Class unity is an imperative

A major problem besetting society, and one that is justifiably receiving an enormous amount of attention, is the problem of racism - a sickness that infects all of our society. Racism is an evil that has subjected millions to degrading and humiliating discrimination. On more than one occasion seething unrest, resentment and frustrations of the exploited and oppressed Negroes exploded into violence. While a great deal of effort has been made to minimise and alleviate the effects of racism, nothing -- absolutely nothing -- has been done to eliminate its cause. The basic cause of racism is not the false ideas or racial myths conceived and spread by the white supremacists. Rather, the cause of racism is the competitive, strife-ridden, class-divided capitalist system of society under which we live, and under which we desperately attempt to survive. 

Race hatred is not an ancient and inherent thing. On the contrary, all this prejudice, and the very concept of race, is the product of the modern era, of the era we call capitalism. There were other fears, other hatreds, other prejudices, but before the capitalist era men and women never discriminated against their fellows because of the colour of skin. People are wrong to say "race prejudice always has been and always will be." The capitalist system as a breeding ground for race prejudice. The Socialist Party, dedicated to bringing to birth a world of freedom, peace and brotherhood, feels a deep sympathy for all who resist the degradation and oppose racial discrimination. We applaud their militant spirit. We fully share with them their yearnings for a better life. Nevertheless, candour compels us to point out that their struggle is essentially a struggle against an effect; it does not get at the cause of the race problem. And as long as the cause remains, the evil also remains and adds its poison to the body politic. Prejudice is peculiarly a product of the capitalist era.

Consider carefully the following facts. Under capitalism the means of social production -- land, factories, mines, media, transport, etc. -- are owned by a relatively small class of capitalists. The great majority of the people own no tools of their own, nor have access to them, and in order to live they have to go to the capitalists to sell their ability to work as a commodity. The capitalists buy this labour, (or more precisely, labour power), at the market price. But the workers produce a good deal more than is represented by their market price – many times more. In the science of political economy Marxists call the difference between what the workers get paid in wages and what they produce "surplus value." The capitalist takes this. Of course, he doesn't put it all in his own pocket. He has to share with the landlord, the banker, the tax collector, and a lot of other parasitical hangers-on of capitalism. This is the way the exploitation of working people takes place. 

Today, we think it is self-evident that the less the capitalist has to pay for this labour, that is, less wages, the more he can take for himself. This brings us very close to one of the reasons why racial minorities are segregated and humiliated and held down to a status of second-class citizenship. To put it bluntly, by forcing racial minorities into submissive patterns of behaviour the ruling class supplies itself with a cheap, unresisting workforce. This is one way the capitalists benefit from race prejudice and race discrimination. But there is another, more subtle way. We have shown that labour's product is divided between the wages paid to the workers and the surplus value taken by the capitalists. The capitalists, either because they are forced by competitive compulsions, or out of sheer profit hunger, constantly try in one way or another to increase their share. Contrarily, the workers resist and strive to maintain their living standards, and even improve them. Here we can see the focal point of the class struggle that rages in modern society. Socialists hold that this struggle is irrepressible and irreconcilable. It can be ended only when the workers, male and female, black, brown and white, skilled and unskilled unite as a class to put an end to capitalist exploitation. The point is this -- race prejudice is one of the most insidious, and effective devices ever invented to keep the workers divided and fighting each other. it is in the capitalists' interests to prevent the working class from uniting, instead of forming a solid front against their exploiters. 

Another factor to be noted is the competitive nature of capitalism. And it isn't just the capitalists who are competing against each other; the workers also are cast in the role of competitors. They must compete for jobs. Now, then, the fewer the number of workers competing for the jobs, the better chance each person has. And one way to keep the competition down is just to keep minorities who are easily identified by the colour of their skins, out of the labour market. Of course, there has got to be some justification for such discrimination. So we find it in the myths that circulate about races. These myths and libels are not looked at too carefully. They are believed when it serves one's material interests to believe them. And so the working class is kept divided, the capitalist class remains in the saddle -- and the outmoded capitalist system keeps all of society in turmoil and conflict, postponing the day of international peace and social harmony. 

What is the answer? How are men and women to win fulfillment of their dream of a cooperative commonwealth? How can we purge our minds of prejudice, to understand that the colour has no more real significance than whether someone is tall or short, fat or thin, or blonde or brunette? There is but one way. That is to remove the capitalist cause of race prejudice, and to lay a sound economic foundation for fraternity. The Socialist Party says that we must outlaw private ownership of the land and industries. We must make the means of social production the property of all the people socially. Then, instead of producing things for sale and profit, we will carry on production to satisfy human needs. In short, we replace the competition and strife of capitalism with the cooperation and collective interests of socialism which shall cause the factories and fields to yield an abundance without arduous toil. With socialism, drudgery, poverty and social misery will be banished forever. 

To establish socialism, the workers of the world must organise non-violently and politically to demand at the ballot box that all the means of life become the collective property of society.