The Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

That's the the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist now published in its entirety on the blog. An excellent issue and, for something originally published in 1974, it really hasn't dated as much as I thought it might have when I originally started scanning it in. I also have a higher opinion of Harry Morrison as a writer after reading it. I'd previously thought he was a bit too dry a writer for my tastes. I was wrong.

Hopefully this issue will eventually find its way onto the World Socialist Movement website or the World Socialist Party of the United States website but, for now, here's a list of the contents of the issue with added links.

• "The source of capitalist (national) power . . ."
• Editorial: Once over lightly
• Introduction
• Foreward

1. The Magic Checkbook
2. Canned profits
3. Incentive and initiative
4. In the meantime
5. The Labors of Sisyphos
6. You must like it
7. Who needs enemies?
8. The Mathematics of Race
9. Smashing Capitalism
10. Religion
11. The Gall of Charity
12. What class are you?
13. How to spot a phoney socialist
14. International Socialism
15. What’s a revolutionary?
16. Brains and money
17. Does peace justify violence?
18. Dedication to wasted effort
19. The supermarket
20. Why “World” Socialists?
21. America’s “Radical” Presidents
22. Women’s Liberation
23. Are we “Commies”?
24. Urban renewal
25. Are we Utopians?
26. The Provocateur
27. Impeach Capitalism
28. Shelley
29. Christmas
30. Human Nature and Behavior
31. Words, handle with care
32. A World Without Money
33. Is food produced to eat?
34. Togetherness
35. To market, to market
36. The profits of addiction
37. Who’s on welfare?
38. The blind spot

• Supplement: The object and declaration of principles 

Supplement: The object and declaration of principles (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Included in every copy of The Western Socialist and, indeed on most literature published by the Companion Parties of Socialism is our Object and our Declaration of Principles. It is our studied conviction that, in its entirety, the statement is a scientific generalization of the goal we are organized to attain; the basic reasons why such a goal is of the greatest urgency; and how a socialist working class should go about the business of bringing the goal to fruition. It is an inter-related statement and no single Clause is intended to be analysed in a vacuum removed from the entire statement. With this constantly in mind, let us spell out what we mean, the image we draw, in our Object and Declaration of Principles

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 society as a whole.

A system of society alludes to the sum total of human relationships and is meant to distinguish us from those who seek to organize cooperative colonies, islands within a sea of capitalism. Socialism, as we understand it, is not a colony, not a kibbutz. but a system of society in the sense that capitalism, feudalism, and chattel slavery must all be characterized as systems of society.

The term common ownership should not be confused with such phenomena as state ownership, or "public” ownership, terms used under capitalism to designate a more direct ownership of certain industries by the capitalist class as a whole. Common ownership implies the absence of ownership and we specify that this common ownership is to apply to the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. We do not speak here of one’s personal belongings as some not too discerning opponents of our case delight in inferring. Democratic control should speak for itself but the point must be made, nevertheless, that In a society wherein the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution are commonly owned it is difficult to conceive of control other than democratic.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 1

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

In the bulk of the world today, it is self evident that a tiny minority of the population owns the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution, either directly or through ownership in stocks and bonds. Even the sidewalks and public buildings are actually owned by those few members of the population who own the bulk of municipal and government bonds. In the case of sidewalks, and in the Instance of access to public buildings, etc., by the general population, it would be impossible to restrict usage to those who pay a fee. The working class, the slaves of modern times, must not be hampered in their comings and goings as were chattel slaves and serfs in former times. Nevertheless, the majority of the population today remain slaves, chained to a class, rather than to an individual. The lack of ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution compels the working class to work for those who do own.

The process in those countries that designate themselves Communist or Socialist is not significantly different. A minority of the population, through ownership of government bonds or in some cases by extra - legal means, owns and controls the means by which all must live, compelling the majority to seek employment at wages or salaries.

The point is also made that the working class is the one class essential to production and distribution. This point will reappear.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 2

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

Explicit In this Clause are facts of life that are hotly denied by all defenders of capitalism. Not alone the fact that strikes and lockouts are but manifestations of a struggle between economic classes, but also the fact that the capitalist class is non-essential to production, is parasitical; and, finally, the fact that the working class does not participate in ownership despite the fact it is responsible for all of production.

Yet despite the rationalizations of the Labor Union brass; despite the Henry Fords and other capitalists who draw huge salaries as "essential management"; In spite of the diffusion of stock, even among sections of the working class, the statement is correct. Labor Unions, although essentially working class organizations, must operate within the framework of the wages system; must cooperate and compromise with the managers of Capital; must support the lie of a common interest between employers and workers. It is useless to cry "traitor” and "sell-out" at Labor leaders. It is the nature of capitalism that they operate as they do.

On the other hand, capitalists who act as managers do so out of individual desire, not because they are necessary. The Institutions of higher learning have long ago instituted departments for the development of managerial brains and the capitalists who prefer to go to the office could hire their replacements with little difficulty. The entire capitalist class could settle on the Moon with no detrimental effects to their industries.

Nor does the possession of stocks to the extent enjoyed by average working people place them in the capitalist class. This is a delusion . . let them attempt to live on the Interest of their shares!

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 3 

That this antagonism can b« abolished only by 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.

The majority may still quarrel with our assumption that the working class will eventually take such action. They can hardly quarrel with the point that class antagonisms cannot exist where economic classes do not exist. As for the instrument which will enable the whole people to exercise democratic control of the common property of society, such instrument already exists. Intrinsically, there is nothing wrong with institutions where representatives assemble to parley (parliaments, congresses, diets, or even so-called soviets). What is wrong about them today, is that such congresses are controlled by the capitalist class. Remove class society and the assemblies will function in the interest of the whole people. Socialists are not state "smashers!" Socialists advocate transforming the state from a government of rule over people by a master class into an administration of things in the interest of all mankind.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 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.

Capitalism has narrowed the class struggle to the point at which there are left but two contending classes. It is obvious that once the working class has taken political control from the capitalists there remains no class beneath it to exploit. The very act of stripping the capitalists from control of the state brings with it the end of class society and the resultant emancipation of all mankind.

Scientific socialists do not subscribe to the myth of “race.” The fact that the word 'race" exists does not prove that a non-verbal entity corresponding to the word exists. There are only human beings and they are a single species. There are ethnic and other arbitrary divisions; but there are no races. We of the World Socialist Party use the term “race,” as we do in our Declaration of Principles, in a classificatory sense.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 5

That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

There is no minority section of the population, no educated leadership, no vanguard composed of professional revolutionaries from the ranks of the intelligentsia (as Lenin and the Bolsheviks have advocated in this century), that can lead the working class to socialism. Social revolutions are made by those whose immediate interest it is to abolish existing relationships. The concept of leadership (or “correct” leadership) then, is not only unnecessary to a revolutionary working class but harmful to its interests. Leaders, in fact, can never lead masses where they do not want to go. They must advocate policies and action favorable to the followers, which makes of the leaders, followers themselves. When the working class understands and desires socialism it will appoint and elect representatives, not leaders, to do its bidding.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 6

That as the machinery of governments, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve 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. In order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and overthrow of plutocratic privilege.

