Stop All Wars (2003)

From the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wars never solved any problems of the ordinary people such as hunger, poverty, proper health care, access to education, housing, etc. In fact, they have brought the opposite – death, deprivation and the necessity to rebuild war-torn lands. That’s because wars are never about ordinary people. We have no quarrels with the common people of Iraq or Afghanistan or any other area. We actually have a lot in common. We all want peace and security for our families and a chance to participate in and share the production of wealth. Nobody wants to see starving or homeless people.

War is the natural and inevitable consequence of the economic system under which we live and toil. Its competitive nature, its greedy necessity to accumulate capital, to continually grow and expand wherever there is a chance to profit, leads to conflict over strategic territories, areas rich in resources and rights and routes of trade. This has created a series of armed camps with the boundaries of countries used as the line in the sand.

It has also necessitated huge expenditures on armed forces and their equipment – close to $800 billion last year—to protect the interests of those who own the means of production but do not produce – the capitalists. When those interests are sufficiently threatened, or perceived to be, war usually results. When we have a system that works for everyone, when the means of production and distribution of wealth are owned and operated by and in the interests of all, we will be able to use the huge sums that are now wasted on war for human needs.

www.worldsocialism.org

Leaflet distributed recently in Toronto by Socialist Party of Canada members

Human nature (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It’s a good idea, but it’ll never work. You can’t change human nature, you know.” So runs a common argument against Socialism. A society where people would own the world’s resources in common and work together co-operatively to satisfy man’s needs is frequently rejected on the grounds that man’s nature makes it impossible. Selfishness, greed, aggression, competitiveness, are declared to be inevitable human characteristics which render any form of social organization other than today’s unworkable.

What evidence is advanced to back up this view of man? Usually not very much. Generally, some examples of contemporary human behaviour coupled with the vague assertion that Man “always has been" and therefore “always will be” like this. That so many people hold this view of human nature is a striking commentary on the nature of the education most people receive. It leaves them completely unaware of the findings made in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc., over the last 40-50 years. These all show that “man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture, from the man-made part of his environment, from other human beings.” (p.9, Man and Aggression, ed. M. F. Ashley Montagu).

Men and women sleep, eat, drink, and reproduce. The relations they enter into to accomplish these ends and the general organization of society, are social factors. When people are born they have the ability to think and act but at that time they have no views or attitudes. These they can only acquire through interacting with their environment: parents, school, the media, other people, etc. As the Open University social science textbook puts it: “To breathe, eat, drink, rest, are inborn drives; to achieve, dominate, submit, acquire, belong are learned or social drives.”

Looking at history we can see how man’s social relationships, have changed tremendously over time. Behaviour which is now considered to be basic human nature at one time was virtually unknown. Tribal societies who lived by gathering and hunting are the first known form of human social organisation. Anthropologists reckon that Man has lived in that way for all but the last 10,000 years of our 1-1½ million-year existence on earth. These societies had very different values from today’s. Their meagre resources were owned communally, there being no privileged class among them who had more power or wealth than the rest. Co-operation rather than competition was the norm, with the tribe having a harmony of interests. However the development of Man’s productive ability (beginning of agriculture, domestication of animals) and the consequent economic surplus led to the formation of privileged ruling classes who expropriated this surplus for their own benefit. The advent of private property changed Man’s social values. The pursuit of riches has bred murder, cruelty, fraud, enmity and other anti-social behaviour.

Private property society has now reached its ultimate in industrial capitalism. In this system the vast majority can only live by selling their ability to work to the few who own and control the factories, land, transport systems, and other means of wealth production. The driving force behind the production of goods is not the meeting of human need but the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. It is a society of constant conflict. Workers and capitalists are always fighting over wages and conditions. Worker is pitted against worker, first to obtain employment, then in 'the promotion rat-race; rival capitalist firms and countries continually compete against each other for increased power and profits. The organized telling of deliberate lies (advertizing) and the killing and maiming of human beings (the “professionals”) are respected occupations. People tend to be judged by the goods they have managed to accumulate, success being measured in terms of pounds and pence. Greed, selfishness, and ruthlessness are the qualities needed to “get on". Is it any wonder that people, born into such a system and subjected to strong social pressures, should often act in an anti-social manner?

However even under capitalism there are many occasions on which people act in a co-operative, even self-sacrificing, manner. Whenever a natural disaster strikes thousands of volunteers rush to help. People donate blood without monetary reward. And if Man is naturally aggressive its strange that in almost every war conscription has to be used. These examples alone are sufficient to disprove the “Human nature” argument. For if there was a bad human nature as claimed, it would have to apply to all people at all times.

Thus, the Socialist case against the argument that social evils can be explained by some kind of innate depravity or original sin has three main points —

1. Non-Socialist social scientists state that aggression, peacefulness, greed, generosity, etc. are social characteristics and cannot be transmitted genetically.
2. For hundreds of thousands of years Man lived co-operatively and harmoniously with communal ownership of resources.
3. Even under capitalism people continually act in a helpful and co-operative way.

The barrier to a better world lies not in any natural evil of Man, but in a lack of political consciousness which leads the majority to accept today’s private property system. However the contradictions in capitalism — social production and private ownership, great wealth existing alongside miserable poverty — result in more and more of the working class rejecting it and starting to work to establish an alternative.

—From a leaflet.

Saving Earth or Saving Profits? (2007)

From the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The environment is not under threat from industrial production as such, but from this in the service of profit-seeking.

All forms of vegetable and animal life are part of a network of relations called an “ecosystem” in ecology. Normally this system is self-regulating to the extent that, if an imbalance develops, this is rectified spontaneously, either by the restoration of the previous balance or by the establishment of a new balance.

The problem is that there’s been the industrial revolution: the pollution of water and the ground due to the massive disposal of toxic or non-recyclable wastes and to the use in intensive agriculture of chemical fertilisers, nitrates and pesticides; the pollution of the oceans due to the increase of maritime traffic, the flow from polluted rivers, the shipwreck of oil tankers (70 alone in 1996!), the discharge of toxic, chemical and radioactive waste, desludging at sea, etc; overfishing; the pollution of the air due to the massive use of fossil fuels, the development of the individual motor car, and the clearance by fire of forests (despite these being the lungs of the planet!); industrial accidents (Seveso (1996), Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Toulouse (2001)); the emission of greenhouse gases (CO2) by petrol vehicles and factories, deforestation, leading to global warming and its consequences (rise in the sea level due to the melting of the icepack and of polar and continental glaciers, floods, desertification, storms); acid rain; extinction of living species; introduction of GM organisms; storage of nuclear waste; expansion of towns (where now more than half the world’s population live).

And for a good reason! No State is going to implement legislation which would penalise the competitiveness of its national enterprises in the face of foreign competition. States only take into account environmental questions if they can find an agreement at international level which will disadvantage none of them. But that’s the snag because competition for the appropriation of world profits is one of the bases of the present system. Attempts at international cooperation have already been made: the League of Nations, then the UN, for example, were set up to “maintain” peace. But the 20th century saw the most devastating and murderous wars in history!

No agreement to limit the activities of the multinationals in their relentless quest for profits is possible. Measures in favour of the environment (and the far-reaching transformation of the productive apparatus and transport system these imply) come up against the interests of enterprises (and their shareholders!) because by increasing costs they decrease profits.

