Ring the bell, Verger (1975)

Keir Hardie is not amused.

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sad cases are often reported when old people die and lie undiscovered for weeks or months. Another has come to our attention. The Independent Labour Party, aged 83, was recently found dead. A note beside the body said it had given up the ghost in a conference hall at Easter.

The coroner said the deceased had been ailing for many years, having existed on milk-and-water alone; there was a severe congenital malformation, making it remarkable that he had lived so long. Witnesses testified that he had plenty of money but became lonely and unable to make friends. He was known in the neighbourhood as “I Yell Pea”. As a younger person he had appeared fit and well, though probably overtaking his strength; in 1931 he quarrelled with his brother, a Mr. Leigh Burr-Parti, and had never been the same man since. The deceased’s landlady said he rambled a good deal about his godfather’s cap and his desire to emulate his Aunt Cleopatra, who had been all things to all men.

His will desired that his surviving relatives should go to the aid of Leigh Burr-Parti, whom he described as a good fellow who had only got into bad company. The executors are sending out monthly funeral cards headed “Labour Leader”, and would like to hear from anyone who can think of anything else to put because they can’t.

A number of wreaths and tributes were received, many of them from obscure people who signed themselves “M.P.” A Mr. Benn wished everyone well; Syd Bidwell wanted to see “real socialist literature”, as this is something he has missed reading; Mr. Heffer, Mr. Allaun, Mr. Atkinson and others sent messages of goodwill but were interrupted by coughing fits while they were writing. There was also a message from Highgate Cemetery saying that one of the occupants was turning in his grave.

Our suggested inscription for the tombstone is: The ILP was one of those who were going to show how to achieve Socialism by swifter and surer methods than Socialist ones. Its present-day counterparts repeat that they know quicker ways. The ILP’s history shows the boot to be on the other foot. Those who want Socialism are constantly made to wait — by the likes of them.

Robert Barltrop

A Rival For "The Beano"? (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

A prize for ingenuousness is due to Lord Bruce of Donington. In a letter to The Times of 23rd August he wrote about the Government’s anti-inflation policies getting insufficient support from the press, who are controlled by wealthy barons without sympathy for a Labour government. Therefore, said Lord Bruce, the need is for a government-controlled newspaper “on lines similar to the BBC” which would give “a fair presentation of the whole panorama of domestic and foreign affairs, of life as it is unsensationally lived”, etc.

The Times seems to let its letter-writers get away with anything, but most newspapers would think about their reputations before publishing wild stuff like this. When did the BBC go in for “a fair representation” of things? Political minorities occasionally get their existence and views made known in the “biased”, “untruthful”, “misleading” press Lord Bruce complains of; but not on the BBC. It is as difficult to get even a letter published on the radio as in a national newspaper, unless you are in the House of Lords. Does he really claim that the BBC does not suppress and trivialize under the editorship of smug individuals, as he says (quite rightly) happens with the press?

Lord Bruce is the former Labour MP Donald Bruce. He should be old enough to remember a pre-war incident when a trade-unionist was to broadcast. At the microphone he announced that cuts had been made in his script, by the BBC; he would therefore not read it, but would send it to the press. Moreover, a government-run publication is as susceptible to pressure groups as privately-owned ones are to commercial interests. Before the last general election Mrs. Whitehouse asked the party leaders for their views on the moral and political content of broadcasting. Presumably, if her association were strong enough, it would make the answers it wanted the condition of electoral support.

This newspaper, he says, would be produced in competition with the existing ones. As he knows quite well, in modern times a pro-Labour propagandist newspaper has never held its own in such competition for any length of time — the reason for the position he objects to. What Lord Bruce apparently wants is a Labour newspaper supported by the government. He is entitled to argue for such a project — but not to humbug his readers that the BBC provides a model for journalistic high-mindedness.

Robert Barltrop

Can Science Benefit Mankind? (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the modern capitalist class began its struggle against feudal rule, it was compelled to enlist the aid of empirical science and materialist philosophy. As feudal rule and the mediaeval church were historically connected, any struggle had to begin with the discrediting of existing religious ideas or religious practices.