There is a type of radical thought that turns this proposition on its head. Anarchists, syndicalists, industrial unionists of IWW and also of DeLeonist sort, contend that capitalist power resides basically in industry rather than in control of the state. One is either admonished to ignore the state entirely while advocating general strikes, individual acts of terror, armed insurrection; or one advocates the organization of “socialist” industrial unions which would “back up” a socialist majority at the polls.

The problem here would be that the capitalists (in their vying sections) must be playing some sort of a game — an expensive game, indeed — with their political campaigns. Either that, or they are misled into believing that control of the state brings with it a control over Industry. And oddly, it is not due to lack of evidence in contemporary American history as to the function of the political state. There are many examples of orders from a state governor, or orders from the President of the United States, for the mobilization and use of National Guards, or U.S. Army units, or even of the conversion of the first into the second to thwart a recalcitrant state governor.

Yet, despite the palpable truth that armed forces, from city police to U.S. servicemen, move only at the command of those in control of the political seats of power, the confrontations by angry, self-styled revolutionists go on.

But how. then, should the working class organize to end capitalism? Naturally it must be on the political front but it must certainly be more than merely politically. And that is why our proposition has before the word "politically” the term “consciously.” This is the key. The working class must not leave the thinking to “wise” leaders, political messiahs, etc. They must know what they are doing. Once in control of the seats of power a victorious socialist working class can immediately declare the end of class ownership and immediately convert the government over people into an administration over things. The capitalist class will cease to exist as a class category and without control of a state will be in no position to do anything important about it excepting to retire gracefully, or otherwise.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 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 be hostile to every other party.

The proposition points to the fact that political parties exist as the expression not alone of class interests but also of the interests of different sections of the capitalist class. It will have been noticed how eagerly capitalists will enlist the aid of workers, even the more militant type of radical workers, when their particular interests are involved. Capitalists who have their investments in retail merchandising, for example, will unite with leftists in a struggle against high rents. There are, after all, only so many dollars of wages and salaries to go around and why should the landlords get more of it? Landlords, on the other hand, are quick to sympathise with a resistance against high prices in supernarkets, department stores, etc. And each section within the capitalist class tries always to shift the burden of taxation onto the shoulders of the other sections, and goes all out to convince the workers that this is their fight, too.

There cannot be more than one socialist party in one country because there is but one reason for the existence of a socialist party: to get rid of capitalism and right away. It follows then that the socialist party “must be hostile to every other party."

Should another party appear on the scene with the same views as the World Socialist Party, steps would be taken for consolidation. We are not in competition with others for the establishment of a classless society.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER 8

THE COMPANION PARTIES OF SOCIALISM, therefore, enter the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labor or avowedly capitalist, and call upon all members of the working class of those countries to support these principles to the end that a termination may be brought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labor, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

There are different ways of “waging war.” Socialists wage war by building an arsenal of socialist information and using this arsenal to the fullest extent of their capabilities to counter the propaganda of the capitalist class. But this “war" must be directed not only against the avowedly capitalist political parties such as Republicans and Democrats, Progressive and Independent, or any other designation that may be adopted by those who advocate their particular theories of how capitalism should be operated. Our "war” is also directed against those organisations who falsely style themselves socialist or communist and who, at the same time, seek votes through the advocacy of reforms within capitalism or violence by unarmed workers against those who control the arms of the state.

We ask the support of the working class for the immediate abolition of the wages system and the immediate institution of world socialism and for no other reason.

AND A FINAL NOTE 

Those who read this article with care will notice on several occasions there are re-iterations of points made previously. This was not done inadvertently. The entire statement is designed, as we have said above, to tie together. We would disagree, then, that one can accept some points and reject others. The statement stands, in its entirety, on sturdy feet and on solid ground.

The blind spot (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

There Is a blind spot in thinking, under capitalism, that affects the most brilliant minds in almost every field, a blind spot having to do with the basics of commodities. Let us illustrate our point by looking at the question of food, of feeding the hungry populations of the world.

Recently, a Nobel Prize was awarded an expert in the science of wheat growing. This scientist, by his research, had so contributed to the knowledge of wheat that it now becomes possible to raise enormous crops of that basic food in areas in which it was hitherto impossible. Wonderful! But there is one serious problem, one flaw in the ointment that isn’t even considered and this, despite the many, many examples in the past of the same problem. Wheat is not produced principally with the idea of feeding hungry people. It is produced for sale on the market with view to profit. No profit, no wheat production. It is as simple as that.

Do you think there is anything untrue about this statement? Then let us remind you of miracle rice, for example. Only a year or so ago a new hybrid rice, several times more prolific than traditional rice, had been developed by the International Rice Research Institute and financed by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. Did this result in the masses of people in rice-consuming areas of the world now being able to get enough to eat? Of course not. What happened was that the vastly increased harvest flooded the rice market and large quantities of that food had to be destroyed because of inadequate storage and marketing facilities. As reported in The Western Socialist of July-August, 1969, a United States aid official in the Philippines remarked: “We never thought about marketing — we were concentrating on production.”

Or take the subject of oranges. We are told by nutrition scientists that the vitamins contained in oranges are vital in maintaining good health. Is there anybody who actually believes that every child in America is able to get all of the oranges they need? The potential for distribution of oranges In the United States — the richest country in the world — is far, far greater than orange production. Yet the orange growers of Florida, according to a recent news story, are searching for new markets for their commodity other than food because they are producing far more of the fruit than the food market can possibly absorb and this spells disaster for their prices. (One remembers those vast mountains of oranges that were plied up In California during the Hungry Thirties, doused with gasoline, and burned, while armed guards stood watch to keep needy people away.)

Whom shall we blame? The orange growers? The wheat growers? The rice growers? Ridiculous! Why should one blame them? Are they their poor millions of brothers’ and sisters' keepers? Or should we blame the Government? But the Government is the executive committee of the ruling class, the capitalist class, regardless of which political party forms the Government. This is capitalism. the market economy, the system of society in which all of the things people need to survive and to make life worth living are produced in order that surplus value may continue to be produced. To blame individual capitalists or the Government makes as little sense as handing out Nobel Awards to scientists who discover methods of producing food in abundance in an economy where food must not be produced in abundance.

