Education in Socialism

 

Education is an integral part of any social system. Feudal society required little of the peasants by way of education. The Industrial Revolution demanded more - workers who could make, tend and repair machines, and some who could keep records and books. In the 20th century the process was continued - mass education was fashioned into an increasingly refined training and selection mechanism for the labour force.

There is a conventional mythology surrounding the noble ideals of education. Schools are said to be places where young minds are nurtured, where boys and girls are prepared to become responsible citizens. In the present society the main aim of education is to provide the knowledge and skills base necessary for employment in capitalism. Dominated by commodity relationships and values, education both reflects and contributes to those relationships and values. Under capitalism most people don’t get the chance to develop their capacities.

The inherent inequality between teacher and pupil has led some critics to question the value of "schooling". The concern has been that hierarchical and autocratic teacher-pupil relationships concentrate power in the hands of teachers and lead children to acquire attitudes of docility and submission to authority. A critique of authoritarian schooling as simply preparation for employment led to a movement for "de-schooling"

So, what would education be like in a socialist society? A detailed description obviously cannot be given, however, it is very clear that, in complete contrast to capitalism, socialism will put human need first. The welfare and needs of people, both as individuals and as a community will be treated as a priority. The importance of developing to the full, the mental, physical and social abilities and talents of everyone, as individuals, will undoubtedly be recognised. Most significantly, education will inevitably be considered a lifelong process and certainly not something to be compartmentalised into time slots, like happens under the present system. As a result of this, people will be able to lead far more satisfying lives than could ever be even remotely achieved under capitalism. This satisfaction would derive from the contributions to the overall material, intellectual social and cultural wealth of society which people would be able to make and, of course, from the fact that, as individuals, they would be able to enjoy the fruits of the common store. Learning is better stimulated through a holistic and experiential approach and would be available on demand at all life stages. From the moment a baby emerges from the womb (perhaps, even before that) it begins the process of learning. "Playing" is a part of that process. We cannot visualise a socialist society where children are regimented into education, conveyor-belt style. Basic schooling would take a huge shift away from the narrow confines of a rigid, test-based curriculum. Endless possibilities would be available from an early age to stimulate children. No financial budget means more "educators, facilitators, trainers, coaches, mentors" etc. to guide young and old through a much wider educational experience. Universal education can only raise levels in all areas important to the well-being of society whether knowledge, awareness, tolerance, capabilities, wider appreciation of self and others, resulting in wealth being measured in human terms. It will take time for world socialist education to develop its own character, and there is no reason to suppose that it will take the same form for everyone everywhere.

A quotation from the Communist Manifesto sums up the situation well:
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”
Here, the term “free development” can be taken to include education. In socialist society, there would be no financial constraints since the monetary system will have been abolished and production will be carried out solely for human need. The stresses and strains of cutbacks and needless austerity measures will finally have been abolished forever and at last, humanity will be able to move forward, considerably through genuine and effective education, towards real progress, both as individuals and as a community. The knowledge and skills needed to run a society which inherits the best from the past and rejects the worst will be circulated and developed among adults, and the ability to think creatively and critically transmitted from generation to generation. There will surely be different approaches to — even controversies about that task.

Socialism Solving the Housing Problem

 

Housing is one problem of capitalism which has been a constant source of difficulty and is part and parcel of working class life. Few members of our class escape some aspect of housing trouble. Whether it is the complete crisis of homelessness, or the stress involved in keeping our homes through paying rent or repaying a loan. Most members of our class live in relative poor housing, some of which is within the bounds of adequacy, while the rest reflects the worst in living conditions. Our quality of housing acts as good guide to the degree of suffering associated with the many other problems inherent in our class position such as bad health, poor nutrition and inadequate education. We can therefore accept that the problem of housing reflects the problems of capitalism. When socialism is established it will be necessary to set up councils at local, regional and global levels for the administration of social affairs in every aspect of productive activity. Also there will have to be councils whose functions will be to co-ordinate the work of the various specific councils. The majority of the people in a local area will make decisions affecting that area specifically, the people in a certain region will make decisions for that region and everyone will make global decisions. This will mean that everyone must have access to vast amounts of knowledge, concerning what each area produces, where it is stored, how what is needed can be got from one place and moved to another. All this knowledge can be computerised. When it comes to voting on specific issues people need go no further than their living room. People could, if they wished, check on how a certain project was progressing so that whatever was happening could be under the constant scrutiny of society as a whole.