Humans are capable, whatever the form of production, of integrating themselves into a stable ecosystem. That was the case of many “primitive” societies which coexisted in complete harmony with the rest of nature, and there is nothing whatsoever that prevents this being possible today on the basis of industrial technology and methods of production, all the more so that renewable energies exist (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, waves, biomass, etc) but, for the capitalists, these are a “cost” which penalises them in face of international competition.

So it’s not production as such (i. e., the fashioning of nature to meet human needs) which is incompatible with a stable balance of nature, but the application of certain productive methods which disregard natural balances or which involve changes that are too rapid to allow a natural balance to develop.

The preservation of the environment is a social problem which requires humanity to establish a viable and stable relationship with the rest of nature. In practice this implies a society which uses, as far as possible, renewable energy and raw material resources and which practises the recycling of non-renewable resources; a society which, once an appropriate balance with nature has been formed, will tend towards a stable level of production, indeed towards “zero growth”. This does not mean that changes are to be excluded on principle, but that any change will have to respect the environment by taking place at a pace to which nature can adapt. But the employment by capitalism of destructive methods of production has, over two centuries, upset the balance of nature.

Whether it is called “the market economy”, “economic liberalism”, “free enterprise” or any other euphemism, the social system under which we live is capitalism. Under this system the means of the production and distribution of social wealth – the means of society’s existence – are the exclusive property of a dominant parasitic minority – the holders of capital, or capitalist class – for whose benefit they are inevitably managed.

As a system governed by economic laws which impose themselves as external constraints on human productive activities, and in which enterprises are in competition with each other to obtain short-term economic gains, capitalism pushes economic decision-makers to adopt productive methods which serve profitability rather than concern for the future.

So it is not “Man” but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems. In fact, not only have workers no influence over the decisions taken by enterprises but those who do have the power to decide – the capitalists – are themselves subject to the laws of profit and competition.

Of course capitalism has sooner or later to face up to the ecological problems caused by the search for profit, but only afterwards, after the damage has been done. But the ecologists, so critical of “liberal” capitalism, accept, like all the other varieties of reformism, the economic dictatorship of the owning minority since they don’t understand the link that exists between the destruction of the environment and the private ownership of the means of production. That is why the Greens were forced to make concessions when, from 1997-2002, they were part of the Jospin government: over the authorisations given by this government of the “plural” Left, in November 1997 and July 1998, for transgenetic maize, over nuclear questions and other matters, not to mention their complicity over “social” questions such as the suppression of 3100 jobs with the closure of the Renault factory at Vilvord or the repression of the occupation of employment offices by the unemployed in 1997, the closure of the naval shipyards in Le Havre in 1998, the calling into question of retirement at age 60 with a full pension, or the suppression of 10,000 hospital beds in the Ile de France in 1999, etc.

Because by definition capitalism can only function in the interest of the capitalists, no palliative, no rearrangement, no measure, no reform can (nor ever will be able to) subordinate capitalist private property to the general interest. For this reason only the threat of a socialist movement setting down as the only realistic and immediate aim the establishment of social property (hence the name socialism) of society’s means of existence so as to ensure their management by (and so in the interest of) the whole community, would be able to force the capitalists to concede reforms favourable to the workers for fear of losing the whole cake.

So it is for building such a movement that we launch an appeal to all workers who understand the opposition and incompatibility of their interests with those of the capitalists, to all those who, concerned about the ceaseless attacks of which we are the victims and of the dangers to which the capitalists are exposing our planet, want not to patch up but to end existing society. Our numerical superiority allows all hope.

It is only after having placed the means of society’s existence under the control of the community that we will be able to at last ensure their management, no longer in the selfish interest of their present owners, but this time really in the general interest.

Only then will we be in a position to achieve a world in which the present system of rival States will be replaced by a world community without frontiers, the rationing of money and the wages system by free access to the wealth produced, competition by cooperation, and class antagonism by social equality.

We can only “cure the planet” by establishing a society without private productive property or profit where humans will be freed from the uncontrollable economic laws of the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of capital. In short, only a world socialist society, based on the common ownership and democratic control of natural resources, is compatible with production that respects the natural environment.

– translated from a leaflet distributed by socialists in France.

Political shadow-boxing in Canada (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist 

The following article is based on the leaflet issued by the Socialist Party of Canada for last year's federal elections.

The material needs of every individual on earth can be met with only a few hours of work each week from all able-bodied people. This situation is not only practical now without man-made pollution, but has been for years, if existing industrial capacity with some enlargement, in conjunction with available natural resources and current technological knowledge, is used solely for satisfying the needs of humanity. There is no physical barrier to a world virtually as full of the good things of life and as free as air and water is now.

A democratic world community without frontiers must be established, in which the natural and industrial resources of the earth have to become the common heritage of all humankind, and used to provide a cornucopia of material wealth which people can take and use freely according to their own self-defined needs.

Such a moneyless, stateless world commonwealth is the only framework within which current social problems can be permanently solved, since it is exclusively on this basis that production can be oriented towards satisfying human needs. Such a basic social change can only be carried out when a majority of wage and salary workers in the industrialized parts of the globe is aware that the means of production and distribution under world capitalism are not used for social purposes, because they are privately or state-owned by a minority. They are restricted, wasted in the profit interests of that minority. The awakened majority will want this social change, fully understand its implications, and organize democratically and politically to achieve it.

The global village is here now, technologically, not socially.

When a sane society has been organized, so that people are free to voluntarily co-operate according to their ability, death by starvation can be stopped immediately with present food supplies. Food consumption in third world countries can be brought up to European standards in ten years. Rewarding, meaningful work will replace wage-slavery. The working population will be expanded through the addition of people now engaged in socially harmful occupations. For instance, production for sale-profit will be finished. This means that international competition and armed conflict over markets, materials and trade routes will cease. Members of armed forces, arms industry workers, scientists will disband, and together with that equipment, these techniques and materials, will make themselves available for socially useful production.

This basic social change will involve the abolition of the state and the conversion of any useful government functions for the democratic administration of needs, operating through a decentralized system of decision-making on world, regional and local levels. The wages system will be replaced by the voluntary co-operation between people.

As astounding as this solution may seem to be, it is based upon the following analysis of present-day society.

Exploitation

The only way a wealthy minority class can live without having to work is to exploit another class which is forced to work to try to "make ends meet". Exploitation simply means that wages are less than the value of what workers produce. Workers are legally robbed of an unpaid-for surplus where their jobs are. Employees produce all the luxury goods and services that the rich enjoy, but are denied consumption of these things themselves because they are confined to what wages and salaries will buy. This is the cause of the relative poverty, insecurity of the mass of "ordinary" people. It is a losing proposition. Leftists, religious crusaders and social workers who try to alleviate poverty and destitution while ignoring the cause of deprivation, that is the working class's subservient position in society, are not friends of the workers. They are aiding the employing class.

Normally any member of the working class found in any factory, mill or other parts of the boss's property who is not busy working, that is, being robbed by his employers, is trespassing.

To protect its privileged social position the owning class is obliged to spread confusion about the source of its opulence. Its media spread ideas such as, the rich are more ambitious, smarter or harder working than "ordinary" people; or that they stay rich by evading taxes, making the rest of society shoulder the burden; or that corrupt or naive politicians make unnecessary expenditures, adding to the government deficit that keeps workers poor through over-taxation. Confusion is accentuated by the fiction of a common interest within each nation. The national interest is really a mask for the bosses' interest.