The problem will be solved when the majority of us stop supporting political parties that promise to make capitalism operate uncapitalistically. For political parties and governments do not operate capitalism, capitalism operates them. And that is why the World Socialist Party of the United States does not want your support for anything short of an outright abolition of capitalism and the institution of a system based upon production for use by all who inhabit the earth. Examine your blind spot and investigate world socialism!

Who’s on welfare? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Everybody seems to be upset these days about Welfare. The percentage of Americans who live — somehow — on Welfare monies seems to be steadily mounting and a rising outcry is heard against the imagined throng of lazy rascals among them who simply do not want to work but who would rather live off the backs of the taxpayers.

Now there are a couple of interesting oddities about this and about other conclusions, by many, on the issue of Welfare. Take, for example. the case of the so-called lazy bums who do not work simply because they do not want to work. Nobody would argue that 100% of the unemployed are simply too lazy to work. There are always a few, it is acknowledged, who are honest and industrious, but who cannot find jobs. The worst diehard enemy of Welfare would admit to this.

But the strange thing about this assessment is the fact that immediately one wonders why those few honest and industrious among the Welfare recipients cannot find jobs. If 90% of the unemployed don’t work only because they do not want to work it should follow, logically, that there must be a great number of jobs that are available. Why, then, would the 10% find any difficulty in locating the anxious, would-be employers of their labor? Something funny about that argument, isn’t there?

What upsets socialists about Welfare, is something altogether different than the usual complaint. We do think it a shame, of course, that so many Americans must get by on the skimpy income allotted by Welfare while it is continually drilled into their heads that they live in the richest country in the world And yet this is not nearly so upsetting to us as is the knowledge that the real recipients of Welfare are not at all those who make up the official roles. The one in seven or one in six, or whatever the figure may be, who wait from month to month for the Welfare checks are working class people, even though they may be unemployed for reasons of physical disabilities or for any other reasons The real recipients of Welfare, and WHAT welfare they receive! are the members of the capitalist class. And here is no 1 in 7, or 1 in 6 figure, either. In this case the percentage is 1 in 1 or 100%. Let's look into this proposition.

There is only one way to create wealth. That is by applying physical and mental energy to raw materials. Now this sort of activity is the function of the working class, not the capitalists. The function of the capitalist class is to own the Industries and to employ those who don't own the means of wealth production to work in them. True, there are capitalists who work and who draw salaries. But they do not work for a living. They could, and, in fact, do, employ substitutes for themselves for less than their own salaries — substitutes who have degrees In Business from the finest schools In the world. The $50,000, or whatever, per year they draw from their business as the salary of management would hardly pay their liquor bills. Any capitalist worth talking about can — and frequently does — spend far more on one social gathering than a Welfare recipient could gross In an entire lifetime on Welfare.

So what, you may ask, is the point? The point is that if people do not work — and most of the able-bodied adult members of the capitalist class either do not work at all or occupy some managerial function as a hobby — then somebody must be supporting them. They don’t eat their money or their certificates of wealth-ownership. They are supported, and in style, by those who do all the work many of whom, from time to time, must hold out their hands for crumbs of tax money during periods of unemployment. Let’s straighten out our perspective. Let’s organize to abolish Welfare for unemployed workers and for the permanently unemployed capitalist class. Let’s unite for world socialism.

The profits of addiction (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

It is interesting to observe that there is a direct correlation between the problems that shake society and the economics of capitalism. Lurking In the background, compounding the ills of any serious problem is capitalism, itself. A good Illustration of this point is to be found in the drug problem.

The existence of drug addiction, to a noticeable degree, is not new. One novel aspect, however, is the fact that It has spread beyond the ghetto areas into the better neighborhoods and it is becoming prevalent among school children of teen and even pre-teen age. Another new fact is the widening adulteration of drugs to the point at which researchers are not certain whether the harmful effects are the result of the drugs or of the adulterants. Adulteration, of course, is directly connected with the drive for profits. To the degree one cuts down the percentage of actual drug — the expensive element — and adds other ingredients, to that extent one increases one's margin of profits which should be the goal of every aspiring capitalist. So what if the adulterants might be more dangerous, even, than the drug? That's not the concern of the entrepreneur and shouldn't be. under the jungle-type economics of capitalism

But an even more insidious—if such is possible—connection between drug addiction and capitalism is the fact that the addiction leads Inescapably to other crimes for the workers who are hooked. Unless one is wealthy, the kind of money needed to maintain a drug habit must come from shop-lifting, picking pockets, burglary, or what have you. As one N.Y. judge once was quoted: “In all my years on the bench I never had a wealthy addict before me." So it would seem that there might be benefit derived from research into the effects of drug addiction among members of the capitalist class, those who can afford to take their pot. their cocaine, their opium neat rather than contaminated by adulterants. Not that knowledge gained from such testing would make a noticeable difference in the quality of the drugs marketed. The drive for profits would remain paramount and just as there are high grade cigars and alcoholic beverages for those who can afford them, with cheap rot-gut for the poor, there will continue to be high quality drugs for the rich junkies and Junk for the poor ones.

There are those who argue that the problem of drug addiction would be solved were the traffic to become legal and controlled by the government. We would be free, they believe, from the nefarious practices of the underworld that now controls it. The drugs would be. at least, readily and legally available and their ingredients subject to government supervision. And we wonder at the seeming naivete of those who offer this argument. In the face of government-regulated patent medicines and prescription drugs (only about 20% of which totally live up to their claimed effectiveness, according to the Food and Drug Administration); government-regulated rot-gut-type liquor and wines; even government-regulated, but inferior, grades of food; we still get the argument from those who would save us from the evils of drugs while retaining the economic system that makes them an evil: let the government control drugs, they tell us, and all will be well.

The point is, to socialists, that the reasons for the desire to use drugs should be better researched. We maintain that there is something real rotten in the state of capitalism when millions of men, women, and children seek escape, or release, from their problems through the use of opiates. The question is by no means one of how to provide only high quality and safe drugs for all. The task is to organize for the abolition of an economic society that encourages—either directly or indirectly — the use of drugs. We urge you to investigate socialism.

To market, to market (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Have you ever been on a cattle ranch and watched thousands of tons of beef on the hoof stampeding in a single corral? You must have at least seen such a sight in the movie theatres or on your TV. Those animals are being prepared for the market and pretty soon they will be herded into railway cars to be transported to the slaughter houses.

Now what about that other sight we see at least five days a week in the mornings and evenings? Thousands of tons of labor-power on the hoof being herded into surface cars, subway trains, buses, automobiles and trucks, being transported to the labor market and home again for the rest and recuperation needed for the next day's toll.