When socialism is established it will have two important projects concerning housing. One will be to find homes for the millions throughout the world who have none. The other will be to clear the world of the horrible slums and shanty towns in which so many of its population live. Therefore an enormous world-wide reconstruction project would begin which would involve the democratic participation of nearly everyone, in one way or other. It would have to be decided, what region and what local area requires houses, how many, what type or style, what materials they will be made from and how much of each is required. Obviously, with this will go the many and various decisions concerning town planning, roads , recreational facilities, "shopping malls". Though the work involved may require many people, they will be forthcoming from all the occupations made redundant by the overthrow of capitalism, such as production for war and anything concerning finance, advertising, etc. Schools for training and re-training people in the various skills will be set up, and as far as the productive work goes they will have the machinery capitalism created plus whatever advances on this the first members of socialist society will make. People with specific skills related to housing, or those who wish to learn them, can volunteer at an administrative office similar to present man-power or job-centres and can be notified where their skills can be used.

After socialism has solved the initial task of clearing away capitalism’s rubble in every respect (feeding, clothing, housing, educating, clearing away the pollution, curing curable diseases), then it will be apparent that the change in society will be more than just production for use instead of profit, but will entail vast changes from top to bottom in every part of society. Nowhere will this be apparent more than over how we group in communities. Cities as we know them to day will probably no longer exist as people won’t want or need to be condensed in a particular area (the fulfilment of the Communist Manifesto demand for the "gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country".) When starvation has been stopped and when every human being has a roof over their head, then socialist society can turn to satisfying people’s needs in a more sophisticated way , and this will certainly be the case in housing. Whenever there is a need for a new type of house, a town or a building for the use of the community, architects will submit plans and models which can be voted on by the community as a whole in a given area. Though there may be competition between the various architects and planners, it will be from the premise of who can best beautify the locality. One can be certain that there will be new types of dwellings. Along with the disappearance of cities as we know them will also go the high-rises, those up-turned shoe-boxes where people are crammed in like sardines, to be replaced with buildings where people can at least live like humans. With whatever changes in the family structure the new social conditions will create will also come a need for new types of homes; there may be a type of communal home. And it may be that the design of a building will be determined by its functions, its given physical environment and the materials to be used. Whatever the case, people will be able to choose their home to suit their own particular needs concerning physical comfort and recreational requirements.

Law'n'Order in Socialism

Socialism will have its problems, although on a massively reduced scale compared to any previous form of society. Socialism will not be a society without emotion. Conflict between individuals and possibly between communities may exist. But socialism will deal fairly and sensibly with its problems and will not try to disguise them. Societies achieve conformity to their purpose and general standards not only by laying down formal rules but by reinforcing these rules with the alternative pressures of individual acceptance or rejection. Friends who fall out, withdraw and reject by not speaking to each other. Larger groups may sanction a member by expulsion or sending to Coventry. A society punishes its members with banishment or imprisonment. In all these cases it is accepted that imposed isolation from the group is painful and therefore salutary. But the law as we know it today will have no place in a socialist world. Socialism is not an idealised fairyland where anybody may do just as they like. If an individual’s actions impact adversely on those around them, the community would not be slow to apply sanctions. The only question is, what would those sanctions be? In a cooperative community, it is quite possible that the labels ‘uncooperative’, or ‘self-serving’, or ‘wasteful’, or ‘propertarian’ would be such stigmas that people would go to considerable lengths to avoid earning them. At any rate, punishment in socialism, were there ever a need for it, would be socially agreed and socially administered, in general proportion to the offence committed. Even if the occasional murder still takes place, the person committing it will merit treatment and support rather than the punitive measures usually imposed today.