Unemployment

Every party in the political spectrum, large or small, is promising that it can do something substantial about unemployment. Alas, as much as they would like to, or as sincere as some of them may be, this is a pipe dream. Governments have no more control over fluctuations in supply and demand on world markets than grain farmers have over hail storms. It ought to be obvious that if governments had the ability to end recessions, they would also have the capability of preventing them from occurring in the first place.

Unemployment helps to show what governments really are, guardians of the existing state of things of private property in the means of production. Governments are at the mercy of capital. No investments are ever made by that small minority which owns capital unless there is a potential of profit. No profit and industries shut down; no production.

A form of cruel and unusual punishment awaits the workers who swallow the vote-gathering promises about recovery. Even if the dreamers could do it, the promised land of low unemployment with rising wages and doles would be merely a matter of getting out of the fire into the frying pan. The ordinary people's degree of insecurity would become elevated to the level of the last boom. For instance, after 40 years of the "prosperity" of the last business crest, Canadian workers had sunk into a consumer debt of $44 billion more than the value of their steady job wages. (Weekend, 6/1/79) And this was way below their needs. Naturally unemployment is high in Russia and China too, since their state capitalist economies are integrated with the rest of the world.

Reforms

Contrary to what many "leftists" have thought, capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence. On the contrary, reforms to the superstructure of the system are necessary to preserve the base. The system has been reformed since 1849 when Robert Owen's Factory Act in the British House of Commons limited the hours of work for children, allowing them to get some education to increase their profitability in the factories.

Some reforms alleviate problems, often while other problems are being created by the system. Where the disadvantaged majority are concerned, reforms deal with effects, leaving causes untouched. Workers are encouraged to think that revolutionary change is impossible, the failure of "Communism" in Russia/China being cited as proof, when the change in those countries was really from feudalism to state capitalism. This tied in with the deception that nationalization was socialism.

Reforms are wonderful for the owning class (1) They give false hope to the workers that something can be done, without basic change. (2) They lower wages and increase productivity which equals increased profits.

Those 1,500.00 dollar bottles of wine would not be for sale in Calgary if there were no idle recipients of profits of the upper class there to buy them.

Even before this recession, some workers were agitating to reform existing reforms so that they would work according to the ideals involved in their establishment. Some are now being eliminated, after years of struggle to get them.

Perhaps it can now be seen that "social services" were never for the people, now that these crumbs are being cut back at the same time as the needs of the poor have increased. Medicare cutbacks for instance, where elderly workers die after months or years of waiting for treatment. Reforms are back-to-work measures, subsidies that lower wages and raise the productivity of labor. More of these services for the rich are required when more producers are required, in periods of business booms.

Voting for reforms is something like voting for a bed of thorns, then spending a lifetime trying to dull the thorns.

Left Wing Parties 

No one thought it unusual, during the time the NDP governed B.C., when "prosperity" was still with us, that some elderly people had to eat pet food. Some eyebrows were raised when Dave Barrett ordered 50,000 striking workers back to servitude, helping to push wages down. There was some union objection, as there was in Saskatchewan and Manitoba when CCF/NDP governments broke strikes.

Generally leftists and rightists parties advocate and bring in the same reforms. For instance the first Socred government of B.C. brought in some nationalization and extensive welfare measures. If the NDP had done this, the bosses' media would have called it socialism, to help induce working class voters think there is some basic difference between the organizations of what can be called the capitalist party.        .

About half of all the world's governments are "left wing" all presiding over capitalism. Mother Theresa has recently been asked to send nuns from third world countries to the slums of Winnipeg to fight destitution a few city blocks from an NDP administration.

The "Political Spectrum" 

The shadow boxers of the so-called left-centre-right are only arguing about rearranging the worm-eaten social furniture. From the "Communist" party to the Western Concept Party, they are not much more than wings of the national capitalist party. There are some differences but they are united in their support of the present world social division of society into "haves" and "have-nots".

They steal each other's policies, hop from party to party with no ideological effort.

Some people are Socreds provincially and Conservatives federally. "Leftwing" and "rightwing" parties have formed coalition governments. Some individual candidates have run for office on a combined "leftist" and "rightist" ticket.

Their reaction upon hearing the ideas of the Socialist Party of Canada is open hostility, ridicule or taunts about utopianism. Whenever they are in office, they administer the profit system in the only way it can be, by assaulting the living standards of the majority who voted for them.

Human Nature

Is the voluntarily co-operative world of socialism impossible because of innate human aggressiveness and greed? If the world's rulers believed this fairy tale they feed to their victims, they would immediately stop funding their arms race from their own abundant coffers and start financing potential destruction through voluntary, door-to-door donations from the humble, mortgaged homes of their underlings. Conversely, they would abandon the crusade to encourage the majority to help others who are worse off than they are through huge charity programs.

Society can only be operated in the interest of all when the downtrodden majority becomes conscious of its inferior social position and wins elections to end the imbalance.

Leadership

When workers accept the ideas of leaders, that is, follow them, they have no real say. They are leaving their lives in the hands of politicians and governments, who are preserving the profit interests of the masters who live off the workers. They are mis-using the ballot to hand power back to a parasitical minority.

Political leaders need no special talents except how to deceive ordinary people. When the NDP's John Schreyer began his final election bid as the Premier of Manitoba, he wore his "lucky shoes". When Pierre Trudeau was trying to decide for the last time to step down, he walked into a nocturnal Ottawa blizzard to consult the stars.

It mattered not that a millionaire, university graduate playboy, holding a flower and spouting philosophy took over the helm in 1968. Nor does it matter that a possible new messiah is a corporate board member and lawyer. The idol of 1968 is the scoundrel of the '80s. The search is on for a new shepherd to become tomorrow's scoundrel.

The world's rulers, in one-party police states, as well as civil rights countries, take the class war of ideas very seriously and spend millions on presenting their side. Generally, the workers' only retaliation so far has been to reject some of those ideas. The owning class fervently hopes the world's workers won't carry the struggle any further than the defensive one on the economic field, over wages and working conditions, merely involving the terms of their exploitation.

Therefore, no government on earth can afford to care about the majority who are wage and salary earners. They are running a system where share and bondholders live parasitically off workers.

It doesn't matter who takes on the job of running the wages-prices-profits system. Or how it is done. No party, including the Socialist Party of Canada, could humanize the system or make it run in the interest of the class it exploits.

By voting for reforms and promises in the last election what did wage workers actually vote for? What has been happening to workers since then? This election is the same. The parties and issues spotlighted by the bosses' media are irrelevant to the interests of the ordinary people. To deal effectively with their problems they must win elections so that they can control, and change society.

The Socialist Solution

The socialist solution to the problems of the non-owning majority can be achieved with only a fraction of the heroism that is required to cope with the present social arrangement.

Since the formulas of the past have been proven wrong, why opt for more of the same? It is not necessary to vote for any wing of the capitalist party in acquiescence because there seems to be nothing better, or in a vain hope that it will do something right, or that someday it might conform to a fond ideal.

The "ordinary" people should become somebodies. They have a potential power at their disposal, brains, logic and the vote. They should assume control of their minds, and claim the world for themselves. They are the class that produces everything in it. There is no third option. Some of the 20 to 30 per cent eligible voters who consistently abstain are undoubtedly knowledgeable enough to not want to vote for any wing of the Capitalist Party. Canada's electoral system is not democratic enough to allow 20 per cent space for a write-in ballot.

But the word "socialism" can be written over the names of the capitalist wing candidates wherever an SPC candidate is not running.

