)

12. Tories Again Steal Labour’s Clothes (1971)

11. Doing the Splits (1971)

10. 50 Years Ago: Oil — The Prize in the Middle East (2005)

9. Running Commentary: If Thatcher goes (1986)

8. More Lenin or Less? (2004)

7. Was Antonio Gramsci a Socialist? (2017)

6. The Three Pillars of Marxism (1995)

5. Tony Blair and the Chilcot inquiry (2010)

4. The Socialist Forum. (1931)

3. Star Trek: First Contact (1997)

2. Impossibilism by Stephen Coleman

1. Political Notebook: Boo, Hiss (1979)

‘Imagine’ – Sugar-coated anti-capitalism? (2023)

From the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Lennon’s 1971 song Imagine is often hailed as the encapsulation of a true socialist society. It depicts unswervingly and melodically a world where the resources of the earth are shared between its populace with everyone having enough to eat, living cooperative lives and no longer being plagued by war, religion or national divisions. Yet there’s no shortage of criticism of it from those who have a different view of the best way for humans to live or from those who just don’t like John Lennon.

A recent example of this is in an article – ’10 revered classic rock songs that are actually awful’ – which recently appeared in Far Out Magazine. It places ‘Imagine’ among those ‘actually awful’ songs (tinyurl.com/4wpuam45). It describes its words as ‘cliched’ and says that Lennon ‘treated the populace as idiots’. The article then goes on to describe the song as ‘so insipidly idealist that even school kids can see through the lack of sincerity and humanised realism’. It also alludes to Lennon’s well-known ‘sugar-coated’ comment, that is to his having himself said of the song: ‘Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugar-coated it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey’ (quoted in Geoffrey Giuliani’s 2000 biography Lennon in America).

Imagine there’s no heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peaceYou may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one

It’s easy to see why someone might see the words of Lennon’s song as ‘idealistic’. After all, the future world he describes and advocates is, in just about all its features, the direct opposite of what exists today. ‘No countries to live or die for’, ‘no religion’ (‘above us only sky’), ‘no need for greed or hunger’, ‘all the people sharing all the world’. How far away can you get from the nationalistic, religion-besmirched world that is modern capitalism, a system in which greed is lauded and personal wealth is looked up to while around 286 million people wake up every day not knowing where their next meal will come from? But is Lennon’s ‘idealistic’ vision here something to be scorned as lacking ‘realism’ simply because it yearns for something different and better?

As for the idea that it is something that school kids will ‘see through’, will they in fact not be more likely to see the sense in it? After all school kids have spent less time than others living in the system that dominates and enslaves the world and so may be less conditioned by its rules and norms, and therefore more able to imagine a world organised differently. Conversely, for adults, having been subjected to the conditioning process for longer, a greater effort of the imagination may be necessary for them to contemplate a world with ‘no heaven’ and ‘no hell’, where people are ‘living life in peace’ and where there are ’no possessions’ (ie, surely artistic shorthand for no monopoly of wealth). But imagination is what socialists have always insisted is needed by those who own nothing but their ability to work and need to sell their energies to survive (ie, the vast majority).

Meanwhile those who have difficulty in exercising their imagination will always tend to say of the existing social order that ‘there is no alternative’. And this, contrary to what Lennon’s critic says about ‘Imagine’ being clichéd, is the real cliché and summed up so well by the science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin who wrote: ‘We live in capitalism – its power seems inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings.’ As history has shown, change does come, and, if that change means looking to a radically different way of living, perhaps we should say with Lennon ‘it’s easy if you try’.

Finally, another part of the criticism seems to be that Lennon doesn’t attempt to give any prescription as to how his imagined world is to be brought about. But how could he in three minutes or so? The fact is that he has outlined some of the key features of a socialist world, one without buying and selling, without markets, without rich and poor, without leaders and led, without wars or religion. And, as pop song popularity polls have constantly shown, he has done it in a way that people find appealing and listenable to. And if that’s what ‘sugar-coated’ means, then so be it. Of course, Lennon’s Imagine doesn’t seem to have made a large impact in shifting people towards socialist ideas, but it’s not hard to imagine that, as socialist ideas spread, it will be an anthem that people identify with as they take action to plan and bring into being the system of society it depicts.

Howard Moss

Running Commentary: Census count (1981)

The Running Commentary column from the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Census count

In early April, workers in Britain were treated to some special attention. We were counted. “Today well all be counted because we all count", said the official adverts in the papers. It was a bit like election time or war time, when we are required to lay down our votes or our lives. We had to fill in the sordid details about our living conditions and the company exploiting us. We could then read the free leaflet explaining the usefulness of the census: "Housing: to work out present and future needs we must know how people are housed now, and the sizes and ages of their families." But don't they realise that in this capitalist society needs are only ever met if people can afford to pay the price, and ensure the profit for the shareholder or the government? That is why most cities have had a “housing problem" for generations, and why there are thousands of homeless people in Britain today, while there is a “slump" in the building industry.

Wealth before health

Another example of how the profit system fails to satisfy human needs — private wealth must come before public health. The latest report of the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate says that concern for the environment is increasingly having to compete with worries about inflation, employment, difficult trading conditions and profit. And for the first time since the thalidomide case twenty years ago, the regulations governing drug-testing in Britain are to be eased. The Sunday Times reported that the Association of Community Health Councils is worried that “the interests of industry, rather than any great concern for patient benefit, seem to have been the motive force behind the changes” (5/4/81). The same edition contains advertisements for a Mayfair house costing £625,000, a Knightsbridge “family home" for £550,000, a Rolls-Royce car for £55,000 . . . so it seems that not everyone is tightening their belt.