In “The German Ideology,” Marx said, “Civil Society embraces the whole material intercourse of individuals within a definite stage of the development of the productive forces.”

 

This makes a distinction between the “whole material intercourse of individuals” and the class relations of production. Whilst the main function of the state with its law and coercive machinery is to regulate and enforce the class relations of production, there remain some features of law and its enforcement which have no apparent connection with class relations and can therefore be said to be a part of civil society. It is examples of this law that would be continued into socialist society. These include laws that they arise from moral or ethical questions – they vary over time and between countries without making the slightest difference of productive relationships. They arise from the organization of civil society. Similarly we have laws on drunk or dangerous driving. You would need these laws in any modern society. They do not arise from the regulation and enforcement of the wage labour/capital relationship – they arise from the need for safety. They would be continued in socialism. Similarly we have laws on professional qualifications – for doctors, surgeons and pharmacists. Licences for car drivers, air pilots, and ships captains and so on. Again, these laws arise from the need for safety. Socialism will be organized for needs, so they will be continued in socialism. Very important in a socialist society will be planning law. There will be a democratically decided policy on town and country planning – the idea that anyone will be able to act against it by putting up buildings or other structures wherever they like is absurd – you cannot take it seriously. In socialism your planning permission will give you free access to all the necessary materials, but you will only be able to build with planning permission. Again, very important in socialism will be constitutional law. This will define both the freedoms and the boundaries of decision making amongst public bodies – the committees running institutions such as hospitals and schools, production units and the various parish, district and urban councils. The idea that without constitutional law you could have all these bodies making decisions against each would be total madness. The dictionary defines law as the rules of the community. That is adequate for our purposes. Rules are not always made by one person or group to oppress another. And since we agree that socialism will be a society with rules – it follows that there will be law in socialism.

 

So within socialist society there will, we suggest, be regulation of sorts and maybe even places of detention. Violent or other anti-social behaviour will be addressed not by punishing people but by treating them, if necessary for the protection of the rest of the community in a confined place. But will the inmates find themselves banged up and slopping out? Surely not. We would think that their very inability to participate appropriately in society would be sufficient reason to extend to them the finest care, compassion and support that we can muster. Although it will be global as opposed to tribal, people will still live in small localized communities and, freed from capitalism's physical and mental shackles, will spontaneously look out for one another. It is after all our nature to do so.

The Profit Motive! The Lifeblood Of Capitalism?

 

Regular readers of this monthly report will recall the uproar over the high percentage of deaths from COVID-19 in senior citizens homes. You might think it would be getting better, but no Siree, it’s getting worse and then some! 

A guy at Erin Meadows Home in Mississauga, Ontario shared a room with a guy who had the virus, but the staff wouldn't move him so he got it. His family are taking the owners Schlegel Villages Inc. to court; the suit alleges their neglect caused 21 deaths at the facility, between March and June; what lovely caring people. 

It has also been reported that an outbreak at the Kennedy Lodge Long Term Care Home in Scarborough, Ontario, caused 29 deaths and a total of 92 positive cases, in the span of one month. 

The Toronto Star's analysis of recent data shows that residents in for-profit homes are three times more likely to catch the virus than those in non-profit homes, which should surprise nobody with a basic understanding of how capitalism works. 

A spokesperson for the Healthcare union said the workers at these for-profit homes are terrified and are, understandably, quitting, which compounds the problem.

 So the profit-motive is not, as some say, the lifeblood of capitalism – it’s blood death.

S.P.C. Members.