There are differences, of course. In order to realise the profit in the beef, the steer must first be slaughtered. Humans, on the other hand, have no exchange value when they are dead (excepting to the funeral directors, embalmers, cemetary Industry, etc.) It is that value-creating labor power they generate, while alive, that is of importance to the capitalist class. They don’t want to own our bodies — as was the case In times of chattel slavery — they just want to buy our labor power for stipulated time periods And they also want our votes, on election days, to give approval to their system by electing those who wish to continue it. We are not slaves, they tell us, but free men and women.

Is this a gross exaggeration? It certainly is not and the very language of capitalism underscores its truth Take the word market, for example. Merriam Webster defines it as "a meeting together of people for the purpose of trade by private purchase and sale usually not by auction." In light of this, a labor market would be a place where labor-power (mental and physical) is bought and sold. The only reason the workers must bring their bodies to work is that there is no way — as of now — to ship the abilities without the carcasses. In other words, those who must work for a living in the industries of the capitalists are regarded mainly as the owners of a needed commodity and little more. If their particular abilities are marketable, they work at them. If not, they find something else, go on welfare, "mooch on the stem.” or starve.

As an Illustration: recently there was a feature story in the New York Times of the plight of newly-graduating school teachers. There are few jobs at the profession available today. The market for general school teachers became glutted, the story tells us, and the future of these recently-trained purveyors of capitalist- oriented education is grim. Most of those who do find jobs will be working as waitresses or in other unskilled fields far removed from their intended careers. So what happens now in the school teacher manufacturing industry? The same thing that happens in any other industry under the same circumstances. There will be a shrinkage for a number of years in the production of new school teachers, a falling-off of interest in going to such schools. Eventually, say about 1980 or ’85, a new shortage of teachers will have been created and there will be another rush of applicants to that discipline necessitating a new expansion of the industries — referred to as colleges — that manufacture school teachers.

They might just as well be so many sausages or legs of lamb, those bright-faces and starry-eyed youngsters who clutch those sheepskins so proudly. — Is there any sanity to such a system of society? The vast majority seem to think so or at least take it for granted as the only possible way of doing things. Socialists disagree and offer a whole new way of life, a sane world — World Socialism. Won't you join us in trying to bring It about?

Togetherness (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

There are undoubtedly a great many words in the English and other languages that are improperly used with frequency. As an example of such misusage take the little pronoun “we." How natural it seems to be for all of us to employ that word so as to carry with it the implication of togetherness. All 220 million Americans and, in fact, the entire population of this planet, are supposed to have a common interest; to be joint beneficiaries of all that is in and on the earth, and to share a joint responsibility for whatever goes wrong. And this, of course, is sheer poppycock.

Where is there an area — aside from the few remaining and remote tribal societies — where the land and all the means for producing and distributing wealth does not belong to a small minority of the population? Even in those lands where legal constitutions state, in print, that all property belongs to “the people", the real situation puts the lie to such language if "the people" is used synonymously with the entire population. And there is another example of a misused expression in that “the people" — whether in the so-called socialist and communist world, or in America and western civilisation — certainly does not imply everybody, or even a majority, but a relatively small minority who control and benefit from the means of wealth production.

Especially now. during this energy crisis, do words such as “we" become commonplace. “We" have got to cooperate to save gasoline, heat, and light. This is our America, they tell us, in expensive advertising and editorials in the press and over the airwaves. We're all in this together, is the message and the testament.

Well, there is no doubt that the great mass of the population is suffering great inconvenience. Long lines at the gas pumps, to a great extent made up of workers of all types who must have gasoline to perform their jobs, attest to this fact. Even sections of the capitalist class are being hurt badly as they watch others of their class brethren reap a golden harvest from the world-wide shortages. But despite this, there is a simple test one can make to determine the accuracy of the implied “togetherness". Ask your employers to Include you in the distribution of their profits at the end of their fiscal year. If General Motors, U.S. Steel. Standard Oil and Anaconda Copper; If the Rockefellers, DuPonts, Fords, Mellons and the rest of the capitalist class, are partners with the 200 million odd working class members of this society, this America of "ours," then why should they continue to exclude 90% of America’s population from actual and factual ownership of this great land?

The World Socialist movement has a proposition to make. Not to the capitalist class, because we have but so much time and do not wish to waste it. Our proposal is to our fellow workers, the 200-odd millions in this country. You can help put real meaning into that pronoun “we" and into that phrase ‘the people." The system of society known as capitalism is world-wide in scope, even including that part of the world mistakenly termed socialism or communism. To put an end to all of the problems that prevent 90% of the population from enjoying the fruits of production, a new social order is necessary. What is needed is a system based upon common ownership of and common access to all that is in and on the earth, by all mankind. To achieve this end, the working class of this and of all other nations must organize and unite for the sole purpose of ending world capitalism and introducing world socialism. It is our contention that the same section of the population that carries on all of production for an owning class can do the same thing for all mankind. But class society must first be abolished. Let us organize for this goal.

Is food produced to eat? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

So! You thought all along that food Is produced because mankind must eat That this is the one really important reason for existence of farms, food processing plants and supermarkets. Oh certainly you have heard it said, chiefly by those who disparage the profit motive, that food — like all goods and services in capitalist society — is produced mainly for sale and at a profit. But somehow this didn’t seem to be such an earth-shaking bit of information. You probably tucked the thought away, and went about the business of stretching your food dollars in the markets.

But suddenly you find your dollars shrinking almost from day to day. You stand at the meat counters and gaze, emotionally, at the price tags. You have a family of growing boys and girls who can put away quantities of that food, and you wonder how you can possibly put meat on the table more than once a week, and maybe not that frequently. Or maybe you are a pensioner on a modest fixed income, and you are painfully aware that your check is not designed to include very much of what you might have been used to eating in your more affluent days.

What is it all about’ Why can’t cattle, hogs and fowl be raised in sufficient quantity, as they once were, to make prices more reasonable? And you remind yourself of what you have read in the papers and heard on the newscasts. The growers and processors are either holding back, going out of business or threatening to do so. Why? Because feed grains, it seems, have become so expensive that those producers cannot continue to operate normally under present price freeze conditions. No profit, no food production, they tell us, and so they smother their baby chicks instead of raising them for the table, because it would cost them more to raise them than they could get in their market, and one cannot run a business on losses.

So! It is true then what socialists have been saying all along. The prime reason for producing food — or anything else under capitalism — is not to satisfy the needs of mankind but to sell at a profit. True enough, it is explained today, that there have been serious crop failures due to drought conditions not only in America but throughout much of the world. And there have been those big grain sales to Soviet Russia and Red China that have added to the shortages here. And these are behind those ridiculous prices in the supermarkets.