The Reformation, sparked off by Luther in Germany in 1520, was the first major revolt against the Roman Catholic Church, then the centre of feudalism. The second was the advent of Calvinism in Holland and England (Cromwell). The French Revolution of 1789, and the German revolution of 1848, finally established the supremacy of the capitalist class over the political power and property of the church. From then on, religious institutions had to conform to the laws that were devised mainly for the commercial and industrial advancement of developing capitalism.

The church had previously “saved men’s souls” by suppressing their intellectual development, and any philosophy or science was only allowed strictly on the oppressive terms dictated by the church. For example, no anatomical research of corpses was allowed up to the 15th century; physicians had to take up metaphysics if they wanted to continue research. Astronomy was astrology; chemistry was alchemy; science, such as it was, was in the hands of the priests. The language of science was the dead Latin of the church which had the effect of holding back the publication of new discoveries. The church itself had adopted many of the myths of Greek mythology, and the old Buddhist and Norse legends. They also accepted the Mosaic law that the earth was 5,000 years old and was based on spontaneous universal creation by a God. The church made sure that men would not be in a position to explain their environment, and what they did not understand they would worship with superstition.

The capitalist class needed science more than religion; you cannot base modern wealth production on the myths of the book of Genesis or Buddhist legends. The process of wealth production and distribution needs a full scientific understanding of the working of the laws of nature and the harnessing of those laws to the needs of the capitalist social system. One of the drawbacks of teaching several generations to think scientifically is the impossibility of arbitrarily shutting off the process. Where do you draw the line? How can you restrict thinking and the spread of ideas? The simple answer is that you cannot. The capitalist class, as with the church before it, wants the spread of knowledge to be under the control of the ruling body, but unlike the church which required ignorance, capitalism requires scientific knowledge in order to survive. So they try to square the circle by channelling the enquiring mind along the lines of new myths, or old myths refurbished. One of the ancient myths of capitalist society is that the production of wealth and its distribution is due to the energy and activity of the capitalist class.

It is to the discredit of international scientific bodies that they do little to refute this fantastic claim on the most elementary scientific basis. The reason is not difficult to find — they have become respectable. Their institutions are concerned with perpetuating the commonplaces of accepted practices. The Royal Institution and its international counterparts are castrated organizations, always looking over their shoulders to see if they are in harmony with their masters’ desires. No criticism is made of the disorder and anarchy surrounding the social order. They think that “realism”, as they describe it, should always have priority. This “realism” is nothing other than a servile acquiescence to the social relations of capital, and is a prostitution of the scientific method. It must be apparent to any group of scientists, particularly those engaged in medical science, that facilities for research are limited by the deliberate withholding of grants by governments and others. It must be frustrating to know the solution to a medical problem and be effectively debarred from carrying it out. Yet very few voices are raised in protest. In short, science has become bourgeois and is dependent upon capitalism for its operation and expansion.

In an article entitled “Science and the Quest for Human Purpose” (Times, 21st June 1975) Sir George Porter, Director of the Royal Institution, discusses the future of man in relation to science. He states that most of our worries and anxieties stem from a “lack of purpose which was rare 100 years ago”. He is referring to the large number of scientific discoveries made during the last century when capitalism was progressing and expanding. The purpose of science then, as now, is to serve the financial interests of the ruling class. Sir George also regrets the absence of a new philosophy and purpose. We wonder where Sir George has been these last hundred years.

There is a new philosophy and purpose — it is called Scientific Socialism. Its scientific basis was laid by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels over 100 years ago. Broadly speaking its purpose, to quote a phrase of Sir George, is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This cannot be done by bourgeois science, but only by the application of a progressive proletarian science. We can well understand Sir George’s rather uncertain thoughts on the future of man. Capitalism is certainly in need of some kind of “spiritual revival” in the sense that they long for the good old days. What with no comfort from the theologians, and an uncertain economic future, it will have to find some mystic source of support.

Sir George ventured the opinion that the future of man rests with science, and thinks that the proper study of man may be through physics, chemistry and biology. We do not agree. The study of man must be concerned with his social being, his social relations and social organization, and the development of his productive forces. Physics, chemistry and biology are ancillary to man’s social organization, as are all branches of learning. What men need is the science of society — an investigation into the phenomenon of wealth production and distribution, the arrangement of social classes and the reason why social changes occur. In other words, what man needs is information about society, and bourgeois science will not provide that kind of information. We know about physics, chemistry and biology, etc.; what is now required is a form of social organization, Socialism, where we can benefit from existing knowledge. The benefits of science today accrue to the ruling class not to society generally — that is why it has become respectable. Far from serving mankind, it serves one kind of man — the capitalist.