Imagine!

In his hit record Imagine, the late John Lennon sang of a society rid of the religious myths which offer the false hope of paradise beyond the grave: 

Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try,

No hell below us, above us only sky

Imagine all the people, living for today;

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do,

Nothing to kill or die for; and no religion too . . .

So it is rather odd that a memorial service should have been organised for him in Liverpool cathedral. The crowning irony, though, was that Imagine was played as part of the service!

As for the shooting of Ronald Reagan, we have no sympathy for one of the figureheads of the most violent and barbaric society the world has ever known: world capitalism. America is one of hundreds of states competing to see who can exploit their populations most efficiently, and organising wars all in the interests of the privileged minorities (including Reagan himself) who profit from expanding markets. American expenditure on weapons of violent destruction is rapidly approaching S 400 billion a year, that is more than twenty million pounds in hour Massive military aid is given to murderous regimes such as that in El Salvador. Each year millions die of starvation, while millionaires like Reagan are prepared to use any kind of violence to defend their privilege and profits. He represents a system in which those with power are free to kill, free to exploit.

So we will not shed any tears over Reagan’s wounds, unlike his fellow capitalist rulers. President Brezhnev sent a telegram from Russia: "1 wish you, Mr. President, a full and early recovery”. President Zhao Ziyang of China was "shocked to learn of your being wounded . . . I wish you a speedy recovery", while the Pope and Prince Philip both organised prayers for Reagan (The Times 1/4/81) 

Apart from Lennon and Reagan there are thousands of others being murdered all the time, for it is the poverty, the coercion and the frustration of the present system which provokes theft, despair and violence. Let Reagan think of that the next time he orders the murder of a few thousand people from Latin America or Vietnam or anywhere else in the name of "freedom”.

Russian gold

Those who still hang on to the myth that there is something about the Russian Empire which is different, and better for the workers than other nations in this capitalist world, will have had their illusions shattered by Gold and Diamonds — the Kremlin Connection (Panorama, BBC 1, April 6). Russia and South Africa hold between them a virtual monopoly of the world’s gold, platinum and diamonds.

This programme exposed the secret collaboration between presidents of Russian marketing organisations and directors of companies like De Beers and the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa to fix the world market and control the prices of these commodities.

It was shown how gold sales to the West are set up by WoZchod (Western) Bank of Russia in Zurich. The film focussed on the hypocrisy of this partnership in the face of the proclaimed military hostility between “Communist” Russia and capitalist, race-segregated South Africa. But it was also evident that the Russian ruling class, involved in high finance, is just as removed from the workers of the world as are the ruling class in other countries.

Capitalist Russia

There are many other examples to demonstrate how countries like Russia and China are part of one world-wide capitalist economy, in which commodities are produced by wage-workers and sold on the market at a profit.

At the end of March, the Midland Bank opened a branch in Peking. A project currently being undertaken by Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education and the Humboldt University in East Berlin to study differences between the systems of East and West is in danger of being terminated by the East German authorities, because of the similarity it shows between the two (Guardian 24/3/81).

An international conference in Hangchow recently announced that foreign investors in China need not worry, for they will be guaranteed a profit. China has now officially adopted a policy of what they call “commodity economy", with fierce market competition through the price mechanism (Guardian 27/3/81). The Sunday Telegraph Magazine on October 15, 1978 showed about ten limousines owned by Brezhnev, including one of the Russian hand-made Zil cars.

A booklet published in 1972 by the Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, on “Labour Remuneration" boasts that in Russia "The level of profitability rose from 13 per cent in 1965 (in industry as a whole) to 22.5 per cent in 1969” and even makes the outlandish claim that "Profit and the level of profitability are the most important indicators of the operation of a socialist enterprise”.

But this does not mean that socialism has "failed to work"; in fact it has never been tried. There cannot be socialism without socialists; a majority of people who are ready to co-operate in a democratic society based on a real community of interests, people who want and understand socialism.

Clifford Slapper

Letters: Red Wedge (1986)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Red Wedge

Dear Editors.

With reference to your article Rock Bottom (March) I should like to make the following comments. I attended two Red Wedge concerts and was also present at a "Day of Action" in which Billy Bragg and the "Wedgies" were questioned about their motives for the tour and I feel that your article gives the wrong impression.

The tour was not thought up or arranged by the Labour Party but by Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and other left-wing artists; in fact, your first line is incorrect as Red Wedge is not just a campaign by rock musicians but also by comedians, cabaret artists, actors and writers who have been or will be on the road with their own tours.

Propaganda did not come from the stage but MPs — and a certain (ex) GLC leader — were in the foyer to be approached only if so desired. The theme of the tour was to make young people aware that politics is something that affects everyone, and also to get young people to register to vote —whatever party they may vote for, as many young votes had been lost in the 1979 election due to "punk" apathy.

In all. socialism was more the issue than the Labour Party, and at one concert Joolz stated that "no mighty thing" called the Labour Party would change anything — only the people can do that.

Amongst the leaflets left on chairs were ones on behalf of CND and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Socialist Worker and Militant papers were for sale (where was the Socialist Standard?) and even the slogan on the official T-shirts, like the songs of the artists involved, advocated socialism, and I don't think that is a thing to be knocked.

Yours faithfully.