Those who wish to hear more, or wish to join write to: Socialist Party of Canada, Box 4280 A, Victoria, B. C. V8X 3X8 or phone 382-5927 or 479-26-26

Read "The World Socialist" — International journal produced by parties, groups and individuals of The World Socialist Movement. Printed in London. Available (in Victoria) at Griffin Books, 587 Johnson St. $1.00 or postage free $1.50.

In Duncan at Don's Book Store, Sun Valley Mall.

Socialist Party of Canada

Depression (1958)

From the August 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a long time since the last great trade depression. Younger people will have little or no clear recollection of it. It occurred between 1929 and 1939, coming to an end after the outbreak of the Second World War. The period was known as the Hungry Thirties. At that time there was something like a million unemployed in Canada, three million in Britain, six million in Germany, eleven million in the United States. In 1934 it was reported that there were between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000 unemployed at that time throughout the world. Even Russia, where unemployment was claimed by its supporters to have lately been abolished, was affected by the depression and had to cope with growing numbers of unemployed. And wherever it existed, unemployment, then as now, deprived its victims of the sources of life other than the limited means made available through charitable groups and government agencies.

The world’s warehouses were filled with goods, the world's workers were in want and the statesmen were helpless. Bennett, of Canada, who rose to power in 1930 promising to end the depression, was ushered out of power in 1935, leaving 1,341,000 of the electorate on relief. Roosevelt of the United States called to his service the greater part of the alphabet and won the hearts of the American people—but failed to end the breadlines. Hitler of Germany blamed the evils suffered by his countrymen on the victors of the First World War and he fed the German workers’ national pride, red banners and brown shirts—to go with their black bread and sausages. The Labour Party of Britain, which came on the scene to bring shelter to the underdog from the storms and stresses of modern life, became, after a quarter century, without accomplishment, an unheroic victim of the 1930’s, broken by a Labour Government measure designed to worsen the living conditions of large number of workers.

And so it went. Wherever one chanced to turn, the story could be told in much the same terms. It was a time of bleakness and want, anger and upsurge, fed upon by demagogues and mountebanks and turned in directions that brought no clear thought, much worthless and harmful effort and nothing of benefit to workers who were willing simply to serve as followers. Children spent their childhood improperly fed and clothed and lacking in playthings other than those that were whittled from wood by their fathers or fashioned from rags by their mothers. They entered schools and came out again, products of an educational system that shed no light on the desolation surrounding them. They approached young adulthood with nothing better to hope for than permission to enrol on the breadline without being subjected to the humiliating impertinences of petty officials. They feared to become married because marriage carried responsibilities which they had no way of meeting, as was carefully pointed out to them by the guardians of society. And those who became married despite these cautions found the stern visage of authority hovering over them fearful lest they add to their numbers and increase further the burden the nation was already groaning under!

The passing years, particularly the dozen recent years of work and wages and television sets, have dimmed the memory of the Hungry Thirties. For most people the angry insistence that something be done has given place to a placid acceptance of things as they are. That there can be another depression is a thought they will not entertain. They feel vaguely that everyone learned a lesson from the last depression, that people will not stand for another one, that in any case the world's governments have taken measures or will take measures to prevent another from occurring. What lessons were learned and what measures have been taken or will be taken to prevent depression, these are matters which the average person hesitates to discuss—the blunt and gloomy truth being that his views in this connection are simply the product of wishful thinking.

It is a fact that the average person learned no lessons that matter from the last depression. It is also a fact that the politicians, the statesmen and all those on whom they depend for impressive thoughts, have failed to prove themselves better informed. The reasons are not hard to find. The average person has not made the slightest attempt to learn about depressions, and the official representatives of society, if they have made a study of the subject, have not come up with knowledge they are prepared to impart or act upon; for if they have discovered anything they have discovered that such knowledge can provide no help in preventing depression and nothing sensible that can be used to encourage the average worker to continue his approval of the existing form of society; and since these people are committed to the preservation of present society without important changes they are obliged either to remain silent or ask people to retain confidence, trust in providence, or engage in other childlike pastimes.

There is no treatment for depressions that can bring lasting and beneficial results for the mass of the people while retaining the present order of society. That is why the brightest of capitalism's defenders have nothing to offer on the subject but nonsense. The trouble is that capitalism is not a system that can concern itself about the needs of people and how best to satisfy those needs; it is a system in which goods are produced in order that capitalists may obtain profits; and when a situation arises in which these goods cannot be sold profitably, they are retained in warehouses whether or not there are people in need. This was the situation that prevailed during the Hungry Thirties; vast quantities of wealth decaying with passing years, vast numbers of people in constant and serious need—and not a government anywhere in the world that knew what to do about it!

Capitalism is by nature a chaotic form of society, often in the throes of stagnation and never free of misery. To end the fears, uncertainties and horrors of modern life requires 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 society as a whole. This is a task to which you should give immediate thought and action.

(Leaflet published by the Socialist Party of Canada.)

50 Years Ago: Depression (2008)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a long time since the last great trade depression. Younger people will have little or no clear recollection of it. It occurred between 1929 and 1939, coming to an end after the outbreak of the Second World War. The period was known as the Hungry Thirties. At that time there was something like a million unemployed in Canada, three million in Britain, six million in Germany, eleven million in the United States. In 1934 it was reported that there were between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000 unemployed at that time throughout the world. Even Russia, where unemployment was claimed by its supporters to have lately been abolished, was affected by the depression and had to cope with growing numbers of unemployed. And wherever it existed, unemployment,then as now, deprived its victims of the sources of life other than the limited means made available through charitable groups and government agencies.

The world’s warehouses were filled with goods, the world’s workers were in want and the statesmen were helpless. Bennett, of  Canada, who rose to power in 1930 promising to end the depression, was ushered out of power in 1935, leaving 1,341,000 of the electorate on relief. Roosevelt of the United States called to his service the greater part of the alphabet and won the hearts of the American people – but failed to end the breadlines. Hitler of Germany blamed the evils suffered by his countrymen on the victors of the First World War and he fed the German workers’ national pride, red banners and brown shirts – to go with their black bread and sausages. The Labour Party of Britain, which came on the scene to bring shelter to the underdog from the storms and stresses of modern life, became, after a quarter century, without accomplishment, an unheroic victim of the 1930’s, broken by a Labour Government measure designed to worsen the living conditions of large numbers of workers.

(From a leaflet published by the Socialist Party of Canada reprinted in the Socialist Standard, August 1958).

Socialist principles explained (1993)

From the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Object: 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.

What do we mean by a “system of society"?

The world is a “global village". Each region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide. This system of society is capitalism and every region and nation operates within this in one way or another. Socialism is not a co-operative island in the middle of capitalism, but a global system of society that will replace capitalism.

"The means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth"?

This includes the forests, mines, and oceans from which natural wealth is extracted, the factories in which this natural wealth is processed, and the distribution of that wealth via transportation networks (such as roads and truck lines) and distribution centres (such as grocery and department stores). It does not include your personal belongings such as your toothbrush or clothing, or family heirloom.

“Common Ownership”?

Common ownership means that society as a whole owns the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. It also implies the democratic control of these means and instruments, for if everyone owns, then everyone must have equal right to control.

Common ownership is not state ownership. State ownership is merely the ownership by the capitalist class as a whole, instead of by individual capitalists, and the government then runs the state enterprises to serve the capitalist class. In the old self-proclaimed “communist” states the state enterprises served those who controlled the party/state apparatus. The working class did not own or control. It produced for a privileged minority.