Workplace Injuries At Amazon’s Warehouses In Canada

Our friends at the Toronto Star are continuing to expose the many evils of crapitalism without ever daring to suggest we abolish it. In this vein their issue of Dec.12 focused on workplace injuries at Amazon's warehouses in Canada, into which the Star’s investigators had looked. 

They found Amazon's workplace injuries in 2019 were 16% higher than the companies U.S. average and has doubled since 2016. An analysis of hundreds of claims submitted to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board showed how Amazon disputed, very aggressively, the severity of its workers’ injuries -- a strategy that can reduce their accident costs and the benefits injured workers would receive. 

One must also bear in mind that many of their workers are putting in a 60 hour workweek. This was made mandatory for any employer who wanted to enforce it by Ontario's Harris government in the 1990's. 

Such a long workweek will create 2 tiredness, which will lead to accidents. Despite safety laws, life doesn't basically change under capitalism, nor will it.

S.P.C. Members.

A Socialist Health Service

Large-scale sanitation in the developed world, vaccines, and even the NHS itself, must be seen as gains for the working class in some aspects. The whole process of the foundation of the NHS was a contradictory one, serving the interests of capital and, as a by-product, that of the workers. The strong empathy and support that most workers in Britain have for the National Health Service is after all support for free access, "to each according to needs", for the idea that healthcare be freely available to all regardless of wealth. Some health and welfare services are now available to some people free at the point of delivery or consumption. In socialism the principle of free access according to reasonable need will be universally applied. Yet in socialism there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services. Very different goods could then be manufactured, possibly using alternative technologies, with work organized in different ways, so as to reduce the possibility of ill health arising in the first place. And although it would be absurd to say that all disease would be abolished, we can assume that a real concern for the health of the population would be reflected in planning and decision making. Such a society is not a pipe-dream, but the logical outcome of the working class taking control of their own struggles. The demand for a healthier society is in effect a revolutionary demand, since health-damaging aspects of production cannot be removed in response to political reform.

In an ideal world, the application of medical interventions would be guided by the criterion of scientific objectivity and driven solely by the concern to meet human needs. So would healthcare be any different if socialism were established? Yes it would. Why? Take one or two minutes out and just think how the non-existence of wages, profits and budgets would change the present situation. Then think about the end of the hierarchies that dominate healthcare at present and no more layers of useless bureaucrats skimming their share. Instead healthcare would be conceived and administered, democratically by us, the people who brought socialism about. Globally, doctors, nurses, scientists and everyone at present involved in healthcare at the human level would act as guides, informing people as to where healthcare is capable of going once the artificial barriers of money had been eliminated. The recruitment, training and deployment of committed volunteers will take much organising and administration. The emphasis will be on activities and tasks rather than on occupational labels: nursing, brain surgery, portering, scientific research, and so on, rather than nurses, brain surgeons, porters, scientific researchers. Everywhere we shall treat each other as friendly co-operators.

Although we cannot specify in advance a utopian blueprint for a socialist health policy what we can say about the likely effects on health and illness of future socialist society is that the promotion of good health and the care of the injured and sick won’t be restricted by money considerations. There will be no profit to be made out of employing people in dangerous occupations, supplying them with unhealthy substances or encouraging their harmful addictions. No sales-people will advertise items and services that at best have no good effect on health and at worst damage it. Health and injury insurance and the compensation industry won’t be necessary. The types and incidence of health problems are likely to differ in the early stage of socialism from later stages when the legacy from the money system will have receded. Also, some parts of the world today have different degrees of economic development, commonly referred to as under-developed, developing and developed. We don’t know the extent to which present trends, such as urbanization and environmental degradation, will continue, accelerate or be reversed. One thing we can say for certain is that socialism will release us from useless and harmful capitalist employment. We shall be free to take up work that will meet the needs of ourselves, others and the community, society and world in which we live. This is not to say that there won’t be problems to overcome. Natural disasters and pandemics won’t end with capitalism, although more effort will doubtless be devoted to avoiding and coping with them. Health and welfare problems resulting from natural disasters like floods or earthquakes will continue to require emergency measures. But the problems won't be as extensive. For one thing, people living in disaster-prone areas will be offered removal to safer environments.