Philippa Britton

Jersey

Reply:
It was an omission on our part to refer to Red Wedge as including only musicians; it does also include comedians and actors. It is, however, definitely a pro-Labour movement, even though it is officially independent of the Labour Party. During 1985, Billy Bragg performed some fifty concerts as part of the "Jobs For Youth" campaign in conjunction with the Labour Party. That tour led directly to the founding of Red Wedge which declared itself, from the start, "committed to a Labour victory at the next election". Needless to say, the "Jobs For Youth" campaign had not made great play of the fact that Labour policies have proved as hopeless as those of the Tories in trying to control capitalism: every labour government since the 'thirties has left office with unemployment higher than when they were elected.

It may be true that Labour Party propaganda has not been featured on stage, but the performers would not have to tolerate the politicians “in the wings" if they did not wish to. It would be rather surprising if, come the next election, Red Wedge performers such as Robbie Coltrane, Paul Weller and Billy Bragg were to withhold their votes from the nationalist and fundamentally pro-capitalist Labour Party, and, of course, they make no secret of this. Indeed. Billy Bragg tried to defend his active canvassing for Kinnock in a Sunday Times article of 26 January 1986: "Anybody who cares about politics has their part to play, and that's best done as a local party member". He went on to say of earlier protest singers, "All that generation came to nought. They thought if they joined hands and sang Imagine the world would change" Of course, it is essential for people to think critically and to organise politically; but when John Lennon asked people to "imagine ... no possessions”, was that not more challenging than Bragg's sad badge of slavery in Between The Wars. "I'll give my consent, To any government. That does not deny a man. A living wage"?

Meanwhile, the political hacks were gloating. In the Sunday Times article referred to above, Andy McSmith, co-ordinator of the Labour Party's Jobs and Industry campaign, was quoted as saying "Billy is worth his weight in gold to us”, and Eric Heffer comments: "It is a good thing that an ordinary working-class lad like Billy should identify himself with the Labour movement".

It is fair to conclude that Red Wedge does not exist purely to encourage young people to vote and to think in any way they might feel like, but to vote and think Labour. The T-shirts might refer to "socialism", but this would not be the first time this term has been used for its popular appeal. Perhaps some performers are being "used" by the politicians to some extent, and any comments they might make about young people thinking for themselves can only be supported by socialists But it is contemptible for artistic popularity to be prostituted to the sale of stale and second-hand ideas for an alternative brand of "people's capitalism".

The Socialist Party did produce a leaflet which has been distributed at Red Wedge events, which we quote from here:

  Enjoy the music, but do your own thinking. Beware of the smooth talking leaders who are waiting in the wings to sell you their sterile ideas. Workers are capable of building a future which might now seem like a dream. That future has nothing to do with swapping the inhabitants of Ten Downing Street It is about establishing a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use — a genuine socialist society. You owe it to yourselves to consider the case, not for the Labour Party, but for socialism.

Editors

No reform

Dear Editors,

Central to your position is the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal; the struggle must be for all or nothing. I agree that most reformist campaigns are futile and ultimately counter-productive However, I believe that there are exceptions to this rule.

I have in mind the following campaign proposal: "In order to safeguard the National Health Service private medicine should be abolished. Only when those who control the nation's purse-strings are compelled to rely on the NHS will they ensure that it is properly funded Quite simply, medicine is too vital a service to be bought and sold in the market-place".

Such a campaign can surely be seen only as a first step in persuading people that they would benefit from the common ownership of all resources. I am also convinced that it would gain widespread support. Even Sun readers would see through crude propaganda of the "freedom of choice" variety. In short, the prospect of the rich waiting their turn for treatment has very wide appeal.

Of course, a similar case can be made for the outlawing of private education.

Socialism remains the only answer to humanity's problems. It's time we took that first step.

Yours.

A. Beckett 

Chester

Reply:

A. Beckett is correct in asserting that central to the Socialist Party's position is the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal and that reformist campaigns are futile and counter-productive. But A. Beckett takes the view that some "worthy causes" are exceptions and can be reformed within capitalism.

The National Health Service does not represent a step towards socialism: the 1944 White Paper proposing such a service was presented by Henry Willinck. a Conservative Minister of Health, because it was necessary to give credibility to the concept of "fighting for a better Britain '; a centrally administered service was more efficient; a fitter workforce was needed for post-war reconstruction; it was feared that workers' agitation would break out again after the war if concessions were not granted.

Although health care is centrally funded the supply of drugs, equipment, provisions and construction have remained in private hands and the state in its role as employer has been just as ruthless in holding down wages as any private business concern.

To suggest that privileges can be given up by abolishing private medicine, without removing the causes of privilege and the exploitation of one person by another, is to invite failure Like all institutions under capitalism health services facilitate business interests which explains their growth when labour is in short supply and needs to be conserved, and the cut-backs imposed when unemployment causes a surplus of labour. "Non-producers" such as the elderly, the young, disabled. mentally handicapped and long-term mentally ill are kept short of resources even in a time of prosperity and expansion because they no longer contribute to the profitability of capitalism which overrides social needs.

The incidence of ill-health and premature deaths are higher for the poor than the wealthy and health services, however sophisticated, can only treat the symptoms of poverty instead of tackling the causes. Therefore, to campaign for better health services while leaving the causes of ill- health intact is to collaborate in the continued, and often unnecessary, ill-health of the workers. The same objections apply to A. Beckett's concluding view, that a similar case could be made for the abolition of private education. Indeed, once on the reformist road a case could be made for campaigning against destroying food; pollution; racism; sexism; nuclear weapons — all of which are doomed to failure or at best only limited success while we have a social system based on profit. Instead of enduring the frustration of trying to change a piece of capitalism we invite A. Beckett to join with socialists in building a moneyless society which puts people first.

Editors.