But then another nagging thought hits you. How about those times, and there were many of them over the years, when there were none of those problems, and when all sorts of grains and vegetables and fruit were grown for the market, and when great quantities of these vital necessities were dumped in the oceans, plowed under, or burned? There was such an abundance that the growers and processors could not get a price that made it profitable for them to sell the food. Oranges, mountains of them, in California in the Thirties, were burned. Potatoes In Idaho, thousands of bushels of them were dumped, even in recent times. Coffee in South America and fish in New England destroyed. Why? Because of Government price freeze policy? Of course not. There was no need for Government intervention then. The problem was glutted markets.

So the difficulties in the supermarkets today are not caused by drought conditions, previous crop failures, big business deals with the so-called Communist nations. It is not that it is impossible to produce enough feed grains or vegetables or fruit or meat. The problem is that the owning grower-capitalists must make a profit, and economic conditions are such that they are being squeezed by rival capitalists. Would it not make sense, then, to get to the source of the trouble, the capitalist mode of production, abolish it, and introduce a socialist society in which the things mankind needs to survive are produced only because mankind needs them? We think it does.

A World Without Money (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Time was, when the idea of a social system operating without a medium of exchange was held only by a relative handful of scientific socialists Today, one hears the concept kicked around a bit more on talk shows and by people who do not necessarily consider themselves revolutionary in the sense of the World Socialist concept of revolution. But one gets the impression that there is not too much understanding of the economics of the question even among many of those who favor a moneyless society. They do openly disagree with the popular notion that no social order could operate without money of some sort but they seem to believe that it is going to be a case of a government of one sort or another proclaiming the abolition of money.

In order to understand why such an act will be not only unnecessary, but impossible, it is all important to comprehend why a medium of exchange, money, is necessary within the present system. Production, under capitalism, is carried on primarily for the purpose of sale on a market with view to profit and, as a result, we have an exchange or a circulation of commodities. Now it stands to reason that if eggs, shoes, whisky, houses, automobiles and all the other commodities exchange on a market in certain proportions there has to be a medium for effecting the circulation. This medium must be, itself, a commodity and one that is universally acceptable as an equivalent of the values of all commodities. So we have the commodity gold acting as the universal equivalent behind the various nominal monies of the world. And unless some other commodity with the necessary properties and the universal acceptance of gold comes along, gold will continue to act as real money.

Besides acting as a medium of circulation, money must exist, then, as a means of payment and as a measure of the values of commodities. Much of this may even be learned in a college economics course.

But the system, today, in the whole world is one of production for sale on a market with view to profit whereas the system advocated by socialists is something quite different. In a socialist world there will be no production of commodities. Goods and services will be produced only for the purpose of satisfying the needs and wants of the population. Eggs, shoes, whiskey, houses, automobiles and whatever else is wanted by society will be produced only because these things are wanted and not to sell. There will be no buying and selling at all and in such a situation there could be no need for anything to act as money.

Two questions might immediately leap to mind. First: do socialists advocate a return to simple barter? and Secondly: when has a moneyless system ever existed, at least in recorded history. The answer to the first question is “No” and to the second. “Never!” But with a but.

Obviously, barter could not exist under socialism any more than could money exist. There is just no need to exchange goods. We produce and we consume and the only difference that would be really noticeable from what takes place today would be the absence of cash registers and private or state ownership of the means of production. Should production of a particular item be inadequate to satiety the needs of the population, production of the item would be increased. If more than enough, it would be decreased.

As for the point that money always existed throughout recorded history: Yes, but not for most of the population. In previous social systems most people never had occasion to require money. Production was mainly geared to the needs of a slave or serf population and their masters. Money appeared only among a minority of the population, in trade.

And NO! We do not advocate a return to slavery or serfdom. We urge the abolition of all slavery, the end of wage slavery, the establishment of world socialism — a system in which the need for money will vanish.

Words, handle with care (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Revolutionary socialism must be extremely careful about words. The only way one can convey thoughts is through a vocabulary and it is surprising how quickly the meaning of words change. We have dealt on this program with the word ‘revolutionary” and commented on its adulteration to the point at which the advocacy of political change within the framework of the present system of production makes one a revolutionist. Socialists insist that the vesting of ownership in the state is not socialism and the managers of state-owned industry are not socialist managers. Unless there is a change from production for sale to production for use with the total elimination of a market economy, there is no revolution. Let us examine some other terms commonly used by professed revolutionists.

“Establishment.” The fiery orator thunders his hatred of the establishment and his supporters give wild approval. “The establishment must be overthrown!” They raise their fists in the clenched salute. And what exactly do they have in mind? It seems they mean the existing managers — industrial or political — not the institution itself that vests ownership and political control in private or state hands. The word is not used by socialists because we prefer to be explicit. We are opposed to capitalism and to the ownership of the factories, mines, mills, workshops, land and all other means and instruments of wealth production and distribution by a capitalist class or a capitalist state.

But even here one cannot be too careful because a majority of the world’s population today live in areas where capitalism is declared to have been abolished. Even though nobody pretends that production in those countries is intended for any other purpose than sale on a market with view to profit, it is still popularly believed to be something other than capitalism. So when we declare ourselves to be in favor of the abolition of capitalism we are generally greeted with something like: “Oh you are in favor of the Russian, or the Chinese system, or maybe the Scandinavian or the systems in many of the Arab nations, or perhaps even Israel!”

Nor does it help all that much when we use the term “world socialism” or “scientific socialism” for we find that both terms are embraced by almost all of the so-called socialist world from the USSR to Ghana and Syria.

But there are some terms that socialists can still use that do separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Socialists are in favor of the forthright abolition of the wages system; the prices, money, profit system, the system of buying and selling, the market economy. What about the USSR, China, Scandinavia, Ghana, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Cuba and so forth. Have they abolished the wages system and production of goods and services for sale on a market? Do they even advocate, in their professedly socialist propaganda, such action? If so we haven’t heard about it and we find their commodities from raw materials to finished goods of all types for sale in America as U.S. commodities are finding their way into the so-called socialist world. And who is there today who does not know that workers in those countries are paid wages and salaries as here, even if lower?

But, they assure us, they are in the early stages of socialism and will attain the society of which we of the World Socialist Party speak later. To which we must answer: “rubbish” The very concepts that prevail in the so-called socialist world are anti-socialist and indicative of a growing capitalism. Nationalism and patriotism. thrift, obedience to political authority, are all hallmarks of capitalism and the antithesis of socialist thought. Socialism can only mean one world where all mankind has free access to all of its needs. Speak up, Mr Brezhnev, Mr. Mao. Mr. Castro, Madam Meir and the rest of you so-called heads of socialism. Is that what you advocate? We can’t hear you.

Human Nature and Behavior (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

"Socialism would be wonderful but it won't work. It's against human nature and you can’t change human nature." How many times have we heard that judgment, usually delivered in a tone of finality. And how many more times will we hear it in the future! It seems almost to be ingrained in the thinking of the average individual, as though he was born with the thought. It is universally accepted in all countries and among all age groups and educational classifications. And yet it is so wrong that one can't help but be amazed. Wrong, that is, if by human nature we mean human behavior. And this is what is generally meant because the nature of man to be human hasn't been subjected to change and is not at all what socialists are talking about.