Socialism will be able to provide decent care for the elderly. These now take up half the beds on the orthopaedic, chest and other medical wards. They are seen as a burden. In a socialist society real care – and that takes a lot of time, a lot of people – will be possible. Also, people with learning difficulties – those currently dismissed as mentally handicapped – can be more integrated into the community. A lot of people are currently left in hospitals because the society beyond can't be bothered, or lacks the cash, to care for them. Socialist hospitals will keep patients in for longer periods and not treat still frail and vulnerable patients as “bed-blockers”. At the moment hospitals do their best to throw patients out so that their beds can be filled. There will be also be the follow up treatment of district nurses and community psychiatric nurses engaged in home-visits. People need to be properly looked after and capitalism isn't letting us do that as well as we can and should. There will be an increase in neighborhood medical clinics and a return to rural cottage hospitals providing care and treatment although not performing transplant surgery! Capitalism sees the unproductive disabled as a drain on profits. Socialism will promote the good life and society for all, regardless of health condition. The replacement of a society based on production for profit by one based on production for needs will not of course mean the disappearance of disabled people, but it will certainly change for the better the way they are treated. Whether someone enjoys perfect health or suffers slightly or severely from an ailment of some kind will make no difference to the free and equal access they will have to the goods and services society is able to produce. Men and women in difference states of health will be able to contribute to the work of society in different ways. They will be in a position to balance the needs of themselves, others, the community and world society with their own physical and mental abilities and tastes. In a socialist society where the capacity for wealth production, unhampered by the colossal waste endemic to this one, can be released to the full, human values will predominate and energy can be concentrated on the causes of disease and its prevention. Issues such as the need for pharmaceuticals to make billions of pounds in profit will not exist.

But is there anything to think that socialism has something to offer as an answer to the problem of human misery? In socialism we will still have some of the problems that make you feel miserable, scared, depressed or demented. Socialism is not a solution to all mental health problems, it is a solution only to those created by capitalist conditions of life, or to class conditions of life. While some of the problems are due to being human beings living within a social setting, others are due to being biological organisms, and as such will break down if we are damaged or just get old. While there could be a reduced use of medication and an increased use of social therapy, the power to detain people whose condition renders them dangerous to others will still be needed. Capitalism has long produced the potential for such individual development, the task now is to realise it, to persuade working people that there is more to living than the shit of capitalism—we are more than pigs, content with mere physical satisfaction. All the indications are that common ownership and democratic control are the best way to long life and happiness.

Minimizing costs so as to maximise profits has harmful consequences. The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That's what cutting costs means. This why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, shift-work and night-work. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. So in socialism there won't be such a widespread demand for health and welfare services.

Socialism is needed

 Politics is about power. In capitalism most of the power is in the hands of Big Business. To educate, agitate and organise for workers’ power for that’s what socialism intends. We acknowledge that the bosses are richer and more powerful than ever and we are no nearer a democratic, humane, class-free society. One reason is the prevalence of the lesser evil argument, that better half a loaf than no bread. Nothing fundamental can be disturbed.

 

Socialism is not some Utopia. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism which will bring social ownership of social production. Under capitalism, the capitalists own the means of production. Workers are forced to sell their labour power and the capitalist exploits and oppresses them. With socialism, the means of production are owned in common by society as a whole.

 

The present system is a capitalist system. This means that the world is divided up into two opposing camps, the camp of a small handful of capitalists and the camp of the majority—the workers who work day and night, nevertheless they remain poor. The capitalists need not work to be rich. This takes place not because working people are unintelligent and the capitalists are geniuses, but because the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the working class, because the capitalists exploit them.