Between the Lines: The Godfather Part XXVII (1990)

The Between the Lines column from the June 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Godfather Part XXVII

There is something perversely compulsive about watching American TV preachers. Perhaps it is that the rest of American TV is so indescribably awful—punctuated by adverts for ointments for piles and candidates for Governor—that the hideous nadir of the merchant-evangelists offers security in the knowledge that things cannot get any worse. Contrast the screaming apostles of instant salvation with those sleepy inhabitants of the god-slot on British TV: Thora Hird playing hymns to ancients hers and their budgies in Dorset: Harry Secombe standing on Welsh hills talking about Jesus as if he were still a member of the Goons: mass choirs of frigid little people with guilty squints and Hitler haircuts who sing about being joyful and look like they've just opened their poll tax demand and discovered that salvation is for the next life. British TV offers a dull dribble of religious platitudes. It is on because the law says it must be, and most of us switch it off because we were taught about the Bible at school and it makes us tired.

You do not fall asleep watching religious TV in the USA—not physically asleep, anyway. The Praise The Lord channel provides an endless parade of men who would fail the honesty test for the Used Car Dealers' Association. They are here to tell us that Jesus is alive and has a telephone number. You call the number and then discover that he also has a bank account. You pay a thousand dollars and wonderful things will happen to you. Watching one hysterical Jesus-pusher was almost a caricature of the genre. In the studio with him were a husband and wife whose marriage had only one year ago been on the rocks. The husband was ignoring his wife and getting into debt; she was depressed. Then she switched on the god slot and, hallelujah, delusion was mixed with depression to create a fatal concoction of witless optimism. She recounted the story of how she was about to throw her husband out of the house. The miserable looking husband confessed that life for him was awful and that he was broke and needed a van to start up a business. So what did they do? Why. what would any sane person do, buddy? They got right down on their knees and they said. "Lord, send us that van". The Lord—through his American TV interpreter— suggested that it would be a good idea to send their last thousand dollars to the TV preacher. (Why they did not spend the thousand dollars on the van was not explained. Then, neither was the virgin birth). And hallelujah, within a week a cheap van was purchased and since then the saved couple have been as happy as . . drug addicts in a state of mental oblivion.

"So", said the screaming presenter. "I want you people out there to make god your credit manager". God the credit manager— was George Bush watching, we ask ourselves. The presenter then went into a state which seemed to call for men in white coats. He ranted, raved, sang, cried, had visions, felt Jesus talking to him—and above all, remembered to repeatedly mention the telephone number. Important that; forget the men in white coats—bring on the boys with the truncheons. It was a spectacular act; “I see a poor single mother out there—I see the look of sadness on her face—I want her to know that god loves her—god loves you ma'am—yes, he loves you and he wants to tell you—you might only have your welfare cheque there—that might be all you have in the whole wide world—but god wants you to send that money to him—and here's the number to call right now . . ."

The new Broadcasting Act in Britain is to open the floodgates for such unscrupulous rogues to perform here. Watch out Harry, Thora and the Bridlington Middle-Aged Ladies' Choir: the Lord has a few more mysterious than usual ways in which his agents are about to make moves.

And so to Hell

Returning from the USA to Britain, back to the high culture of Neighbours and Opportunity Knocks, was a relief. As yet there are no thousand-dollar trips to Heaven on offer. On Sunday 13 May BBC's Everyman ran a documentary about hell. That is the place for the oppressed to be sent if they fail to show enough obedience to their oppressors during their lifetimes. One Christian, the Bishop of Edinburgh, referred to the ridiculous concept as "the smash-grab crush- your-testicles conception of Christianity". In short, it was based upon a form of psychological terrorism which threatened infinite mutilation to those who refused to adhere to their masters' morals—or in the USA. to wicked sinners who fail to surrender a thousand bucks as a sign of their fear. The images of hell shown in the documentary were the kind of pictures that would have frightened the average peasant into submission—and put the wind up quite a few aristocrats. In the concert in Liverpool to mark the tenth anniversary of John Lennon's death they showed film of him singing Imagine: Kylie Minogue and the gang singing about "no possessions" was just a little strange—but when they sang about a world where there would be "no religion" your reviewer joined in with all the enthusiasm of a boy scout in the back row of Songs of Praise. No religion, no possessions, a world without the need for illusions, eh? You may say I'm a dreamer, but it beats Thora Hird's vision of the Good Life any day.

Steve Coleman

What’s Wrong With Dreaming? (2018)

Illustration for the 1516 first edition of Utopia.

From the February 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why oppose dreaming? Who opposes dreaming? Those who are supporters of the status quo.

The enemy of the dreamer of better times is the ideologist of the present, out to defend the existing miseries with the claim that the prevailing relationships of oppression are immutable.

‘You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.’  – Thomas More (1478 -1535), Utopia, published in 1516 in Latin.

‘One man with an idea in his head is in danger to be considered a mad man; two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act; a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer the question.’ – William Morris (1834-1896), ‘Art Under Plutocracy’ 1883, LINK. ).

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) once remarked, ‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.’ Also that: ‘The map of the world which does not include Utopia is not worth glaring at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.’ (Plays, Prose Writings and Poems, p. 270).

‘Be realistic – Demand the Impossible’ was the slogan of the active dreamers who gave the ‘realists’ a good shock in the Paris of May 1968. A couple of years later John Lennon (1940 -1980) composed one of the finest modern contributions to utopian literature: the words of Imagine urged the millions who sent the song to Number One in the record charts to share the vision of a world without possessions, commerce, countries or religion. ‘You may say I’m a dreamer’, sang Lennon, ‘but I’m not the only one: I hope some day you’ll join us , and the world will live as one.’