But human behavior certainly is possible to change and there are many examples around the world today and in the history of civilization of changing human behavior. In fact, there is a branch of psychology that is based upon the knowledge that human behavior can be changed. Practically every university worthy of the name, today, offers courses in behavioral psychology.

However, this is not our field, nor are we ready to embrace this science as an ally of socialism other than to note that behavioral scientists certainly agree that human behavior is changeable. The science of socialism is based on the historical fact that social systems, just as plants and animals, have gone through a process of evolution. Just as man was not always man, nor a rose always a rose, the capitalist system of society was not always part of the scene. Capitalism evolved out of feudalism; feudalism and chattel slavery evolved out of primitive tribal societies when they reached a point in their development that made these higher forms of society possible.

The behavior of serfs and peasants in pre-capitalist society was certainly different from the behavior of wage and salaried workers in our times. Serfs and peasants, like chattel slaves, rarely if ever handled money so the variety of behavior common to people who must have money in order to exist could not have been present among most of the population. The ideology of nationalism was not present among them because nations—in the sense we know today—did not exist. Armies in those times were composed of mercenaries — a separate class — and so it certainly could not be said of peasants, serfs and chattel slaves that they were inherently warlike as so many believe workers of our times to be.

In fact, there are all sorts of evidences In more recent history, particularly in the history of American capitalism, of changing human behavior. Americans are, generally, immigrants from countries all over the world. How long does it take them to change much of their old country behavior patterns? It may seem in many cases that they cling to the old customs but all it takes is a trip back to the homeland after having been through the mill of American-style capitalism a few years to bring into sharp focus their changed behavior. The manner of life dictated by American capitalism has brought about many changes in their way of thinking. And despite their traditional hatreds, the melting pot of developed capitalism has a tendency of mellowing and breaking down hostility.

Socialists maintain that capitalism will, ultimately, compel those who toil for wages or salaries, who produce all but possess little more than their ability to produce, to lay aside the differences that capitalist propaganda still seeks to promote. The working class of the entire world will be forced by the very nature of capitalism to unite in the interests of a higher form of social order — socialism. And a new generation, born under socialist freedom, will look back in amazement at the behavior of their fathers and grandfathers.

Christmas (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

There are several, differing ways of looking at Christmas. The pious Christian regards It as a religious festival, the commemoration of the supposed birth of the S-O-N as opposed to the pagan Egyptian's celebration of the birth (or re-birth) of the S-U-N. The kids all look forward to toys and other presents (if they are young enough) from Santa while the charities and the press have a field day raising funds to buy gifts for the more poverty-stricken victims of capitalism.

The joy in this joyous occasion, in the case of the merchants and money-lenders is directly in proportion to their take from the shoppers and borrowers. And millions of struggling wage slaves, bracing themselves for further escalation of their debt levels, manage somehow to enjoy the festivities, postponing their added worries until December 26th.

The socialist observes this annual scene with a jaundiced eye. Not that socialists are opposed to festivals as such. The custom of celebrating the changing seasons long predates Christianity and it is at least conceivable that festivals will be enjoyed when religions of all sorts have become a remembered historical episode in man's development. So our emotions at this time can best be termed "mixed.”

For leaving aside the religious and the commercial significance of Christmas there is a certain something in the air at this time that underscores the true nature of mankind. The propagandists of capitalism would have us believe that we are, intrinsically, competitive and aggressive toward one another, that a society that can (we claim) best be described as cannibalistic, such as capitalism, is a natural way of life. We are supposed to believe that it is normal for big fish to eat little fish in the world of man as well as the world of fish. There is supposed to be nothing bad about a society that compels working people to compete among themselves for the opportunity to work, to support themselves and families, that divides them on the basis of skin pigmentation or ethnic background or religion.

But despite all of the pressures, including the added pressures of a capitalist Christmas, the gregarious, cooperative, nature of man does bob to the surface, if only briefly, during this period as it does on other equally brief occasions throughout the year. True, the feeling to which we allude is largely debased by the spirit of charity for charity debases the giver at least as much as it does the receiver. Charity is and must be accompanied by the attitude that it is normal and right that there should be those who are in a position to give and those who must be compelled to receive. It is a non-recognition of the fact that divisions such as this exist only because of the economic organization under which we live and that such organization has long outlived its usefulness. Charity fosters passiveness and reaction rather than a spirit of genuine revolution, the urge to organize for the abolition of the social system that degrades humanity.

What, then, would be the nature of a festival in December in a socialist world? We can, of course, only speculate on the positive aspects at this time. It is much easier to predict what will not exist. For one thing, any religious significance will have vanished. It will be no longer necessary for society to support institutions that serve no useful function and with the knowledge of man's dominion over economic forces the urge to maintain religions will undoubtedly disappear. There is nothing, certainly, instinctive in man that makes him believe in a supernatural. Religion must be learned —Secondly, the custom of exchanging gifts, if indeed it will exist, will not be based to any extent on the proddings of an economic class that benefits from such an exchange. For the rest, we are content to leave it to a socialist future.

P. B. Shelley (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

`'Tis to work and have such pay,  

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants' use to dwell,

`'Tis to hunger for such diet

As the rich man in his riot

Casts to the fat dogs that lie

Surfeiting beneath his eye.

`Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number--

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you

Ye are many  they are few.

#    #    #    # 

Hasten on that glorious day

When man on man no more shall prey,

When prophets, priests and kings

Shall be numbered with forgotten things.

 P. B. Shelley

Impeach Capitalism (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

All over America and, indeed, throughout much of the world the question is being bruited about: To Impeach or not to Impeach, referring — of course — to President Nixon. If one were to measure importance by the quantity of coverage by the mass media there would be no doubt that the scandals generally listed under the heading Watergate are more important than any other problem existing today. Even, apparently, more of consequence than the Mideast War and certainly far more newsworthy than the Energy Crisis or the worsening economic conditions of those who depend upon wages and salaries for a living. And so, on the one hand, there are the politicians and pundits and leaders of Organized Labor who are mounting a clamor for Congress to impeach and try the President for high crimes and misdemeanors with a view to ousting him (unless he bows to the outcry and resigns), while, on the other, are the loud and sometimes strident voices of Mr. Nixon’s defenders, urging him to hang in there.

