Nationalism or No Nation

 

A nation is not a natural community that existed before the state, but that it's the other way around: the state existed first and then proceeded to impose on those it ruled over the idea that they formed a “nation”. States pre-existed and in a very real sense created nations. Nations are groups of people ruled by a state or a would-be state. The Polish nationalist Pilsudski observed that "It is the state that makes the nation, not the nation the state." What is a nation? It is simply the people and the territory which have been appropriated by a class of robbers at some point in history. It has less to do with a common language, religion, race, culture, and all the other things which nationalists imagine or pretend are essential ingredients in the making of nations.

The concept of the nation is very real force in the minds of people today. The idea that the world is naturally divided into nations is widespread. This can be partly explained by the propaganda of nationalist groups, but there are other reasons too. People are not machines; they need something else, something to sustain them. By no means do they get this at work, they feel lost in this vast meaningless world of capital, just another cog in the machine, and they would be right. So naturally they seek meaning. Often they find meaning in the idea of the nation. This search for meaning and identity can often be found in the notions of “us and them” even though this is profoundly illogical. It is no coincidence that a person with a immensely draining and alienating job, say repetitive work, will tend to cling desperately to this collective idea of nationality, as they find meaning and comfort in this idea, since they have no meaning in their work.the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest. As with most myths there is an element of truth in this. Normally, a common language is shared (Language became a factor in establishing state power, and thus it became a factor in determining a "nation". It's no coincidence that the rise of the nation-state coincides with the invention of the dictionary ) and on a superficial level at least, a common "culture" can be defined, i.e. "the British way of life". However, if one probes slightly deeper such an analysis fails to stand up.

The only way to define such national identity is to define it in terms of what and who it is not, i.e. negatively. Thus nationalism sets itself as being against other countries, striving to define a uniqueness of national culture so as to once and for all set its country apart from others, to know itself by what is un-like it. At one extreme this can include myths about race and blood, trying to attach the national abstraction to some trait of genetics or similar such nonsense. Since people have a strong desire to retain their own perceived identity, and to have a good opinion of themselves, often the creeds based on such identities function in a highly irrational, and ultimately, defensive way. Thus it is usually a sign of desperation and of an incapacity to formulate a coherent argument when our masters resort to playing the nationalist card.

All this of course benefits the ruling class. If the workers were ever to put their passion into something like socialism, then it would be the end of the ruling class. It benefits them to see the workers placing meaning and identity in things that are irrelevant and mythical to the truth of class struggle. Keeping the workers unable to see the true state of affairs in the world works to the ruling class's advantage.Class existed before the nation state. Throughout history one ruling class or another has attempted to impose its view on those they ruled over, manipulating their passions and pretending that its interests and their interests were the same. So, in another of life's ironies, the masses waste their energy fighting amongst themselves, believing their interests and the interests of their rulers are linked. Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves to their domestic ruling class.Historically, nationalism and national feeling have been the tool of the capitalist class for both winning and retaining power. The ruling class have cultivated such ideas as nationalism, propagating the illusion that we live in a society with a collective social interest. The more enlightened capitalists probably saw the effects of separating and alienating people from each other and their labour, and so stepped up the spreading of beliefs like nationalism in order to try and convince people that they were not so exploited as they really were, and that everyone had a common interest.

 Nationalism is a relatively new concept for social control, (religion was once the principle method of control over the majority).

To the Socialist Party, class consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. The class-conscious working person knows where one stands in society. His or her interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'. The presence of nationalist ideas is an indication that some groups in society feel its real material interests are being frustrated by forces outside or even inside the nation. But the desire to achieve their aims is never expressed in terms of their own needs only. In order to enlist the necessary working class support such arguments as “justice”, “freedom”, and “the nation” are used to justify the real bone of contention and to give it an aura of sanctity.The concept of nationality, the idea that an area dominated by a privileged class which thrives on the enforced poverty of that area's productive class, should grant to the latter the right to live there providing its members accept their wage-slave status and endorse the right of the privileged to live on their backs is offensive to any intelligent person. Those who promote such nonsense are enemies of our class.

The world of nationalism is full of contradictions, odd ideas and illogical notions. The idea that a line of a map, a so-called “national border”, should actually mean something concrete to the workers is laughable. Let's imagine that a human, born in the area of land known as France, is standing two feet from the “border” with the piece of land known as Germany. Another human is facing them from across this line, a so-called “German”. Are these two people utterly alien to each other? They may speak differently and have differing customs perhaps, but that is all due to material conditions and the ideology of the ruling group. Both people have to sell their labour power for wages, and are manipulated and exploited by a capitalist class. A typical nationalist would argue that they are alien because all French people are a certain way and all Germans are a certain differing way. But any differences that do exist are minor. A true understanding of the implications of socialism will reveal that the very idea of nations as a political concept can have no part to play, though there will of course still be cultural differences among people (e.g. language). Despite many workers finding it difficult to communicate with and understand each other because of language or cultural barriers this does not alter the fact that they are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with their indigenous bosses.