Most scientists, like other workers, are socially and politically ignorant about the state of society. Some are religious, spiritualists, reformers, etc., but they are trained thinkers and should recognize the existence of social science which is fundamental to a true understanding of the scientific method. Darwin was able to solve the problem of how there originated vegetable and animal species in the struggle for existence. Marx succeeded in solving the problem of how there arise different types of social organization in the struggle of men for their existence. The spirit of research was the same in both thinkers despite the different fields. The capitalist has enjoyed the fruits of Darwinism; let us move quickly to the application of the science of Marx. The introduction of scientific Socialism will mean the freedom of all science to develop and fulfill its true social function — as a practical tool for society’s benefit.

Jim D'Arcy

An Innocent Abroad (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is no news that Communists are fatheads, but Arthur Scargill is obviously a fathead par excellence. This “Marxist” miners’ leader went on two weeks’ holiday to the “workers’ state” of Bulgaria, and on his return told newspapers how surprised he was at what he found:

Corruption in State-owned shops and restaurants ‘that would have done credit to the Mafia’; Massive overbooking by State agencies that kept tourists stranded for hours;
A State-Run voucher system of paying for meals that left holiday-makers hungry and out of pocket.
   ‘It was a disaster', said Mr. Scargill. ‘I have no intention of ever returning'.
    ‘If this is Communism they can keep it.’

The report in the Daily Mail on 9th September was supplemented by an article giving further details of holidays and life in Bulgaria. No doubt the Mail’s readers would admit their need for such illumination; but not Scargill, surely? He, after all, has been an advocate of the "workers’ state” and presumably went to Bulgaria because he thought well of the régime.

The tragedy is that workers in Britain have been accepting militant leadership from this simpleton who confesses he didn’t know what he was talking about. He is described as a "Marxist”, and would probably rush about telling everyone of his astonishment if he opened a book by Marx, too.

Let us explain that in the so-called “Communist” countries the workers do not own the means of living, and production is carried on for sale and profit as it is in other countries. Which means you are as likely to be done, if you are a holidaymaker, in Bulgaria’s Sunny Sands as in Torremolinos or Blackpool; and as certain to be exploited, if you are a worker, in Sofia as in Bradford.

Arthur Scargill was open-mouthed because he did not know what either Socialism or capitalism is. Perhaps he will refrain from further utterances until he has found out.

Robert Barltrop

Who Owns the Land Under the Sea? (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Carry on conferring" may sound like the latest title in a series of third-rate comedy films but in fact this particular farce is anything but funny, at least not to the participants who have gathered in Geneva in an attempt to arrive at some common ground for the establishment of clearly defined and governable laws on the question: who owns the land under the sea? Capitalism being the epitome of a private property system at its most complex necessitates an equally complex network of laws. Nothing exemplifies this more than the latest follow-on from last year’s session when the legal eagles went Caracas trying to solve their perplexing problem.

The problem is more easily understood when the underlying cause which motivates it is recognized. That cause is profit which in this instance is envisaged from the mining of “nodules” — fist-sized lumps of mineral ore found on the floors of the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the realization of the potential untapped sources of wealth such as manganese, iron, nickel, and cobalt etc, which they contain.

