Don’t be fooled by words

As socialists, we don’t go in for moralising in this way about the "goodness" or "badness” of whole sections of the working class. We too are concerned about the conditions our fellow workers in other parts of the world have to live and work under. We know that the role of the police and army is everywhere to protect private property and the existing political set-up. Yet we base our views on an analysis of the material conditions. “

"All I want to see is my country free, happiness peace and prosperity" is a familiar refrain, we in the Socialist Party often hear. But let's see what they really mean.

FREEDOM: In capitalist society means the right of the vast majority to be property's wage workers producing wealth to be sold on a market with a view to profit.

MY COUNTRY: The countries of the world are owned by a privileged minority. The working class has problems and interests that are produced by capitalism and not by the existence of national barriers.

PROSPERITY: All workers are poor, some are destitute. A prosperous working class is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is as incapable of producing a working class that is prosperous as it is of producing a government that is popular. 

PEACE: Even if the shooting stopped the class war would remain, that is the struggle which goes on all the time over the ownership of the wealth of society, whether it be in a so-called “United” Ireland, the “United" States, the "United" Kingdom, the "United” Arab Republic, Russia, Africa, in fact wherever capitalism is the predominating form of society.

Everywhere capitalism exists it creates conflict. Capitalism pits state against state over positions of military and economic influence, capitalist against capitalist over markets, raw materials and cheap labour power, capitalist against worker over wages and conditions and worker against worker over a continuous scramble for scarce jobs. Conflict is capitalism’s permanent condition; the problem is that there is no shortage of people whose ignorance and bigotry enables the conflict to masquerade as one based on nationalism, religion or race. The only way to stop racism and fascism is to understand its cause — the competition between workers engendered by the capitalist system — and, instead of wasting time fighting the effects, remove the cause once and for all. Let’s look at what unites rather than divides workers

Protest movements are nothing new. They exist everywhere and show that everywhere workers are discontented with some aspect of their lot. It is by promising to do something about this that politicians obtain your votes — and it is their failures that lead people to protest on the streets. The politicians fail not because they are dishonest or incompetent but because capitalism cannot be made to work for the good of all. If you accept this, then you will see that direct action is in the end as futile as voting for parties that stand for capitalism. You will see too the uselessness of nationalism and independence as a way of solving the problems of workers. This would merely be a political re-shuffle — a change of masters — that would leave unchanged the class basis of society which is the real cause of these problems.  It is because of the Left’s policy of mouthing the lunacies of nationalism in practically the same breath as they spout platitudes about their spurious socialism that most workers are openly hostile to even discussing socialism.  Their entire vision of the world resolves itself into supporting “good” nationalists against “bad” nationalists, “good” governments against “bad" governments, and, ultimately, much as the religious superstitionists do, “good” people against “bad" people.  State-capitalism supporting “socialists” have done their best to alienate workers from real socialist ideas. But they haven’t entirely succeeded. Some members of the working-class are now starting to articulate their position in a more positive way. They recognise that discrimination everywhere in capitalism, was not practised by those who fought over the crumbs, it was practiced by those who took the cake and left the crumbs to be fought over. If a few workers were relatively materially any better off, it was because their majority strength compelled the ruling class to fob them off with slightly bigger crumbs. The state was born in violence and was governed and politically structured both to resist violence and promote violence as an instrument of establishment policy.

 The vast majority of us in a class which is economically exploited by a small minority of capitalists who use "love of country" and cultural differences to persuade us that we must continue to engage in economic battle with each other simply to preserve the privilege of the few. Little Englanders use this to whip workers up against European workers and pro-Europeans use it to engender competition against the rest of the world. All this nonsense is about their interests, not ours. We should begin to ponder our everyday lives in a social system which continues to isolate and alienate us all from the possibility of living full human lives as free men and women in a community of equals. An essential ingredient for the solution of internecine strife will be the throwing-off of national an religious beliefs which stand in the way of workers recognising their common class interests and adopting rational ways of thinking and socialist principles. The building of the necessary consciousness would not call for the relinquishment of valid cultural differences, although once rid of the divisive factor of imposed dogma it is remarkable how similar is the traditional dress, folk-music and dance, cuisine and life-style of all lands. A working class, united in its determination to establish a Socialist World undefiled by national frontiers, will bequeath to future generations a democratic global village in which cultural variations will be a stimulus to creativity rather than pretexts for those seeking to become a new ruling class.