 

The capitalist system is based on commodity production: here everything assumes the form of a commodity, everywhere the principle of buying and selling prevails. Here you can buy not only articles of consumption, not only food products, but also the labour power of men, their blood and their consciences. The capitalists know all this and purchase the labour power of workers, they hire them. This means that the capitalists become the owners of the labour power they buy. Working people, however, lose their right to the labour power which they have sold. That is to say, what is produced by that labour power no longer belongs to the proletarians, it belongs only to the capitalists and goes into their pockets. The labour power which you have sold may produce in the course of a day goods to the value of 100 pounds, but that is not your business, those goods do not belong to you, it is the business only of the capitalists, and the goods belong to them—all that you are due to receive is your daily wage which, perhaps, may be sufficient to satisfy your essential needs if, of course, you live frugally. Briefly: the capitalists buy the labour power of the proletarians, they hire the proletarians, and this is precisely why the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, this is precisely why the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa. The principal basis of the capitalist system is the private ownership of the instruments and means of production. Because the factories, mills, the land and minerals, the forests, the railways, machines and other means of production have become the private property of a small handful of capitalists. Because the workers lack all this. That is why the capitalists hire employees to keep the factories and mills going—if they did not do that their instruments and means of production would yield no profit. That is why the working class sell their labour power to the capitalists—if they did not, they would suffer poverty.

Socialists deny that government can be equally sensitive and receptive to the interests and needs of all classes.  The more the wealth of society as state property increases, the greater is the exploitation of the wage-workers, and the more powerless they are. With the wealth of society as state property, there increases also the impoverishment of the wage-workers; its necessary consequence is the class struggle between wage-workers and state bureaucracy. The richer the State, the greater the poverty of the workers and the sharper the class struggle. The workers are dispossessed, each day anew, when they perform labour; and, in fact, by way of the State, the general proprietor, which appropriates the products of labour. The state is the proprietor, the administrator of the social wealth. The State as the single entrepreneur is nothing other than such a conglomeration of all administrative organs of private ownership.

Future society will be built on an entirely different basis. Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, consequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour. Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed— there will be only free workers. Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists—there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc.

As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc. It is also clear that future production will be socially organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment.

Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a State, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power. Free and voluntary labour should result in an equally comradely, and complete, satisfaction of all needs in the future socialist society. This means that if future society demands from each of its members as much labour as he can perform, it, in its turn, must provide each member with all the products he needs. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!—such is the basis upon which the future collectivist system must be created. It goes without saying that in the first stage of socialism, when elements who have not yet grown accustomed to work are being drawn into the new way of life, when the productive forces also will not yet have been sufficiently developed and there will still be "dirty" and "clean" work to do, the application of the principle: "to each according to his needs," will undoubtedly be greatly hindered and, as a consequence, society will be obliged temporarily to take some other path, a middle path. But it is also clear that when future society runs into its groove, when the survivals of capitalism will have been eradicated, the only principle that will conform to socialist society will be the one pointed out above.  It is self-evident that for the purpose of administering public affairs there will have to be in socialist society, in addition to local offices which will collect all sorts of information, a central statistical bureau, which will collect information about the needs of the whole of society, and then distribute the various kinds of work among the working people accordingly. It will also be necessary to hold conferences, the decisions of which will certainly be binding upon the comrades in the minority until the next congress is held.

Socialist society presupposes an adequate development of productive forces and socialist consciousness. At the present time the development of productive forces is hindered by the existence of capitalist property, but if we bear in mind that this capitalist property will not exist in future society, it is self-evident that the productive forces will increase tenfold. Nor must it be forgotten that in future society the current-day parasites, and also the unemployed, will go to work and augment the work-force; and this will greatly stimulate the development of the productive forces. As regards mankind's supposed aggressive sentiments, these are not as eternal as some people imagine; there was a time when mankind did not recognise private property; there came a time, the time of individualistic production, when private property dominated the hearts and minds of men; a new time is coming, the time of socialist production—will it be surprising if the hearts and minds of men become imbued with socialist strivings?