Evan Luard in his book The Control of the Sea-bed tells how in 1959-60, a study by a group of US scientists from the University of California estimated that the total volume of nodules in the entire Pacific ocean, based on the size of concentrations revealed by undersea photography, could be around 1,700 billion tons. A more recent UN study assessed that the nodules may contain 16.4 billion tons of nickel, 8 billion tons of copper, 8.8 billion tons of cobalt. The importance of the resources can be made clear by relative comparison of the same resources found on land. If the calculations of the Californian study quoted were confirmed, nodules in the Pacific ocean would contain about 358 billion tons of manganese, equivalent to reserves for 400,000 years at the 1960 world rate of consumption, compared with known land resources for only 100 years. 43 billion tons of aluminium, equal to reserves for 20,000 years compared to known land reserves for 100 years. Nickel, equivalent to reserves for 150,000 years; copper equal to reserves for 6,000 years; cobalt for 200,000 years. Also, the nodules may contain iron, titanium, magnesium, lead and so on. These are the figures for the Pacific alone. With the content of the nodules in the Indian ocean these figures of course, become even greater. Although the authenticity of these figures has not been verified, the direction in which they point is obvious. Added to this is the discovery that the nodules are forming all the time, and at a rate in the Pacific alone of perhaps 10 million tons a year. This then, is the motivation. The problem arises as the conference tries to introduce legislation which will be acceptable to all the countries represented — a rather fruitless exercise since geographical locations of the individual countries concerned determine the legislation required by them. For example, proposals to widen the outer boundary limits would benefit coastal states (especially the large ones) since the area closest to the coast will in all probability be richer in resources. If the boundary is extended to 2,500 metres in depth as has been suggested or to the 200-mile limit proposed by Latin America, this would mean the appropriation of the most valuable part of the area by coastal governments.

Conversely, countries with small coastlines, the land-locked and the shelf-locked, would have to negotiate for a share of these resources. Again, some countries are favoured with wide and narrow shelves while others have none at all. Then there are the emerging capitalist countries such as those in Africa who see the exploitation of the sea-bed as a serious threat to their economies, since some of them depend heavily on the export of mined metal ores, and obviously metal prices could be drastically reduced.

The exploitation of nodules renders obsolete the need for conventional mining and all it entails such as sinking mineshafts and tunnels. Where the material is already available on the sea-floor it requires simply to be scooped up.

So the talking continues, everyone agreeing that agreement must be reached but all of them unanimous in that they don’t know how. Bearing in mind the insular nature of capitalism with each group of representatives striving to secure the most favourable (profitable) conditions for their masters, it is small wonder that no agreement can be reached since one country’s gain is another’s loss. Therefore, all the useless platitudes being kicked around suggesting that a solution will be found “in the common interest of all concerned” are about as realistic as trying to play musical chairs where no one loses.

By “common interest” what is really meant is capitalist interest. No worker has any real interest at stake in this conference, although our masters would like us to believe otherwise, especially if, as is almost certain, the talking stops. Then warning signals might inform us that some nasty foreigner has got a tight grip on “our” nodules (very painful) and that in the interest of “The Nation” etc. etc.

The ruling groups of the world however, have no illusions about either the economic basis of this tug-o’-war, or the ultimate outcome in the event of a complete breakdown of discussion. It has been frankly stated that the oceans could become an arena of conflict which would make Vietnam seem like a picnic.

A. McNeill

Violence On The Terraces (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the heyday of organized protests against the Vietnam war, seven or eight years ago, most of them culminated in fights between demonstrators and police and perhaps forty arrests for disorder and assault. This happened two or three times a year, and each occasion was followed by grave enquiries. It was repeatedly proposed that political demonstrations be banned, on the grounds that such violence could not be tolerated and the police were being subjected to undue strain.

Every Saturday, crowds whose numbers were not dreamed of by the organizers of demonstrations go to League football grounds in Britain, and for the past three years sections of them have produced violence on a scale which has made the matter a major social problem. Some weeks there are a hundred or more arrests in various towns. Shopkeepers and publicans close their doors and board-up their windows; cars are overturned and injuries inflicted. Last year a youth died after being stabbed at a football match. Because of damage running to many thousands of pounds, the railways have withdrawn facilities on Saturdays. Some of the most spectacular episodes have been when crowds going to see British teams playing in European countries have run riot.

Attempted remedial measures have all failed so far. Young people going into football grounds are searched for weapons. Some time ago several clubs fenced off areas behind the goals, allowing no-one to stand there, because of missiles (including darts) being thrown at goalkeepers; but spectators have invaded the playing pitches, and last month at one ground a crowd ran over the field and attacked players. Other measures have been the digging of moats and the erection of high fences, but these only direct the violence from one place to another. Magistrates impose heavy fines, apparently without deterrent effect, and there have been cases of men being banned from entering football grounds (how this is enforced is not known). Other “solutions” are advocated. They include bringing back the birch, i.e. corporal punishment for those convicted, and imposing “community work” for them to do on Saturdays.