The Marxists of the World Socialist Party regard this sound and fury as much ado about nothing, insofar as working class interests are concerned We maintain that the high crimes and misdemeanors that Mr. Nixon might well be guilty of are crimes against his fellow capitalists. Given the premise that the arrangement of dividing society into economic classes is correct and fitting — a premise socialists do not hold — any added unpleasantness suffered by the working class is, generally incidental. Whether Mr. Nixon or any other Individual — regardless of political persuasion — occupies the White House and tends to the affairs of U. S. capitalism is six of one and half a dozen of the other. A glance at current and past history should make it apparent that the problems and miseries of most of us are due to something much more fundamental than any high crimes and misdemeanors of any President or government, present or past.

Even the Republican attempts to wipe out Constitutional freedoms are not that all-important to the working class as an Issue to get excited about The freedoms of the Bill of Rights were not designed to safeguard the rights of the masses of the poor, to begin with. The capitalist class, as a whole, will undoubtedly continue to defend whatever liberties are consistent with and beneficial to their system from the depredations of any section of the population. The task of the socialists is to use such freedoms to the fullest extent possible in order to spread the message of genuine freedom, world socialism. Which is why we insist that the important job ahead is not the impeachment of Nixon but the impeachment and ousting of capitalism.

Now how does one go about working towards such a goal? It should be obvious by now, even though it doesn't seem to be, that the one essential need today is an awareness on the part of millions of working people that production for sale with view to profit is the root cause of problems such as poverty, war, chicanery and all high crimes and misdemeanors by elected officials. The only task that makes sense for socialists is to systematically attempt to raise the level of political understanding of the working class in whatever way and to whatever extent is possible. For, as we insist, there can be no impeachment and ousting of capitalism without millions and millions of working people who understand the basics of and are determined to institute socialism. This is the first and most important task of the socialist movement.

With an increasing political awareness and understanding will come a strong socialist political movement, made up of the overwhelming majority of the population, that will ultimately capture control of all central organs of political power — city, state and national — utilizing the only means possible, the ballot. Only when this has been done will capitalism be impeached and ousted. There are no short cuts to socialism.

The Provocateur (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist 

Away back in those Hungry Thirties there was a sub-committee of the United States Senate, headed by Senator Robert La Follette, that investigated what was popularly known as the labor spy racket. A great deal of evidence was gathered that proved conclusively the employment by industries in the United States of provocateurs to infiltrate labor unions for the purpose of stirring up policies that could lead to violence during proposed strike actions. The motive of some of these was, of course, the smashing of the fast-growing labor union movement through use of weapons of violence against striking workers; and industries such as steel, auto and rubber had stockpiled veritable arsenals of weaponry within their gates. The La Follette Committee also disclosed the fact that other industries, those that manufactured tear gas. barbed-wire fences and so forth, had their agents, too, hard at work to instigate the conditions that would lead to more sales of their commodities.

More recently, in the Fifties, there was a burst of activity on the part of the F.B.I. In the business of infiltrating radical political parties, such as the Communist Party, with its agents. It has been said that there were, at one time, at least as many F.B.I. agents as genuine members within the ranks of that organisation and if such an estimate was made in jest it must be remembered that many a true word is spoken in jest.

In fact, the interested researcher can find—with little effort—evidence of the employment of such tactics by law enforcement agencies from the federal level down to city police departments all through the years of American democracy. And one would have to be naive, indeed, to believe that the planting of agents provocateur by the capitalist state does not still exist, even more highly developed than ever before: right here in this land of liberty.

But we are trying to make an important point. Any organization that can make it possible for police spies to influence its policies is an organization that ought to be shunned by working people. When a political group, for example, advocates the abolition of capitalism; states that it would prefer that the socialist revolution be consummated peacefully; but argues that all evidence points to the so-called “fact" that the capitalists would not permit such an event to happen and that, therefore. the working class must prepare itself to meet capitalist violence with their own; such a group lays itself open for infiltration by police spies. And such a group should be avoided by workers as they would avoid the plague.

For it should be apparent that there are no weapons possible of accumulation by working people that cannot be outmatched a thousand fold by the capitalist class. And it should also be apparent, even from recent history, that the capitalists will not squirm at laying waste whole sections of cities—or whole cities—if necessary, when threatened by violent overthrow by rivals of whatever persuasion. If you think that sort of thing couldn’t happen in America, then think again!

The World Socialist Party is not afraid of infiltration by police spies. Our principles, around which we are organized, make such an eventuality implausible, if not impossible. The provocateur would be wasting his time. We are, and we have always been since our beginnings, organized on a basis of above-ground legality We address ourselves to fellow-workers, urging them to unite on the political field in order that a majority of socialists may be elected to control the central organs of power. Only in this way can a situation be brought about wherein the armed forces of the nation, the states, and the municipalities cannot be used against us, while a majority introduce a brand new way of life. A socialist majority has no need for violence. Let us undermine capitalism by spreading socialist information and using the legal machinery of capitalism, itself. If you think such a policy is a utopian dream, take another look at the scene and think again!

Are we Utopians? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

A common response to the case of the World Socialist Movement is the word utopian! It is uttered with a note of finality as though it needs no elaboration. "You are utopian !” they tell us, and whether they are one-hundred percent defenders of what is called the American way of life or blood-and-thunder type, self-styled, revolutionists they regard us with an expression of pity and usually change the subject. The anti-establishment radical and the defender of the status quo are, on this subject, allies because they are both convinced that our goal of a world without nations, without buying and selling, without wage labor and capital — employers and employees — is an impossible dream in our lifetime, the lifetimes of our children, grandchildren and possibly our great and ever-so-great grandchildren. It is utopian, they tell us. to feel otherwise.

Well, we are not so certain that our detractors of either variety know quite what they are talking about, that they really understand the meaning of the term utopian as applied to the advocates of world socialism. For the word does have a definite meaning and utopianism did have a definite role to play at an earlier period in the development of capitalism. In fact, it still has at least a debatable reason for existence in lowly-developed areas of the capitalist world. We refer to the organisation of colonies such as New Harmony, Brook Farm, Oneida, and a host of others in early America; to the kibbutzim of modern, but industrially weak Israel; to all of the attempts in the past and the present here, there and everywhere to build islands of peaceful cooperation in a violent sea of capitalism. This is utopianism, and whether it is the idealist who seeks to get away from it all by retiring to a kibbutz or even to a hippie community, or the so-called socialists and communists who believe that socialism — even communism, as they like to put it — can be built within the borders of a nation it is they, not us. who are the utopians.

There will be no peace for them as long as they exist in a capitalist world and to blame this on people of ill-will, on reactionaries, on Republicans or Democrats or liberals or conservatives is to indulge in more escapism from reality, in more utopianism. The pressures of capitalist economics and the pressures of the capitalist state are all around and will allow no peace, no escape, no utopianism. Do we have to dwell on this point?