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of production (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

How are decisions about the operation of society made? What principles govern what goods will be produced in what quantity and quality, and what social programmes and laws will exist?

If decisions were made based upon the needs of humanity then the food that is regularly destroyed by the truckload would instead feed the starving.

Decisions are made based upon the expectation of making a profit. The ecology of the world is being devastated, even though this devastation may wipe out the human race, because of profit. Poor quality goods are produced, not because people want to have junk, but because it is profitable to produce junk. The rich can get the best—the rest of us often have little choice. Anyone can think of dozens of examples of how decision-making puts profit-making before the satisfaction of human needs.

The owners of the production and distribution facilities are responsible to no-one but themselves. Governments pass laws that maintain profits for the owners as a group. Sometimes one owner of one subgroup of owners loses a bit but, overall, the class of owners always benefits in the long run. By focussing on the worst excesses, and legalizing the rest, their profits are protected from demands for significant changes.

While people in Western Europe and North America have generally seen the benefits of increased production in terms of material wealth, the decisions are made not to improve our lives, but to improve the lives of those who own the means of production. The gap between the very rich and the rest of us continues to grow.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess hut do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.

There are many different divisions in society. Divisions of hatred by sex. skin colour, national origin, religion or the amount of money that a person makes, among others. The insecurity of capitalism breeds these hatreds. We must eliminate their breeding ground, before they infect our children.

Socialists see a division of society based upon the means of acquiring wealth. If you must work for a living then you are working-class, if your main income is derived from the work of others then you are a capitalist. This distinction clearly exists. Even though some of us own shares, workers do not have the luxury to quit their jobs and live off investment income.

When you analyze society using this class division, many problems that otherwise defy understanding have obvious solutions.

Profits are derived from owning. Wages or salary are derived from labouring, by expending our physical or mental energy working for those who own the means of production and distribution.

The owner of a particular factory may not even know that they own it. It may be just a part of an immense holding company that is administered by someone else. The workers in the factory, however, are directly connected to the production. It is the labour-power of these workers (including the plant management) that creates the profits that keep the capitalists rich. It is vital that the capitalists pay their workers less than the value of their labour-power produces. It is this difference between the value of what the workers are paid and the value of what they produce that is the source of profit.

3. That this antagonism can he abolished only In the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

As long as the ownership of the means of production and distribution rests with the minority capitalist class, this antagonism will continue to exist. The antagonism is caused by the necessarily differing interests of the two classes. No matter how nice capitalists may be on a personal level, they will always have different interests from the working class. It is not a matter of good and evil or anything like that, it is inherent in any class system. Therefore the only way to eliminate the antagonism is to eliminate the class system and establish a system of common ownership where the previous antagonism has no basis.

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.

The hate and distrust that exists in society today is a direct result of the nature of societies past and present. A society in which we must compete to survive, in which our jobs are threatened by other workers, in which we do not feel secure, is a fertile breeding ground for racism, sexism, nationalism and all the other hatreds that abound.

Even today, while this hatred is sometimes used to pit one worker against another, it appears that overall, these hatreds are being rooted out and made socially unacceptable. This is particularly noticeable in countries like South Africa where there is a shortage of white workers, and black workers must be brought into previously “white” workplaces without the major disruption that is caused by overt racism.

No society can properly meet our human needs as long as there are different classes of people. Every person has abilities that differentiate them from others, but we are all equal in our humanity. We all have strengths and weaknesses. What we need is a society that allows us to use our strengths, and that accepts and accommodates our weaknesses.

Socialism will be a society geared to meeting human needs and the need to be accepted for what we are is probably the most basic of human needs. When the breeding ground for these hatreds has disappeared, people will naturally be able to eradicate them with all the other negative leftovers of capitalism.

5. That this emancipation must he the work of the working class itself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to consent* the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may he converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

It would be foolish to expect the capitalist class to voluntarily give up its privileged position in society. Governments exist solely to administer the society as it exists, in the interests of the ruling (capitalist) class, so governments will not end the privilege. Capitalism will continue as long as the working class accept it. The working class will have to force the capitalist class to give up its position of privilege.

Socialism will be the result of workers democratically choosing a new. classless society based on producing to satisfy human needs. And since capitalism is a global system of society, it must be replaced globally.

It is dangerous and futile to follow those who support violence by workers against the armed force of the state. Violent revolution has sometimes meant different faces in the capitalist class, always meant dead workers, and never meant the liberation of the working class. Until workers organize consciously and politically and take control of the state machinery, including its armed forces, the state will be assured of bloody victory.

Political democracy is the greatest tool (next to its labour-power) that the working class has at its disposal. When the majority of workers support socialism, so-called “revolutionary” war will not be required. The real revolution is for workers to stop following leaders, to start understanding why society functions as it does and to start thinking for themselves.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working-class emancipation must he hostile to every other party.

Political parties of the left, right and centre, claim to be working for the betterment of society. Because society functions in the interests of the capitalist class, it is clear that these parties are then supporting the interests of the capitalist class. History shows us that no matter what these parties say, when elected they administer capitalism in the only way it can be administered—in the interests of the capitalist class.

Each of them has their own idea of how to run capitalism, often stealing the ideas of their supposed political opposites. The reforms that they implement must reflect economic reality. If they do not, they will not get re-elected—until the next party fails to reflect that reality. There is no way that capitalism can adequately meet the needs of the majority, but all of these parties pretend it can if only they find the right plan. None of them has any really new ideas, only rehashed reforms that have failed in the past. Voting for any of these parties is voting for capitalism, forever.

8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action, determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

The Socialist Party is part of a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world. It does not today, and it never can.

In order to meet these needs capitalism must be replaced by socialism.

The only way to achieve socialism is for the working class to recognize this and consciously and politically work to replace capitalism with socialism.

The Socialist Party does not support the idea of reforming capitalism and therefore does not work for reforms. There are plenty of other organizations that do and yet the problems remain. By relegating socialism to the future, it is relegated to never. Only a party dedicated only to socialism can promote socialism in any real, honest manner.

Among all the political parties in this country, only the Socialist Party is dedicated to socialism as an immediate goal. It is this objective that makes the Socialist Party revolutionary—our dedication to peaceful, democratic and immediate change.

Only the conscious support of the working class will create socialism, and to this end the Socialist Party seeks to increase understanding of, and mobilize support for, socialism.

The Socialist Party calls upon every worker to support these efforts in any way that they can.

—based on a leaflet brought out by the Socialist Party of Canada.

Jack and the Beanstalk (1967)

A Short Story from The Western Socialist #5, 1967

A discussion between Jack, the Beanstalk Plantation Owner and Henry, his Golden Egg Mint Man.

HENRY: Man you play It cool. You do what you like, and you do it when you like to do it. And all those frails who part their hair lust the way you like it. How do you make this scene?

JACK: Easy, man. I got all kinds of giants growing beanstalks for me.

HENRY: Wild! How do you get them to do that?

JACK: Easy, man. I Just give them some of those golden eggs you mint for me.

HENRY: Crazy! Why do they want those?

JACK: Simple, man. They need them to buy some of the beans they produce.

HENRY: Way out! How come the giants don’t just help themselves to the beans?

JACK: Can’t, man. I give a few golden eggs to other giants to guard my beams with rifles and keep the giants In cages if they get caught.

HENRY: Holy masochism! How come they don’t see the con game?