William Morris (who had little time for music) would have had a lot of time for those words. In another lecture he said:

   ‘It is not we who can build up the new social order; the past ages have done the most of that work for us; but we can clear our eyes to the signs of the times, and we shall then see that the attainment of a good condition of life is being made possible for us, and that it is now our business to stretch our hands to take it’ (How We Live and How We Might Live).

In Marx’s words, ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please: they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.’ (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte).

Binay Sarkar

World Socialist Party of India

Telling the difference (1984)

From the August 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you pay for a bottle of milk and with the first mouthful discover the contents to be whitewash, how would you react? Would the person who sold you the drink convince you that what you were drinking was milk because that was what was on the label of the bottle? Today, many nations around the world describe themselves as "socialist" or “communist” but it is a fact that the present economic and social system operates globally and socialism is yet to be established. If you observe the social arrangements in any region of the world, the hallmarks of a class divided society are evident: the division between the rich and the poor: the minority who own and control the means of life and the majority who produce all the wealth but have to rely on a wage, salary or dole in order to live; the rationing system of money; prisons and police forces to deal with the continuing discontent bred by the competitive commercial rat race, and so on, ad nauseam. If socialism is to have any meaning it must signify something different from capitalism. We would be easily fooled if we took societies like Russia, China or France to be socialist simply because their politicians find it advantageous to use that label. We would be taken in by the whitewash.

Socialists are sometimes challenged with the question: "There are so many varieties of socialism what makes you think your definition is correct? Why do you think your idea is the only one which deserves the label of socialism?" Our response is to invite such a questioner to consider the evidence. Consider the basis of society as it is organised in countries which are described as "capitalist” and "socialist". What are the principles on which wealth is produced and distributed? What is the basic lifestyle of the majority of the people? What social characteristics do these societies share and what distinguishes them?

Recently there were two interesting programmes on Radio 4 on the subject of socialism. An International Assignment (5 May 1984) examined the question "What is Socialism” by looking at various societies on which this title is commonly stuck. The following month Analysis (6 June 1984) asked "Who wants socialism?", directing this question to an array, or rather disarray, of Labour Party politicians. In the International Assignment programme we were taken around the world and given commentaries, by BBC local correspondents, on the "socialism" of the area in which they were based.

All of the evidence confirmed the view that these places are really an integrated part of capitalism. Socialists use the word "capitalism" to describe the existing social system in which a minority owns the means of production — the land, factories, mines, offices, transport systems and communications networks — and where the production process is operated to produce commodities for sale at a profit. Under this system a person's needs can only be met insofar as he or she has the money to pay for them to be satisfied. The commercial system is inherently competitive. Not only do companies rival one another within national boundaries, but nations form into trading blocs which themselves are in competition with each other over new markets and territories to exploit. The real nature of global capitalism can be seen in the trading links between nations which, according to their labels, should be completely hostile to one another. Representatives of the wealth-owners of "Communist" Russia and "Capitalist" South Africa are in regular contact to arrange the pricing of diamonds on the world market. These countries are the main areas of diamond mining and the interests of profit on each side take priority over the rhetoric of their régimes. In an attempt to overcome the effect of the miners’ strike, Mrs. Thatcher's government negotiated with Poland's General Jaruzelski to import coal from Poland. There are clear social and economic differences between nations like Britain and Russia, although it is worth remembering that the greater freedoms enjoyed by workers in places like Britain have only been won after long struggles. Socialists describe the Russian Empire and similar nations as "state-capitalist" because the minority who own and control the means of life are the high-level bureaucrats and politicians who control the state machinery.

All of the BBC radio correspondents informed us of the difficulties encountered by governments trying to square their quest for profit with their mouthing of socialist slogans. Class-divided China was aching with problems for the majority whose work keeps them in poverty and their masters in luxury. The government said this hardship was a necessary expedient in building socialism. The correspondent seemed confused about this, and he had good reason to be. The programme sought an opinion from an English politician, that famed Labour Party egalitarian, Dame Judith Hart. She said that nationalisation was not really socialism and that we needed to work for another form of common ownership. Socialists would agree with her on that, but the Labour Party has never stood for anything but the profit system. Common ownership, where everybody owns all social wealth, and where there is therefore no need for government, is not something the Labour Party advocates.

The correspondent in Austria noticed that much of what many left-wingers in Britain advocate as problem-solving reforms already exist in Austria, with no great joy for the workers there. Seventy- five per cent of credit, insurance and financial business is conducted by state-owned banks and institutions. For the last fourteen years the government, describing itself as "socialist", has implemented a reform programme which would be supported by most left-wing parties. One third of the gross national product is accounted for by companies where the state is the main shareholder. There has even been a Welfare Slate there since before the second World War. But what about the workers? The basic condition of the wealth-producers is still all that it can ever be under capitalism: those who can get employment receive a wage which is worth less than the value of what they have produced. Their problems of poverty and insecurity remain unsolved.

The next port of call was France. More twisted doublethink. Since President Mitterrand and his “socialist" government came to power three years ago, France has perfected the technology for the neutron bomb; commissioned a new nuclear submarine and developed its own land-based missile system. Another difficulty which the correspondent observed was that the government justified its expansion of the death services — the military machine — by explaining that this created much needed employment. Those groups who campaign simply for more exploitation within capitalism, “jobs for all", have to answer for this.