Workers do not share a common interest with their bosses. It does not follow that if the "national wealth" increases, or if trade increases, or even if profit increases, that higher wages will be gained by workers. In fact capitalists can only make a profit by appropriating the wealth produced by the workers to themselves; but in the topsy-turvy world of ideology, it seems that workers will only have good pay and wealth when the capitalists are doing well. So it appears that workers and capitalists share a common interest. In fact, the interest of workers is conditioned by the interest of the capitalist, in exactly the same manner as hostages held by a kidnapper: unless the kidnapper-capitalists's demands are met, they will not allow the hostage-workers to have what they need to live. There is a well-documented effect of hostage situations, called "The Stockholm Syndrome" in which hostages under duress began to identify with their kidnappers, and believe in their cause. Nationalism works in much the same way. It is the Stockholm Syndrome on a grand scale. The working class who are dependent on the capitalists, to whom they are bonded by state-boundaries across which they are not permitted to escape, begin to believe that they share an identity with them.

Leninist-inspired distinction between the nationalism of the oppressors ( which is always bad) and the nationalism of the oppressed (allegedly always worth supporting, even if critically). This even though that oppressed nations, once "free", can easily become oppressors in turn. Oppression, however, has to be seen in class, not national terms. Both so-called oppressor and oppressed nations consist of oppressor and oppressed classes, and "national liberation" enables an oppressor class to consolidate and expand its power, rather than freeing all the people of a formerly oppressed nation. The absurdity of Lenin's theory can be proved by a living example from the life of a worker in the Indian subcontinent. Suppose he is 70 years old and now a citizen of so-called independent Bangladesh. He was a subject of Pakistan and before that of the British Empire. According to Lenin's theory, he was subjugated by "British imperialists" up to 1947, then by "Pakistani imperialists" up to 1972. Now by which? Yet all through these years he remained a wage slave, not free, though his masters and nationality changed. What a ridiculous proposition is Lenin's theory! Many on the political left will argue that Palestinian nationalism is somehow progressive and different to Israeli nationalism and should therefore be supported. As socialists, we say that this is a dangerous poison that is being spread by the left. We argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners. Self-determination for "nations" just equates with freedom and self-determination for a ruling class.

 Lenin's theory of imperialism made the most significant struggle at world level not the class struggle but the struggle between states, between so-called anti-imperialist and progressive states and so-called imperialist and reactionary states. This was a dangerous diversion from the class struggle and led to workers supporting the killing in wars of other workers in the interest of one or other state and its ruling class.

To sum it up, the illusions of nationality are yet another tool of the ruling class, intended to trick workers into thinking that this really is some kind of collective society, and to misplace their passions that could otherwise be directed into the class struggle. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”.

 We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself. We condemn all nationalisms equally. When countries achieved independence little changed except the personnel of the state machinery.

As socialists we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.

The Reality of Nationalism

 

The Socialist Party often receives requests to give our support to various nationalist movements. We are not willing to give our support to political parties endorsing nationalism. As socialists, we are opposed to the exploitation of the toilers either by foreign or native exploiters. As that exploitation can be ended only by the achievement of socialism, through international working-class action, we are opposed to the nationalists who have capitalist aims and is not deserving of working-class support. We are also not prepared to associate with non-socialist political parties. It is of no real consequence to a worker whether he or she toils for the profit of a native-born employer or a foreign corporation. The real problem is the fact that the means of production are controlled by a class that forces us to labour and suffer to greater or less degree the miseries suffered by fellow toilers in other lands.

Many workers attribute their miseries to foreign rule rather than to the private ownership of the means of production. The different sectional interests of landlords, factory owners and traders will be a fruitful source of strife. The struggle for markets against Chinese, Japanese or any other international interests will add further fuel to the fire. And all the time the worker will toil and suffer, his or her needs forgotten under the new regime unless we assert ourselves in the only direction that will serve our interests.

Nationalist movements will not help workers to emancipate themselves from their subjugated conditions. Nationalism draws support from wealthy financiers and manufacturers who inflame national prejudice with the object of climbing upon the backs of the workers to positions of greater wealth and power. Too often have the workers’ aspirations for a better life been diverted into the chase after national independence which has gained them only a different flag to wave over their misery.