JACK: Ain’t easy, man. I got other giants running schools to train them that the only thing to do is to try and climb beanstalks. This keeps them seeing the world through my eyes.

HENRY: Holy apprehension! Don’t you worry about them getting to your position?

JACK: Not much, man. Most of the giants can’t even get past the first low branches. Only a few get high enough that I have to have the beanstalk cut down. About one in a thousand gets up and we just absorb him.

HENRY: What a plot! You must have it real cozy.

JACK: Well, not quite, man. I got problems. The giants produce so many beans that even my groovy living doesn’t use them all.

HENRY: What a hangup! What do you do with with the rest?

JACK: Well, I try to get rid of them across the sea for more golden eggs.

HENRY: Way out, man. You've got the solution.

JACK: Well, not exactly. You see there are bad Jacks over there who are trying to do the same things I’m doing.

HENRY: What a paradox, man. What can be done?

JACK: Well, I give a few more eggs to other giants to fly bombers to blow up the bad Jacks’ beanstalk plantations before the bad Jacks get their giants to blow up my beanstalk plantations. These military giants also guard my source of beanstalk fertilizer and try to get new sources away from the bad Jacks.

HENRY: What a smooth solution, man. You should feel cool.

JACK: Well, almost, but I have a bit of a paranoia about mushroom clouds.

HENRY: Holy dilemma, man! I wonder why all the giants don’t educate themselves outside the Jack schools so they could take all the beanstalk plantations away from all the Jacks and make them serve everyone.

JACK: Go wash out your mouth with acid, and if I ever hear such utopia again I'll send you down to work on the beanstalks. You dig, man?

HENRY: I dig, and I am not yet ready to trade my white collar in for a blue one. I start minting new golden eggs for you right away.

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

Larry Tickner

(Leaflet Issued by Victoria Local, S.P.C.)

Be disobedient – think for yourself (2006)

From the January 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let’s rebel! Let’s free ourselves from the corrupt, rapacious society we live in!

We workers produce, organise, and manage production for a minority of capitalists who own what we produce; then, from the sale of the products we make, the capitalists accumulate more capital from profits. Some of the profits are reinvested to have us work to develop the production facilities for the owners, the remainder of the profits are used by the owners to expand their wealth and extend their power by controlling their governments and “persuading” politicians, both nationally and internationally.

Let us change this way of running affairs! We workers produce and distribute all goods; let us own everything and abolish private property, so everyone can democratically decide how to care for each other.

This division of world society into those who own and control capital (the capitalist class), and those who have to work to increase the capitalists’ wealth (the working class) must be abo1ished and replaced by a co-operative society of common ownership by freely associating individuals – that is everyone. A real inclusive society of carers with no selfish, private owning capitalists, as now , accumulating wealth and running society through their politicians and governments.

Under common ownership real democracy will work; everyone can participate fully in administration and be heard – not like now, when the 30 seconds it takes you to put a cross on the ballot paper is ignored for years by politicians too busy pocketing brown envelopes.

Within a society of common ownership, if there are individuals elected they will be controlled by the electors and subjected to immediate recall. This means the elected will be servants of the electors, and recalled to be removed immediately by those who elected them, if they do not follow the instructions of those who gave them the chance to be public servants.

The evidence that everyone has equal power and an equal vote in every decision taken will be obvious within this future society by the removal of the threat of hunger, exercised under capitalist society against all who are unwilling to accept the conditions of work and compliance. Within this future society of freely associating, equal individuals, every man, woman and child will take what goods they want from a communal store. This free access, this freedom is what will maintain real democracy, and it will be possible because money will be unnecessary and non-existent.

Money is a means of exchange in capitalist society. A form of rationing by the owners of the non-owners – no money, no goods. In a society of common ownership and free access – we use the word socialism to describe it – everybody will own everything, so why would we want to pay ourselves? Our common sense will tell us not to waste what could be shared with others.

As socialists we want to participate in a global-community progression to free humankind’s real human potential. We are all equals, if different. We don’t accept leaders, which is why we invite you to ignore leaders too. Begin to free yourself, be disobedient, think for yourself, ask questions, and inquire after the case we suggest.

– leaflet issued by socialists in Ireland.

Fight War Not Wars (1996)

The TV Review column from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The proliferation of TV programmes about war and the military in recent months is enough to make one wonder whether this is a conscious attempt by the TV authorities to satiate the appetites of those who have become so twisted by capitalist society that violence is a way of life. Whatever, their latest offering—(BBC2, Mondays 7 pm, starting 11 November) —was an appalling example of the genre.

All the tricks used by bourgeois historians to account for—and justify—war were present in abundance. What was lacking was hard-headed analysis that actually fitted the facts. Frankly, when a large part of the historical analysis proffered in a series is given by such professional reactionaries as Norman Stone and Niall Ferguson, you know where the programme-makers’ priorities are likely to lie at the very start. The fact that the series started on Armistice Day, when the patriots and nationalists of the British Legion organise a two minutes' silence to remember the past crimes of the British ruling class, only served to confirm this impression. 1914-18, still ongoing at the time of going to press, is a series for dewey- eyed old soldiers who still proudly parade the pieces of metal they were given to put on their chest for killing people in other countries just like themselves for nothing that had anything to do with either of them.

As even the Guardian's TV critic admitted, the attempt to explain the cause of the First World War in this programme was woeful. For those who believe in some sort of innate German militarism it will have served to confirm their prejudices. but the real reason for the war—Germany’s late entrance into the imperialist scramble and its desire, along with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to extend its economic influence—was almost entirely ignored. Instead we were treated to stereotypical commentaries on the German ‘‘national character" and portraits of the great leaders of the day, presumably on the grounds that this was likely to prove insightful into the whole affair. We were informed, for instance, that the Russian Tsar was ‘'puny" and that—most fascinating and importantly of all— the French Socialist Party leader Jean Jaurès had a rather wide back, "rather like that of a peasant". The only mildly noteworthy fact to be mentioned in all of this for anybody who wasn't already aware of it was the Black Nobility link between the various royal houses ostensibly involved in the war—the Kaiser, for example, was both Queen Victoria's grandson and the cousin of Tsar Nicolas II.

Reformist betrayal

The programme's obsession with Jaurès was particularly odd and its only apparent virtue was that it fitted in with the Great Man Theory of History so beloved by bourgeois historians past and present. According to this programme, Jaurès's assassination just before the outbreak of the war was a significant event which broke any likely resistance from the working class to the conflict. This is, at best, sheer fantasy. The International Socialist Bureau (Second International) had long signalled its willingness to take sides if war came. Indeed, as early as 1896 the ISB had signalled its belief in the primacy of national interests over class interests when a resolution was passed supporting the right to "national self- determination". Allied with this, most of the leaders of the Second International were prepared to support a "defensive” war. It therefore was no surprise at all in 1914 when the French Socialist Party supported France's war on its German aggressor, or that the largest nominally socialist party in the world, the German SPD, supported its own ruling class in its ‘defensive’ war against backward, semi-feudal Russia. In Britain, Henry Hyndman's British Socialist Party and Keir Hardie's Independent Labour Party both took sides with the British capitalists, while the Socialist Labour Party wavered before coming out against the conflict.