“Capitalism” Divisive At All Levels.

 

A recent report issued by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services revealed that the senior leadership at Ontario's York Region Children's Aid Society was to a large extent racist. 

In 2018-19, York CAS provided services to 5,000 families and more than 10,000 children and youth. During this period they carried out more than 4,000 child protection investigations. The Ministry found that Black female staff members were told their look, hair, dress and body shape was inappropriate for the workplace. Black male clients were called thugs and Asian clients were told that they need to speak English properly. In general Black and Asian families were treated with less respect than white ones. 

Jill Dunlap, associate minister for children and women's issues made a statement which, long story short, said, ''I want to hear that you guy's have smartened up.'' 

Governments may do what little they can, but in the final analysis capitalism is a divisive system at all levels.

S.P.C. Members.

What Matters

 

A party in this day can be either a capitalist party or it is a socialist party. It is the one or the other. It cannot be both.The capitalist class  and the working class are pitted against eachother throughout the world.These classes can never be  reconciled. It is this that is called the class struggle. Politics is simply the expression in political terms of the economic interests of certain groups or classes. The masters and exploiters understand this and is why they are in politics, not in non-partisan politics, but the politics of vested interests.The master class now in power cannot rule honestly. They must rule corruptly They are in the minority. They have not the votes of their own to put them in power, but they have the money with which to corrupt the electorate. They have the money with which to corrupt the courts and to buy the legislators, and to debauch all our institutions. They have the power to do this because they have the money, and they have the money because they own the means of production and distribution. The great mass of the workers depend upon them for employment. In this system no working person has a right to work except under conditions that the master who owns the work-place where he works with grants the permission to work, and who works by permission lives by permission, and is in no sense a free person.

 

Poverty amid plenty is common in this world of fabulous abundance. We live in perhaps the most favoured time of sophisticated mass technology and land of the richest and most fertile soil, with all of the raw materials and resources in abundance.Is it not strange that in this land of fabulous plenty there is still so much poverty, so many million of our people whose life consists of a long, hard, fierce struggle for survival, victims of hunger, disease and homelessness.  

 

The Socialist Party tells our fellow-workers about the class struggle, not because we are in favour of the existence of classes, quite the contrary, because we are opposed to classes and wants to put an end to the class divisions.The Socialist Party is committed to our Declaration of Principles. To compromise principle is to court death and disaster. It is better to be true to a principle, far better to be in a hopeless minority than to be in a great popular and powerful majority of the unthinking. All the progress in this whole world’s history has been made by minorities.

 

Workers of brain and brawn, it is you and you alone who support the government. Were it not for you, the social fabric would collapse in an instant. It is you who do the work, the useful work. It is you who produce the wealth, you who support the government and maintain civilisation. You have but to awaken and stand together then our day will come - the emancipation of the workers and the true civilisation of all mankind.The Socialist Party hold our red banner defiantly aloft and go forward with our work without apology and without fear, knowing as we do that capitalism is criminal, corrupt, and festering with every evil, and that socialism and socialism alone can avert the upheavals which threatens, and bring peace and sanity to the world.

 

This is a wonderful age in which we live — an age of scientific and technological miracles, yet also an age of widespread discontent and unrest.Altruism is enlightened self-interest. There will be no war. War is murder in uniform and the production of instruments of death is the prostitution of genius. War is caused by international competition and is carried on for monetary profits.

 

An economic system founded upon injustice must produce the effects that we see all around us every day — degradation, deprivation, and despair. and in the face of these facts it is blindness and foolishness to try to find the remedy in the reform of some effect. We must go to the root of the matter. Once all men and women stand in a just relation to each other economically, the other things will follow. The other problems must be worked out for themselves, it is true, but the economic problem must be solved first.