One other method, apparently partly being put into operation now, is for television and the newspapers not to report the outbreaks. It is argued that pictures and accounts have an imitative effect, and have helped make football hooliganism an infection. Presumably the thought is that any theory is worth trying: the implications of this one are curious. Could inflation be checked by not publishing news of it? How about all the other problems, evils and disasters? Or is it just to lull the Citizens and have them think that no such problem exists? However, the idea which has not been mooted is the one which occurred to so many spokesmen so readily, apropos political demonstrations — that society cannot put up with it, and football for paying spectators should be banned.

Crowds and Competition

In one sense it is not a new departure at all. Physical violence has always been latent and verbal violence a characteristic in football crowds: their “roar” is often an aggregate of abuse, accusation and incitements. The collective identity and security of a crowd can provide extraordinary sanctions for an individual to do what he would not dare by himself. Just as timid clerks conscripted in wartime whistle after girls from the backs of lorries, respectable men can stand among thirty thousand others and shout threats and curses. The step from this “healthy partisanship” to actual hooliganism is not a great one.

The desire of all those who are exercising themselves over the problem is, in fact, to avoid the things which stare them in the face. The politics of it are obvious. Up to about twenty years ago the Football Association’s standard procedure when there had been crowd misbehaviour at any ground was first to order warning notices to be posted and then, on a repetition, to have the ground closed for a period. It sounds just the thing, but has rarely been done in recent years. It is not just that the worst places are some of the biggest and most famous clubs; the rise of violence has coincided with the rise of European and world competition, in which these clubs carry British prestige abroad. The hooligans are always carefully delineated as an uncharacteristic minority, and the sterling qualities of most football followers asserted. There is the feeling too that Saturday football is one of those institutions which help guard against revolution.

Competition plays a strong part. With its extent greater and participation in international club competitions — dependent on national success — essential for the highest rewards, clubs are desperate for results as never before. Thus, ends-and-means philosophies predominate. Much big-time football now is about as attractive to watch as cement-mixing, and is won by “method”; and the result is uncritical spectators attached not to the pleasures of the game but to winning no matter how. Likewise, cynical and vindictive play has increased. The football authorities manoeuvre frantically with disciplinary rules which the clubs and players do their best to sabotage. This obviously rubs off on supporters too: not the rough play in itself, but the sentiment that power supported by dishonesty is the ideal policy.

That takes us to the social and political world outside. There has not been lacking a school of commentators to tell us that the football hooligans reflect social deficiencies; though, as is usual with sociologists, these commentators cannot say what the deficiencies actually are. It is more to the point to note that the same violence and vandalism go on elsewhere without a twentieth of the fuss being made about them. One manifestation for some years has been gangs looking for black men and homosexuals to beat up. Another, resolutely concealed as far as possible, is bullying by gangs in schools. In Northern Ireland it gets its outlet in political warfare. The fields can be seen brought together in Glasgow in the annual football matches between Rangers and Celtic, which are traditional occasions for violence between Catholics and Protestants.

An Irresponsible Society

The single social fact about football violence is that it is not only working-class, but working-class in the limited — and incorrect — sense; it belongs to the poorer-off, poorer-educated sections. (That is why one does not hear complaints about “police brutality” when they are arrested, as there were continually in the demonstration days.) Superficially it might be said that is because association football is a poor people’s sport, but it is not the case today. All grounds have reduced their cheap standing-up accommodation to make way for more expensive seats, and the better-off followers simply do not go by cheap excursion trains.

The problem is connected with that of “youth” at large, since the hooligans are mostly in their teens. Over the last twenty years the traditional waywardness of youth has taken more extreme and violent forms. Previously it could be assumed that schools provided a central discipline, since young people were bound to attend and made to conform in them. Today very large numbers in the cities either refuse to go to school or create havoc when they are there, and there have been repeated reports of teachers being beaten up.

This has happened in the era of the 1944 Education Act and the comprehensive schools, which according to the Labour Party would confer innumerable benefits on society, and have turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. The basis of these reorganizations of education was the idea of selection, of grading children according to their apparent suitability for different rôles in capitalism. But there is always a reverse side. “Selection” implies “rejection” as well, the leaving behind of the not-much-good. A major outcome has been the creation of an army of young people who were written off at eight or nine and treated like that throughout the rest of their schooldays. It is hardly surprising that they respond in kind towards society: an anti-social scheme produced anti-social results.