It is very unlikely indeed, given all that has already been noted about it, that 1914-18 will mention that the only political organisation in Britain to unequivocally oppose the war was the Socialist Party, making plain the real economic causes of the conflict. And if it continues with its theme that WWI was a battle between peace-loving and democratic Britain against German militarism and autocracy we might like to remind them of what real socialists were saying at the time about that most benevolent of social groupings, the British ruling class, when all the fake socialists rallied to their flag:

    This Government, the ‘defenders of freedom, the upholders of justice and right", endorsed martial law, the denial of all liberty and the firing on defenceless crowds in South Africa, batoned 700 men in Dublin, turned out the military against YOU at Belfast, Llanelly, Leith, the Rhondda Valley and elsewhere; they callously refused to give underfed children sufficient food; they mock with pretty words but cynical, brutal inaction, the condition of the ever growing army of unemployed; they have sanctioned wholesale imprisonment, exile and butchery in India, Persia, Egypt and the New Hebrides, and allied themselves with the infamies perpetrated in Russia and Japan: in a word they reek with lying pretence and self-satisfied pharasaism, for in very truth, they are the ever willing tools of autocracy, capitalism and class rule everywhere." (SPGB leaflet. The Call of the Patriot, February 1916)

Dave Perrin

Charity (1959)

 From the January 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

A giant activity prevails in modern society, one that approaches people in their places of employment, stops them on street corners, enters their homes, reaches them through the mail and over the telephone, appeals to them from the press and pulpit and over radio and television, one that in fact overlooks no means of making its presence and its wants known.

This activity is carried on in the name of organised charity.

Society in its present form is widely regarded as the only acceptable form of society. Its educational establishments have no alternative to offer and will concede none, even though they recognise that modern society was itself an alternative to a previous form. Its public figures pour scorn on suggestions of change, even though the less ignorant among them will agree that change permeates all things. And the daily press and other agencies of publicity and information deliberately lie about the views of those who advocate change, even though there will be found on their masthead a resolute attachment for truth and progress.

Yet those who find nothing seriously wrong in society, also find nothing seriously wrong about being periodically called upon to make greater appeals to gain greater support for growing numbers of charitable organisations!

Working people produce wealth that must, under the law, be delivered in its entirety to the owners of the places where the wealth is produced. In return, the producers receive sufficient of the needs of life to enable them to continue producing. This condition prevails through all the years they are capable of working. After that, the ones who are still living, if they qualify under certain government regulations, or if they have subscribed to certain plans, receive a pension entitling them to complete their “twilight years” under conditions of greatly aggravated want.

There are some released from industry who for one reason or another do not qualify for pensions. There are some who die or become maimed or suffer chronic ailments and have families. There are mothers, widows, children, limited in ability or opportunity to help themselves. There is a section of humanity that depends on the rest of humanity for help.

And the modern world, rather than deal simply and directly with this need by providing ready access to the storehouses of goods, as would occur in a sensible world, prefers instead to deliver the great mass of wealth to the privileged minority and tear-drenched appeals for charity to the impoverished majority.

Charity! Sweet charity! Upheld as evidence of the innate goodness of man! Bringing comfort to the bosom of the idle uplifter, salve to the conscience of the brutal exploiter! Providing an outlet for the energies of people who feel that something ought to be done and who might otherwise find time to think about doing things really helpful! Bringing relief to government funds and so, too, to the wealth of the owning class who provide these funds! Deepening the needs of workers by causing them to shoulder burdens of others more victimised by the rottenness of modern society! Degrading and humiliating those on whom it is bestowed, imposing itself on them as punishment for their sinful and contemptible failure to be useful beasts of burden! Hovering darkly over the mass of mankind, grim reminder of society’s benevolence towards all who falter in the field of exploitation!

Indecent, unwholesome charity! Preying on the natural willingness of ordinary people to help one another, even to the extent of depriving their own of needed things! Deliberately pursuing, hounding, intimidating, embarrassing those whose lives are already depressed, consciously designed to depress them further!

Charity! Symbol of a society insistent on preserving the extravagant extremes of wealth and want! Symbol of a society that neither intends nor desires to end the conditions that ensure its existence! Destined to remain and shame humanity as long as man clings to the property relationships of modern times!

The day will come when the human race will rise above its fawning subservience to an owning class. On that day the means of producing and distributing the needs of life will become the common property of collective man and will be operated for no purpose other than to provide abundance to all the members of society. On that day a Socialist society will be established, bringing an end at last to the exploitation of man by man, together with all the other abominations of Capitalism, including charity.

(Leaflet issued by Socialist Party of Canada.)

Wages and Trade Unions (1959)

From the June 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Working people live on wages, which are obtained in their places of employment. Some workers own government bonds or company shares and derive income from these or from other sources. But all sources other than wages form a very small part of the average worker's income. Mainly the workers live on wages and any changes that occur in the amount of wages have a definite bearing on their conditions of life.

The wages which they receive represent a portion of the wealth they produce. This portion takes the form of money and is given to them by the owners of the places where they work in return for the use by the owners of their ability to work for specified periods of time.

This is a condition of existence common to all workers, not less to those who wear white collars and receive salaries than to those who wear overalls and receive pay envelopes. The boy leaving school at the age of 16 or 17 searches at once for an employer. There is nothing else he can do. His father does not own a “place of business.” Neither do his relatives or his friends. Nor is there any way in which he can start a business of his own. There are exceptions, it is true, but in general the youngster leaves school and works all his useful life for some other person and lives through the years on wages.

So wages are very important to him and if unemployment causes his wages to stop, or if they become reduced or are not increased in times of rising prices, then he faces troublous times.

Mental Conditioning

Yet the worker does not give to wages the thought and consideration which their importance obviously urges. That is because he is subjected to mental conditioning. He picks up his newspaper in the evening, to find that world affairs are detailed and analysed without reference to wages. He turns on the radio or television and gets lengthy periods of sports, popular music, plays and other things, but not wages. Perhaps he goes to a movie house, to see a love story, a mystery, a western or some other type of film, in which the characters all seem to live in some manner that precludes the existence of wages. On Sunday he takes himself to church to become removed to heights so lofty that the very thought of wages could only be disturbing if not blasphemous. There is a stigma attached to wages. The subject is dull and boring. Wages are not to be discussed except to reveal that they are an incontestable condition of existence for workers, but must be taken in modest sums.

How could the matter of wages be treated otherwise? All the main sources of information and entertainment are owned by the capitalist class, and these gentry are hardly likely to allow them to be used to call sympathetic attention to the wages question or to be critical of the system, of wage payment. They like the wages system and they like wages to be low. It is from this state of affairs that their privileges and luxuries emerge. And they know, that the more the minds of the workers are directed into channels remote from wages the less attention will they give to wages, and this can react only to the benefit of the employers.

Trade Unions

But in spite of these diversionary activities, which attain a great deal of success in keeping the workers passive, they do give attention to the question of wages. The pressures resulting from their status as wage workers, particularly the constant readiness of the employers to use every opportunity to lower their level of existence, compels activity in their own interest, even though this activity is all too reluctant and lacking in depth.

Over the years working people throughout the world have employed a variety of methods in the hope of improving their living conditions. They have petitioned parliament, supported candidates for office, organised political parties. They have paraded in the streets, erected barricades and fought against police. But most important, they have organised in trade unions, which have provided them with their most effective weapon, the strike.

The trade union exists to protect and improve wages and working conditions. It engages in a number of other activities most of which are worthless, sometimes harmful. Because its members are not politically informed, it often allows itself to be used as a stepping stone to office by aspiring politicians. Indifference and apathy amongst its members sometimes lead to racketeering, cases of this kind recently being played up prominently in the daily press. But when all these things are taken into account, the real worth of the trade union must not be overlooked.