The political travelogue continued. The locations were different but the tales were similar. In Portugal, where the radio journalist said that the reddest thing about “socialist” Portugal is its bank balance. With inflation running at over 30 per cent the government is hugely in debt and is inflicting a series of austerity measures against the workers, complying with an instruction from the International Monetary Fund. In Spain the government is blaming the severity of its anti-working-class policies on the trouble created by the previous government. Then to Africa, where a variety of grimly anti-working-class, autocratic regimes had adopted the name and vocabulary of socialism as titles of convenience. often as part of a strategy to attract military assistance from the Russian Empire.

Diluting the truth

Since its formation in 1906, the Labour Party has always sought political power to run the profit system. Its manifestoes have always been crammed with policies on the military forces, the financial and taxation systems, and a variety of ways in which wage-slavery should be controlled. Even the Labour Party’s declaration of intent to establish “socialism” is clear on this point: Clause 4 of its objects refers to the “common ownership of the means of production. distribution and exchange”. What does this mean? If there is common ownership, so that everyone owns everything, then there is no need for a means of exchange, there is no need for money. It is clear that what is intended by this object is another variant of state-capitalism — a social system with money and banks and working for wages and therefore with exploitation. Listening to the politicians speak on the programme Analysis, some of the reasons the Labour Party had its most catastrophic general election result for half a century became apparent. It is confused. Robin Cook, for instance, who was Neil Kinnock’s leadership campaign manager, stated that Neil was popular because he was articulating a vision of socialism and a set of priorities which is shared by the vast majority of mainstream activists. What vision of socialism was that? It must have been uttered surreptitiously between making dance videos with Tracey Ullman and trying to match the national chauvinism of Winston Churchill:

We must show that we have positive policies which are based upon the implacable requirement that the interests of the British people must predominate. (Leadership election manifesto 1983.)

Later on in the programme, Roy Hattersley, the Deputy Labour leader, was speaking about the need for Labour to build a new set of ideas:

We’ve rejected what the newspapers call Marxism or extremism by an immobilise position. We've decided that the best thing is not to have any ideas unless the ideas turn out to be too dangerous.

No political party can have no ideas, although the SDP/Liberal Alliance seems to be making a good attempt. Quite what Hattersley means by this remark is puzzling to say the least. John Golding, another prominent Labour politician, was more direct. He admitted:

I don't think there is any point in arguing about ideology or what is socialism. My own experience tells me that that takes you nowhere.

There can be no denying that the arguments John Golding has engaged in have taken him nowhere, nor that, so far as socialism is concerned, nowhere is the place the working class has been led to by the Labour Party. Discussion and debate and an understanding of what socialism is and how to get it are, however, indispensable preconditions for the democratic establishment of a socialist society. There is no point in simply spending energy “doing things” and "getting involved in activity" if you have no clear idea of your political objective. If you have a clear idea of what you want to cook and how to cook it. the result will he a success. There would be little sense in shovelling all the ingredients together and mixing them on the basis that at least you are doing something.

Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Grimsby, himself speaking in culinary terms, unashamedly expressed the role of the politician:

The job of the politician is to take the truth and dilute it with flavouring and colouring matter to make it saleable to a wider electorate.

There are many supporters of the Labour Party who want social equality, an end to competitive society and a peaceful, prosperous world. But they are not supporting a party which can ever bring about such a social system. Labour's record of managing capitalism is riddled with all of the anti-working class actions to which any government is forced by the economics of the profit-system. It has broken strikes, frozen wages, cut already low grade social services, closed schools and hospitals and acted as a recruiting sergeant for the bosses in times of war.

John Lennon’s song Imagine is about a socialist society:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace . . .

Whether or not it was opportunism which prompted the Labour Party to use this song on a recent Party Political Broadcast (29 May 1984), it is scarcely a fitting anthem for a party whose leader had pronounced three days before:

We are committed entirely to the security and defence of our own country and full participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. (Guardian, 26 May 1984.)

Working class experience of mistitled "socialist” nations and misleading parties like the Labour Party will rub away their credibility, but that in itself is not enough. For socialism we need a majority of socialists ready to run the world in the most productive, creative and enjoyable way possible. It’s a good idea but it needs to be made more than that.

Gary Jay

John Lennon (1981)

From the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Newspapers have described the tragic death of John Lennon as the end of an era. We wish they were right. We wish it was the end of a period of human society in which rock singers could accumulate millions of pounds from the sale of records while millions starve for want of a bowl of rice; we wish we could write an obituary to the violent social system of capitalism in which men like Lennon's alleged murderer can easily obtain and use a gun; we wish we could report the end of the wars and malnutrition and the inequality which Lennon sang about so well. But the era of capitalism is still with us and there will be others to grow rich singing about the miseries it causes.

Lennon was a talented musician and lyricist who understood the world he lived in more than most of his musical colleagues. Some of his songs showed definite political perception and what is generally considered to be his greatest post-Beatles record, 'Imagine', showed an understanding of the meaning of socialism which is almost unmatched in the history of rock music. The song urges people to imagine a world without possessions, countries, wars, hunger or religion. When a meeting of our companion party, the Socialist Party of Canada, was shown on Canadian TV, 'Imagine' was selected by the producer as the most appropriate theme song to sum up our views.

Rock critics regarded Lennon's message with predictable hypocrisy. While claiming that Lennon was a great musician and that they were in tune with what he was trying to say, they have disparaged such songs as 'Imagine' as an "idealistic vision". (Robin Denselow, the Guardian, 12.12.80.) They prefer to stress Lennon's more easily categorised leftist lyrics, such as those on 'Some Time In New York City' in which he expressed his support for the divisive nationalism of the IRA. Like many people, John Lennon vaguely perceived important socialist ideas, but these became confused with the pragmatic radicalism for which he will be remembered by the trendy sloganisers of the Left. For genuine world socialists the vision of a society of which Lennon sings in 'Imagine' is worth more than any of the sterile aggression of modern punk rock. The man may be dead, but the vision of a world of peace, equality and freedom lives on within the socialist movement which neither Lennon nor his supporters have had the wisdom to join. At the risk of being labelled a Marxist-Lennonist, this writer echoes the words of 'Imagine'

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope one day you'll join me
And the world will live as one.

