Against Terror

In a sane society, with a socialist economy, workers could enjoy all the wealth they produce, because they wouldn't have to support themselves and the capitalist class, too. It would take only a fraction of the time now spent to obtain the material goods a family needs to thrive because the necessary work would be spread out over the whole population. There would be plenty of time for everyone -- men, women, young and old -- to exercise their talents, fulfill their potentials and grow to be all they could be. And children would be able to enjoy plenty of quality time with all of their family and friends. It follows from the fact that we live in a totally integrated world- -no part independent and all parts interdependent upon one another. Interdependence follows from the present productive organisation of society. The cooperation needed on the assembly line, between all points of production, distribution, and consumption, compels society to act harmoniously if it is to act successfully.

The Socialist Party unqualifiedly condemns terrorist bombings and shootings and as the depraved acts of depraved minds. It deplores the wanton massacre of innocent men, women and children, and denounces any individual or group who perpetrated such despicable acts for whatever perverted motive prompted they say they commit them. There is and can be no justification for barbarous crime.

At the same time, the Socialist Party condemns the reckless and inflammatory capitalist news media, which, in its usual sensationalist style, jumps from one conclusion to another about who the perpetrators of terrorism might be, and then seek to excuse itself by attributing errors to the population at large rather than to itself.

At the same time, the Socialist Party condemns the politicians who appear bent on using the acts of deranged individuals to undermine the civil liberties and human rights of people. It is dangerous, imbecilic and naive to believe that society can be defended against terror by repressive legislation. Legislation against terrorism can no more root out the social causes of such violent crimes than a law against water could abolish thirst or a law against hunger could abolish starvation. Whatever the immediate motivations behind terror acts, the root cause of all such insane antisocial acts is deeply embedded in the fabric of capitalist society itself. Capitalism incites barbarism. Terrorists have no answers for today's social problems. They see or feel the effects of something they have no understanding of, and they take refuge in religious fantasy and/or conspiracy theories and other mystifications. A solution to the manifold ills of a social system is to be found in a social act. That act can be performed only by a social class. And the sole class capable today of revolution to a better society is the working class.

Today, capitalism is a worn out, regressive social system. It operates for the benefit of a tiny, owning class upon the labor and at the expense of a large laboring class. The social situation is one that demands revolution because all alterations and reforms for the better operation of capitalism continuously fail to benefit the majority of society. The cooperation that production demands is the material condition that prods the working class to take, hold and operate industry in its own behalf. In this way alone can society become a cooperative commonwealth free from the conditions now giving rise to expanding terrorism, and to all the other social evils capitalism breeds and which fester in the modern world. Capitalism is a politically, as well as an economically, repressive system. This is no idle assertion. Capitalism may pretend otherwise, but it, too, relies on terror, or the threat of it, to uphold order. There is also capitalism's use of terror to scare people and push them to the right. The whole scare campaign has a racist element.

Karl Marx asked: "Is there not a necessity for deeply reflecting upon an alteration of the system that breeds these crimes, instead of glorifying the hangman who executes a lot of criminals to make room only for the supply of new ones?"

Socialists maintain that the solution to terrorism and viciousness of capitalist counter-terrorism is the abolition of capitalism itself. Effective action for the creation of the cooperative commonwealth of socialism must be taken.