Strike Action

It seldom happens that a worker by himself can approach an employer and obtain an increase in wages. Workers in certain specialised types of employment may be able to do this, but not the average worker. He would be more likely to find himself on the street searching for another employer. Workers may influence their wages and working conditions only by collective effort and only by being in the position to stop working if their demands are not met. The ability to withhold their services is a weapon in their possession. It is the only final logic known to employers. Without it wages tend to sink below subsistence level. With it a substantial check can often be placed on the encroachments of the employers and improvements both in wages and working conditions can be made.

The strike is not a sure means of victory for workers in dispute with employers. There are many cases on record of workers being compelled to return to work without gains, sometimes with losses. Strikes should not be employed recklessly but should be entered into with caution, particularly during times when production falls off and there are growing numbers of unemployed. And it should not be thought that victory can be gained only by means of the strike. Sometimes more can be gained simply by the threat of a strike. Workers must bear 'all these things in mind if they are to make the most effective use of the trade union and the power which it gives them.

But above all, the workers, besides making the greatest possible use of the trade union, must also come to recognise that even at their best the unions cannot bring permanent security or end poverty. These aims cannot be gained within the limits of capitalist society. When the workers have raised their sights high enough to envisage a society where there can be no conflict over wages and where each will contribute to the production of wealth according to his ability and receive from the produce according to his needs, they are thinking of a goal that can be gained only after they have become organised into a political organisation having for its object the introduction of Socialism. Such an organisation is the Socialist Party.

Leaflet published by the Socialist Party of Canada.

The Founding of The Socialist Party of Ireland (1949)

From the July 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most noisy, most applauded or most spectacular events in history are not necessarily the most important. Many organisations that have left a deep imprint on the path of social development have had extremely modest beginnings. That is particularly true of working class organisations. The shallowness of working class pockets prevents any sort of elaborate display when a few workers come together to lay the foundations of an organisation which will be the instrument for achieving their aims. Socialist parties are far from being an exception.

On May 28th and 29th of this year, in a room of the home of a Belfast socialist, a group of workers from Dublin and Belfast met and decided to form “The Socialist Party of Ireland.” Their object is identical with the object of the S.P.G.B. and they have adopted the S.P.G.B. declaration of principles. That constitutes them a companion Socialist party with those that already exist in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America and in Great Britain.

There was no show, no fuss. Just a group of workers knowing what they wanted and getting together to argue out the details. Once they had decided to form the new party they got straight down to business and went out on to the street with their platform to issue their first challenge to Irish capitalism. There is nothing sensational about the proceedings and our Irish comrades will certainly not hit the headlines in the newspapers of Eire and Northern Ireland.

The position of the Socialist Party of Ireland looks peculiar to us viewed from this side of the Irish Channel. One part of the country is governed from Dublin whilst the other remains under British Government. The attitude of our Irish comrades to this “double-state” set-up is clearly stated in a leaflet issued by them on the occasion of the formation of their party.

“THE SOCIALIST PARTY AND ‘THE BORDER QUESTION.' ”

  “This question has proved a fatal stumbling block to all the reformist parties. The capitalists (British and native) have found it convenient for the purpose of distracting the attentions of the worker from an ever more evil border—the class barrier between those ‘who own but do not produce' and those 'who produce but do not own.’ While the Southern capitalist—for the benefit of the Nationalist worker—hurls invective and abuse at 'British Imperialism’ he is not immune to an investment in the sweated labour of suffering natives in the British South African Gold Mines, or any other 'good' investment, British or otherwise. Nor is the ‘Ulster’ capitalist any more 'patriotic'; a dividend of 15 per cent. in Eire is preferable to one of 12 per cent. in ‘ Ulster.’
   "Nor is this the only thing they have in common: they (both Eire rancher and ‘Ulster' linen-lord) have a common interest in concealing from the workers the 'great money trick,’ and they would readily unite in face of a threat from Socialism. In a word, apart from any ostensible quarrel, they are class-brothers with a common interest: THE EXPLOITATION AND SUBJECTION OF THE WORKING CLASS, EVERYWHERE.
   "To talk of uniting on 'political questions' with any section of this exploiting class is, therefore, sheer nonsense. Why should we, for example, at the cost of alienating one section of our own class, make common front with reactionary Nationalist elements, the native petty-bourgeoisie, the landed gentry, the ex-imperialists and Fascists who’d prefer a dog, of any nationality, to an Irish Socialist? Why help to change a flag and leave the old enemy, capitalism, with its poverty and exploitation and its CLASS BORDER? Why should Socialists assist a clique that even now are eager to speculate with the blood of Irish workers in the markets of international catastrophe?
  ‘‘There is only one way to remove Borders— borders of class, race, or ideology—and that is through the medium of Socialism. The excuse of Irish Labour leaders—who are not of course opposed to class society —that they must 'clean up the national question’ before they attune the minds of the people to social (?) questions is so much political eyewash. No matter what means they employ, other than Socialism, they CANNOT solve 'the Irish question.’ Certainly they might banish the Customs huts and oust Stormont but the Border in the last resort is one of ideologies.
   "The 'national' State is an anachronism that will have no place in a Socialist world and we hold that the Irish workers' struggle should be in conjunction with the struggle of the workers internationally, against the international border of class and privilege, AGAINST CAPITALISM—FOR SOCIALISM.”

As must every genuine Socialist party, the S.P. of I. stands in opposition to all other political parties, whether they be Labour parties, Communist parties or the avowedly pro-capitalist type. We cannot do better than quote again from the aforementioned leaflet:

   “Recently in N. Ireland we have witnessed the shifting of Nationalist Labour support from the N.I. Labour Party to the Irish Labour Party, and the decision of the former body to accept the constitutional status quo. While the wranglings of these reformist parties are of little interest to Socialists and make not the slightest contribution on the part of either body to the cause of Socialism, they have served as a practical pointer to the CONSPICUOUS ABSENCE OF A GENUINE SOCIALIST PARTY IN THIS COUNTRY.”

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   “The reformist Labour parties fail miserably because of their basically unsound economic premise. Applying themselves to the treatment of EFFECTS, they leave untouched the CAUSE of poverty, insecurity and war: CAPITALISM.

   Capitalism has developed the economic resources of the world to that extent where Socialism, from the economic standpoint, is a practical possibility NOW. The only barrier is the lack of a Socialist majority, organised for the conquest of political power and the establishment of the Socialist system of society. Consequently we consider that the task of Socialists, and the Socialist Party, is to use all means at their disposal for the making of Socialists. We contend that it is impossible to change society through the medium of reforms, and that the change to Socialism must be effected at the base of society, which is the ownership of the means of production (at present in the hands of the capitalist class). To convert these means of living into the common property of society and to create a classless and wageless society where 'each will give according to his ability and take according to his needs ’ is the only true perspective of Socialists.”

We are pleased and encouraged to welcome the Socialist Party of Ireland to the group of internationalist parties that are striving for the establishment of Socialism. We urge all Irish workers who are interested, to contact the new party either at its Dublin or its Belfast address. These addresses will be found on the back page of this issue of the Socialist Standard. Workers who agree with the object and declaration of principles, also on the back page of this paper, whether they reside in Eire or Northern Ireland, should apply for membership to the nearest branch. Any such worker who lives at a distance from one of the established branches will be enrolled in what is termed "Central branch” which caters specially for those circumstances.

W. Waters