We are not utopians. We are hard-headed, practical, scientific socialists. We know that capitalism and the suffering for most of the population that goes with it cannot be abolished simply by changing the organization from private ownership to state ownership. Nor can capitalism be improved for most of the population by passing reform legislation in congress or parliament or whatever it is called. Nor does It make sense to retire to some backwoods area where one can live a desperate, hand-to-mouth existence while one is free to toll from sunup to sundown on infertile soil even if the capitalist state were to maintain a complete hands-off attitude, an unlikely probability.

This is not our concept of freedom. Friends! Fellow-workers! There is a world of potential plenty for everybody who inhabit the earth. And it is there for the taking. How do we take it? Not by idle, utopian dreaming. Not by the encouragement of nations whether designated capitalist, communist, or anything else. The way to abolish poverty, war, hatreds based upon skin color and ethnic background is to organize on the political field to abolish nations, to abolish buying and selling, to abolish wage labor and capital, to introduce a world society based upon production for use, not for sale. Anything short of this goal is utopian, will not work. Do you really need more evidence than the history of the last fifty years? Let’s organize now, not for more utopianism but for world socialism.

Urban renewal (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

A fellow was telling me about an interesting conversation he heard the other day between a college boy and girl, on the one hand, and a gray-haired man, on the other. Seems that the youngsters were passing out handbills at a busy corner in a slummy neighborhood when the older one happened along. My friend was waiting for a bus, which was late, as usual, and heard the whole business.

The kids were wearing big buttons that screamed: “We shall not be moved!” and it was this that caught the old guy’s attention. “What’s this all about?” he wanted to know. "I used to sing that one on the picket line 30 years ago. ‘We shall not, we shall not be moved . . . Just like the cop who’s standing on the corner, we shall not be moved!’ But you're not striking. What’s the story?”

They laughed. “No. We know what you mean but this is different. We’re trying to stop Urban Renewal. They’re tearing down too many houses in this neighborhood and too many people are being forced to move out of it."

“Well,” says the old fellow, "what’s wrong with that? I’ve known this area for a long time and it's a pretty bad neighborhood to live In. Seems to me they should be glad to get out of it. Why look at that drug store over there. They’ve got a big display of roach powder and rat poison in the window, and I'll bet they sell plenty of the stuff. Look at all the old houses that are ready to fall down. And the crummy drinking joints, and broken glass, and win os Imagine bringing up kids in this sort of scene? And you mean you want to save it?” He looked them up and down.

But they weren't buying that argument. "Listen,” they told him. "We understand that as well as you do. But these people can't afford to live in other districts. They want to stay here but the Establishment is tearing down the low-cost houses and putting up expensive ones. These poor people have to live some place."

Well, my friend says, the old guy told them they were wasting their time. What they ought to be doing was working for the immediate end of the system that creates slums. "If you get rid of capitalism," he told them, "houses will be built because people have to live in houses, not to make money for landlords and lumber merchants. Food will be produced because people have to eat, not because owners have to make a profit. Clothing will be made because we have to wear clothing, not because manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers have to do business. Instead of a system where moneyed interests must find places to Invest, like Urban Renewal, we'll have a system where goods, buildings, services, and everything will be produced only to satisfy the needs and wants of everybody. We won’t need money because we'll produce only to take. You know what I mean — production for use, not sale. And we won’t have slums because nobody wants slums, anymore than they want cheap, shoddy goods.”

They listened to him politely. They were nice, well-mannered kids. But they told him, when they could get a word in edgewise, that his idea was wonderful but rather hopeless. After all, they told him, this is something we can hope to get somewhere with right now, not in the distant future.

Well, just then the bus came along and the old guy got on it so the debate was over. My friend told me, "You know,” he said, "those socialists are not as crazy as they might sound. Do you know how many years that neighborhood has been a slum? Seems that all the good intentions of all the reformers have been of little use. And in spite of the efforts these people put into their crusade to save the slums for the poor workers, the tearing down goes on. Seems to me that the hopelessness argument of theirs is all wet. It's they, not the socialists who are carrying on a hopeless struggle because even if they win they lose. What could be more hopeless than preserving poverty for the poor? I think I’m going to look into that socialism.

Are we “Commies”? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Whenever a socialist begins to present his case, especially if it is with somebody who has not been exposed to the case for scientific socialism, he is almost invariably greeted by at least one of his audience, with the epithet: "Commie!” For there are some who have the knack of listening without following what is being said They can listen to the champions of the Soviet Union or of Cuba and yet fail to see the basic similarity between what these people advocate and what we already have in America. They can also listen for a few minutes. at least, to a scientific socialist and somehow manage to confuse what he is saying with what they thought they heard from the lips of the so-called Communists or whatever they might call themselves.

So let us see if we can put to rest that fallacy, at least for those who will pay attention for a mere four minutes or so to what we are saying.

Let us remind you of some happenings you should certainly have known of if you were around at the time. If you were too young during the days of WW II, or not yet born, there are books and articles dealing with the cooperation and friendship between the bolshevik-style Communists on the one hand, and the professed champions of "democratic" capitalism on the other, readily available.

When the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain were wining, dining, and dealing with Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin, the World Socialist Party and its Companion Parties in other countries were openly opposing the war as a carnage not worth the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood. When the secret police of the Soviet Union and the secret police of the United States (the forerunner of the present CIA) were acting in unison, we were speaking out and writing articles attacking the War. When widely-known political leaders such as Wendell Willkie and widely heralded labor-haters such as Eddie Rickenbacker, the aviator hero, were extolling the virtues of the Soviet Union and of kindly old "Uncle" Joe Stalin — both through written and spoken word — we of the World Socialist Party were denouncing the entire Bolshevik Movement as a menace to working-class interests.

When the Communist Party was recruiting for the war effort, selling Victory Bonds, waving the flag and singing the national anthem of America, as well as that of Russia, we of the World Socialist Party were speaking from our rostrum on Boston Common as our comrades in England spoke in Hyde Park; continuing to urge our fellow workers to organize for the abolition of capitalism everywhere — the basic cause of war.

We were not called "Commies” in those days. It was obvious we were not "Commies” because we were calling for world socialism, not defending Western and Russian capitalism.

We did have our troubles, though, and it wasn’t easy to carry on. The Canadian Government went so far as banning our journal, The Western Socialist, within its borders, for a time, because of our articles that exposed the war for what it was, a fight for supremacy between and among rival capitalist nations. We were harassed, but we continued to speak and to publish.

No. We are not Communists in the popularly accepted meaning of that much-maligned word. We do not support or sympathize with Russian or Chinese or Cuban or any other state capitalism We are communists, though, In the classical meaning of that word. We are scientific socialists who advocate the complete and immediate abolition of the wages, prices, profits, money system in all its forms, everywhere and the immediate introduction of a system of production for use. We urge you to investigate our case.