Behind the educational schemes lie, of course, the needs of the capitalist system. These are what hooligan behaviour in the streets and at football games should be measured against. Saturday afternoons in Britain bring displays of irresponsible conduct; yet the fact is that capitalism depends on irresponsibility. It is not even just a matter of competition and the idealization of the top dog. The mass of people have to be persuaded continually to surrender control of their own lives, to accept paradoxes which should not deceive a child, to act complaisantly while being swindled from all sides day in and out. A revealing suggestion made at the time when “private armies” were in the news was that they be used to keep order among football spectators — implying what we know to be true anyway, that violence is re-named when it is on the right side.

The struggle against football hooligans is to get them to stop their irresponsibility and adopt another kind. There is nothing to be said in their favour. The victims of their violence and destructiveness are other working men and women. The opposing arguments over them are, on one hand, that they must be put down forcibly and, on the other, that they must be treated as victims themselves of social errors. Both show the same misconception. They are products of the society we live in now; and to brush its effects under the carpet in one way or the other will not change its nature, or stop other expressions of it. What a problem like this demonstrates is the never-ending futile scurry of reformers from one ugly spot to another. Instead of facing facts, they are running away from them.

Robert Barltrop

Britain's Political Crisis (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Text of a letter sent by a member of the World Socialist Party of the US to the American left-wing magazine "Ramparts".

Matthew Blaire's article in the August-September Ramparts titled: "Britain in Between" laments "Britain's political crisis" and states " . . . it is very hard to see the left-wingers quitting a party machine (the British Labour Party) which confers national influence on what would otherwise be a minority splinter group." And he ends his article: "We may be at the beginning of the lean years."

Question: What is the political crisis now facing the working class? (Suffice it to say that though the term "working class" does not appear in his article, its context revolves around the interests of the working class. I'm sure he does not deny the Class Struggle.) Unfortunately, he overlooks that the "national influence of the British Labour Party is not now nor ever has been involved in the revolutionary struggle to get rid of capitalism and establish a Socialist society (except for lip-service on special occasions.)

Its programmes have been supported by the votes of the British Left, radicals and liberals, who advocate measures for reforming and administering capitalism — which are no concern to revolutionary Marxist Socialists.

The history and experiences of the last 75 years have amply demonstrated the futility of all the "practical" measures and immediate demands for removing or altering the deleterious effects of capitalism — which has already outlived its historic usefulness in the light of the vast strides in technology and science. (Capitalism laid the groundwork for Socialism.) And, sad to say, the dedicated attempts, energies, hard work of the leftist groups have been equally futile in solving the problems of capitalism. We are still confronted with the very same dilemmas: wars, economic crises, conflicts of interests on every level of society, not to mention housing and the host of other insoluble situations. Within the framework of capitalism it is impossible to remove these problems. It is obvious that the NEED still exists for abolishing capitalism and introducing Socialism!

More importantly, Blaire is aware of the principles and policies of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but prefers to ignore the fact that the SPGB has consistently, since its organization in 1904, stood alone on the proposition that the only objective of prime importance is:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Let me emphasize that the real political crisis of the British working class, and the workers of the world, as well, is the lack of class-conscious revolutionary Socialists! Socialism cannot be rammed down the throats of the workers against their wishes. We are not confronted, as Blaire thinks, with the "beginning of the lean years". Rather, we are confronted with the continuation of the lean years, until the workers wake up to their class interests and in their vast numbers win the political power to transfer the means of life from the parasites and transfer it to where it belongs, in the hands of society as a whole. And if I read the signs of the times correctly, such an event is on the horizon. I'm very optimistic about the prospects for Socialism.

Finally, I detect an inference in Blaire's comment on "minority splinter group" that he regards the SPGB as a dogmatic, sectarian party. Actually, the dogmatic sectarians are those who have not learned the lessons of experience of the futilities of attempts to reform and administer capitalism. Socialism is both possible and practical today, here and now. The great drive will be the product of NECESSITY. The alternative now is Socialism is chaos. The insanity of capitalism must be replaced by the sanity of Socialism, if mankind is to survive.

Isaac Rab