C.

The State and its abolition (Part 3) (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

2. A classless, stateless world

Running global human society without the machinery of states is regarded by some as being as unachievable as radio and hi-fi systems were to some people before their invention. Socialists observe that the coercive governmental machinery of the state has not always been a feature of human society but was created necessarily in a phase in our history and will, with equal necessity, be abolished with the establishment of socialism.

For the greater part of the history of human society social affairs have not been regulated by governments. The state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check. The economically most powerful social class becomes the politically dominant class through the state and uses its machinery as a means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. "The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an instrument for exploiting wage labour by capital." (Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State)

When the majority of men and women —the wealth producers — democratically act to put the means of life into the hands of the whole community there will no longer be a social need for the coercive machinery of the state. The majority of people will no longer have to suffer government by a minority. The government of people will be replaced by the administration of things. This will mean that the institutions now used by the state to keep the working class in check — the judiciary, laws, police forces and prisons — will become socially redundant. Similarly, the organised force used by the state to protect the interests of territories and markets of its wealth owners—armies, navies and air forces — will also become socially unnecessary. "The society that organises production anew on the basis of the free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machine where it will then belong: in the museum of antiquities side by side with the spinning wheel and the bronze axe." (Engels, Anti-Duhring)

Organising the world on the basis of a society in which people will contribute according to their skills and inclinations and take according to their self-determined needs is an attractive idea. A world society undivided by national boundaries and free from war and famine. A world society unfettered by the rationing system of money. Is it possible? Socialists contend that not only is the establishment of socialism immediately possible, but that it is an urgent necessity if we are to avoid the potentially horrific sorts of destruction which the continuation of capitalism would render probable.

There are several ways in which the practicability of socialism can be doubted but basically these doubts arise in three areas of inquiry. First, will "human nature" permit a classless world without government? Second, will the resources of the planet be sufficient to support a society based on producing goods and services simply to meet all human needs and third, do we have sufficiently advanced systems of communication, organisation and distribution to cater for running the world for all humanity?

MINORITY RULE NOT NATURAL

Does "human nature" stand as a barrier to a world without governments? In answering this question, socialists would draw a distinction between human nature and human behaviour. There are a few characteristics of humans which could be described as "natural" in the sense that they are anatomical or physiological features of all people irrespective of the social system that they live in. Reflex actions, like blinking to water the eyes, stereoscopical colour vision, bi-pedal locomotion, prehensile manipulation and so forth are examples of this sort of feature and they are relatively fixed characteristics. Also, of course, the needs for food, drink, clothes and shelter. Contrasted with this are a great variety of behaviour patterns which are socially learnt. Behaviour traits instilled in young people by families, the indoctrination of education systems and the aggression and murderous techniques taught by military forces are all examples of this sort of socially conditioned behaviour. In commercial society we are steeped in a competitive mentality from a tender age but this learnt behaviour conflicts with an essential characteristic of human society: that of co¬operation. As a society we are a highly integrated body of entities and we all rely upon one another. Our very advanced division of labour means that we are all, to some degree, mutually dependent and require each other's co-operation even in capitalism. Because socialism will abolish classes — the relationship of employer and employee — and create a social equality of human beings, it will harmonise our social relationships with the way that we need to work in order to survive. It is worth observing that even in today's competitive world we are all co-existing in an intricate network of co-operation. Picture the seething mass of work going on in one of today's big cities — it would grind to a halt in one second without the continued and very complex co-operation amongst millions of people.

Primitive humankind co-operated for tens of thousands of years without government, but apart from this evidence that we are not organically predisposed to be ruled by a minority, there are many examples to corroborate the versatility of our nature. Anthropological examinations of Red Indian, Aboriginal and Eskimo societies all testify to the fact that we can and have organised society on a democratic basis. Many modern societies which organised themselves on a communistic, democratic principle (like the Kalahari Bushmen, or Kung people, of southern Africa) are now being sucked into the commercial, competitive world. They are being driven from the lands that they inhabit as it is "purchased" by developers, and are forced to seek a living by wage-slavery. Another example of this, occurring now, concerns the Panare Indians who live in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela. They have enjoyed life, until recently, in 38 communities living on the basis of "from each according to ability, to each according to need". They have no divisions of class and no status discrimination on the grounds of age or gender. Ideas of competition and violence are entirely antithetical to them. Their stress-free lifestyle is now being shaken by an American airborne evangelical group, the New Tribes Mission. Their lives are being smitten with religious indoctrination and all sorts of sinister devices are being used to make them docile, ashamed of their lifestyles, and to go in search of employment in the local mines.

In a rat-race we do acquire rat-like propensities but even now they do not dominate us and more importantly, they are subject to change if and when we decide to abolish the sort of social environment which causes them.

SUFFICIENT MATERIAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES.