The fact that we are opposed to all nationalist movements does not mean that we acquiesce in the brutal suppression of workers who have been victims. We are opposed to the capitalist system wherever it raises its ugly head, but we know that the solution to the workers’ exploited position under it is the same everywhere. The only road to deliverance for the worker is the path to socialism, and we must travel along that road in brotherly harmony with the members of our class throughout the world. The remedy is not new nations for old but the abolition everywhere of capitalism. 

NATIONALISM—AN ENEMY OF THE WORKERS

 

Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win . . . At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests and seriously believe—at any rate for short periods—that running, jumping and kicking a bill are tests of national virtue. George Orwell

Around the world, nationalism is on the march and the battle cry is “Independence.” What many people forget is that newly won sovereignty will be the freedom to administer capitalism. The joys of becoming an independent country are, by and large, illusory for the mass of the peoples of the “liberated” countries and not worth the effort and sacrifice so often involved in achieving it. This is what the Socialist Party has been saying throughout its history. Of course, this attitude brings us no popularity.

The workers to-day has nothing to fight for. The interests of the masters are not their interests. National prestige is not their prestige. What workers have to realise clearly is that the interests of their fellow workers in other lands are nearer to theirs than are those of the masters in their own country. The bonds which bind worker with worker, irrespective of nationality, are those of class solidarity. The truth is that the very essence of socialism is internationalism. 

When asked why we do not support struggles for Independence by fellow workers in other parts of the world, we point out that, at best, they will simply be exchanging one lot of masters for another. They may win or be allowed a little more freedom within the system but while it remains they must depend on the capitalists — state or private — for their subsistence. For workers, independence is merely a change of rulers. Nationalism is a ruse to lure workers into supporting the rights of the business class to make profits at their expense. Nevertheless, our rejection of nationalist delusions ought never to show insensitivity to the valid concerns of oppressed people. Moreover. it strengthens the appeal of socialism to show that in contrast to the imposed uniformity and centralisation of commodity production we aim for a way of life which, of its nature, fosters cultural freedom and diversity.

Most  people are more worried about the necessities of life: putting food on the table, a roof over their head, and other ultimately far more important considerations, than the name of the state they happen to live in. Different languages, skin tones, sexes, and customs pale next to the economic differences in a single country or ethnic grouping. The working class will never be served by nationalism or its bed-mate, racism. The only way out is to establish Socialism, which will organise the world so that everyone, whatever their sex or colour of skin, has free access to the world's wealth and stands equal to the rest of humanity. Independence solved none of the problems resulting from exploitation.  Independent governments are wedded to the same set of priorities and subject to the same constraints as any other capitalist government. Poverty in the midst of a potential for plenty remains a running sore, exploitation and massive disparities of wealth continue to exist, wars with neighbours claim the lives of those with no class interest in the outcome, environmental degradation continues virtually unabated. That is the lesson for workers to learn all over the world.

The Socialist Party calls for the end of exploitation and an end to the domination of the privileged few over the majority, not for its replacement by another, more local elite. We view our fellow-workers as the revolutionary force that could overthrow the tyranny of the capitalist system, freeing people and breaking their chains of wage-slavery, if only they can halt the virus of nationalism from spreading. Socialism needs to be placed at the heart of a new approach to living, locally, regionally, and globally. It is a unifying sharing principle that will encourage cooperation, which, unlike nationalism, brings people together and builds social harmony. Ours will be free unions of free people in free associations.  Democracy for socialists isn’t just the ballot, but the participatory democracy, revocable—delegated—social and economic democracy based on a world co-operative commonwealth. The message of socialism is world wide however. It reaches across the artificial national boundaries erected by politics. 

Nationalism, a Menace to Socialism

 The typical liberal seeks to give the rights of self-determination to all the various nationalities. The Socialist Party denies the necessity of the existence of nations; it wants to abolish all countries and states. However, we do understand the attachment to hearth and home, to one's community and neighbourhood, to familiar traditions and customs. As a socialist, we love our land. But we also love other people’s lands, too, when we visit them.

The liberation aimed at by the Socialist Party is freedom of development for the individual as for society. This liberty the Socialist Party sees to be impossible under a regime of private property-holding in the means of production. All the existing limitations on freedom, alike for the individual and for society, the Socialist Party finds traceable to the system of private ownership in these means of production. Starting from the fundamental basis of socialism, that the common ownership of the means of production is essential to human liberty, it is right to assume the collectivist basis of socialism, is, indeed, only a means whereby such liberty can be realised. The policy of the Socialist Party is subservient to this goal.

It is capitalism that attacks and destroys all the things close to the human heart. Capitalism ruthlessly discards people’s heritage and ideas opposed to its progress It exploits and corrupts those customs and practices once held sacred. This country is not "our" country.