The latest United Nations estimate of the world population is 4.7 billion. Are the resources of the world enough to support everyone? Today there is a massive unmet social need as a result of a social system which only produces goods if there is the prospect of selling them on the market for a profit. These unmet needs range from the horrors of mass starvation (according to Oxfam 500 million men, women and children go hungry every day) and homelessness to the relative impoverishment of all the wealth-producers. Alongside these needs capitalism presents in all countries the conspicuous over-consumption of a small elite, lakes of wine and milk and mountains of food (the European Common Market has a current butter stockpile of approaching 600,000 tonnes) and gigantic resources being pumped into socially useless or destructive ends.

Military spending now totals close to the equivalent of £1,000,000,000 across the world every 24 hours. This greatly exceeds the resources needed to meet the United Nations targets (idealistic as they are under the profit system) of providing everyone with adequate food, sanitary water, health care and education. UNICEF, working in 112 countries, had a total income of £171 million in 1981. This is the equivalent of the expenditure the world makes on the military forces every 4 hours and ten minutes (World Military and Social Expenditures 1982). It is an unchangeable priority of states in capitalism to put the needs of the Death Industry before basic human requirements. In a socialist society all of the ingenuity, human effort and resources which are now pumped into militarism will be donated instead to producing goods and services which are useful and enjoyable. On a similar point, consider all of the materials and human resources which are spent today on the necessary workings of the commercial system which would be liberated in socialism to be devoted to more rewarding sorts of work. The millions of men and women who are today engaged in running the system that exploits them in banking, insurance, commerce, tax revenue, everything connected with the production and running of prisons and the police forces, would be freed to help take part in the task of providing the sort of things that people really want.

Julian Simon and Herman Kahn in their book The Resourceful Earth produce carefully researched evidence to demonstrate that the planet enjoys much greater resources than are currently being tapped. Their writing is, ironically, aimed at advocating a free market economy with minimal economic controls — the very principles which produce such great hardship now — but their evidence is nevertheless useful. As they observe, the scaremongery about dwindling resources is not new. People have always been predicting that one or other natural resource will be exhausted. It was once a respected view that oil reserves would dry up in the 1880s. In practice these predictions encourage discoveries of new reserves or the development of new substitutes for the threatened material.

Capitalism only ever aims to produce on a scale matching what people can afford to buy, not what they actually need. For this reason many agricultural techniques are underdeveloped compared with our technological abilities.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) still sees great scope for expanded production. It reported this year that, using current Western farming methods, the world could produce enough food for up to 33,000,000,000 people, seven times the world population. Using somewhat less sophisticated farming methods, 15,000,000 people could be fed and, even if the whole world relied on primitive farming methods, using no fertilizers or pesticides, traditional seeds and no soil conservation methods, the present world population could still be comfortably fed. ("In Defence of Population Growth", New Scientist 4 August 1984)

ORGANISING A GLOBAL CLASSLESS SOCIETY

Do we have adequate systems of communication, organisation and distribution to operate a global classless society? As with the questions of "human nature" and the earth's resources, the answer to this question is partly apparent now. Because it is necessary for capitalism's international trade, the world is already a highly integrated network of communications, travel and distribution. In this sense, capitalism is pregnant with socialistic organisation. With its booms and slumps, shortages and gluts, disruptive wars and embittered industrial disputes, capitalism is a chaotic, anarchic social system. In socialism production and distribution will be democratically planned. Society will not be told by a minority that food cannot be produced because there is no market for it. We shall harness all of the technology that capitalism has produced, discover exactly what our needs are, and where, and then plan production to meet them. Computer systems, current electronic stocktaking devices used in supermarkets and the astonishing technology of communications and travel used today by military forces and banks will all play their part. And think how much easier it will be to simply find out how many people in what places need what goods, than the task of market researchers of discovering who might buy what in the uncertainties of the market.

Without nations and governments, how will this production be planned? The world administration for production for use will need to satisfy the requirements of historical continuity, practical necessity and democracy. That is, it will need to adapt existing social organisations, develop them in a way to deal with the practical problems which need to be solved and to permit democracy in all decision-making. Socialists are currently in a minority and it will be for a majority to make the final decisions about how socialism will work. We can however still make some practical suggestions today. Decision-making could operate on three sorts of geographical level: the local level (corresponding to current local government areas), the regional level and the global level. Decisions about social policy and planning, whatever the scale of their intended effect, would need to originate in a locality. They could be raised by individuals, groups or local representatives of a specialist global group, connected with, for instance, health or the ecology. A policy proposal intended to affect society generally would need to pass successfully through all three levels of decision-making and then be implemented at local levels across the world.

The decision-making process in socialism will be such that everyone will have access to any information they need to make the decision and the opportunity to express views on the issue to everyone else. In the age of advanced telecommunications and the teletext this will not present any significant problems. Decisions only affecting a locality will probably be participated in by people living or working in that locality and similarly with regional decisions. We could make great use of the various information-gathering systems and expert organisations which have been developed by capitalism. Take one example, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. It is organised in 147 countries and has 4,000 planners and technicians all over the globe. It produces scientific papers which collate research material from all over the world and maintains a library of knowledge on food, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, nutrition and conservation. It keeps a census of world agricultural resources. In 1978 it completed a soil map of the entire world using a variety of techniques from aerial photography to satellite surveillance. This combines details of climates and soils and builds up a picture of potential world food production.

Socialists propose the immediate establishment of a classless, global society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living by the whole community. This sort of society can only be created by a majority of people consciously and democratically acting together to take on the responsibility of running the world for ourselves. Today's reality is, very often, yesterday's vision:

It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and will never be; true it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive and moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be: true it is a dream; but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though once people had to live without them, without even the hope of them. (William Morris, The Lesser Arts, 1877)

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too

Imagine all the people living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will be one.

(John Lennon, Imagine, 1972)

Gary Jay (Britain)