 

Nationalism involves the doctrine of “My country right or wrong” which the Socialist Party contends is utterly incompatible with world socialism. Socialist principles and socialist interests take precedence over all national interests whatsoever. Socialists cannot recognise any duty, of whatever nature, that is at variance with these principles. Patriotism is an objectionable sentiment since it means the placing of one’s own country, its interests and well-being, above those of the rest of humanity. Patriotism is ridiculous for propertyless proletarians. We all know what patriotism means nowadays. A gang of thieves who by fraud or otherwise lay hold of the power of the State, and with that power in their hands proceed to start a quarrel with another people, whom they consider sufficiently weak and defenceless to be a safe prey, in order to enrich themselves and the class they represent by the plunder and enslavement of the people.  A citizen must on no account condemn their actions or reveals oneself lacking in “patriotism” and like a true “patriot,” must cheer them on.  Patriots see in their “country’s enemies”  any unfortunate people whom its governing and parasitic classes wish to plunder. A patriot nowadays is either an empty-headed knave or an unthinking fool.

Nationalism first appeared during the rise of capitalism, in the struggle of the nascent capitalist class to establish the nation-state as a framework for the expansion of private property, freedom of enterprise and trade.  The nation did not come into being because of mystical or cultural impulses; it was the product of a definite process of economic and class development. Nationalism is based on mythical history. While race and language have been convenient expressions of the nation, the nation has itself created “race” and “language,” and often suppressed or amalgamated them in the fulfilment of its historic mission.

It is undeniable that the attitude of the Socialist Party’s internationalism joins hands with that of anti-patriotism, with that of anti-nationalism. The consistent socialist certainly does relegate nationality to a place secondary to that of Humanity. All socialists have an abhorrence of the cant of the patriot and the lying humbug of the Jingoism which would attempt to whitewash every crime committed in the name of their country.

The national struggle is a diversion from the class struggle. It is proper to look forward to the day when nationalism and patriotism shall be swallowed up in worldwide brotherhood and when supposed differences shall vanish in human solidarity.

No person is duty-bound to fight or sacrifice oneself in defending from attack his or her country. The political independence of a nation is not worth the degradation. Let us cast off all sectionalism, all parochialism, and sit down as brothers and sisters together in an earnest effort to find a common cause against the capitalist enemy. The class struggle is the supreme issue for the Socialist Party. No socialist would suggest for a single moment that a mere change from a foreign to a native-born capitalist would help the workers. Socialists adopt a policy of unrelenting antagonism toward nationalism. We find nothing inspirational in the thought that we are wage slaves of one government than another rival one. Hasten the day when the working people of the world will finally abandon the national flags of their masters, and muster themselves under the red flag of socialism for human brotherhood. The Socialist Party regrets that all the dedication and devotion to the service of the modern nation-state is not forthcoming when it is a question of a new society, for the Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth.

The Parable of the Table

 

Nationalist movements are of use only to the capitalists and do nothing but harm to the workers of the world. A united trade union movement acting internationally to further working class interests against all the governments of capitalism and all the employers, everywhere, would achieve something for the workers, which no nationalist movement ever did.

Unable to point to positive benefits to the workers through support of Nationalist movements their propagandists often take refuge in the vague abstraction that movements for national independence are in favour of “freedom” and should therefore receive the approval of "lovers of freedom.” The one freedom the Socialist Party is interested in is the freedom from capitalism, which is opposed by nationalists but even within the framework of capitalism, the identification of nationalism with libertarian ideas is false. 

The Socialist Party, therefore, do not support nationalist movements and does not support the efforts of other capitalist groups to suppress nationalist movements. Instead, Socialists try to induce the workers to recognise their interest in socialism and in the internationalism that goes with it, in opposition to capitalism and its tool, nationalism.

Does the Socialist Party support self-determination? As the term is used now, they do not. Self-determination now means freedom for the workers to decide which group of capitalists will exploit them. Socialists stand for a world in which there will be no exploitation, and in which, as a result, there will be no artificial division of the world into competing and warring states. No group will use war or terrorism as a means to gain independence, for not only will every country be independent, every individual will be independent too. There will be no foreigners under socialism. The human beings of the world will freely participate in one voluntary society because that way will they best satisfy their needs.

Despite the passing decades, there is much truth in the speech of Gustave Hervé, a French anti-militarist gave at his 1905 trial. Tragically, Herve later reneged on his principles and transformed into a fervent patriot.

 

“...Ah! I know that I wound your conscience, gentlemen of the jury. Your conscience pricks you all the more because you feel that I am speaking the truth. I feel sure that when I say this I wound the universal conscience which the Paris Bar with its eloquence, knows so well how to interpret.

But do you believe that Voltaire, Diderot and the rest of the encyclopaedists were able to avoid treading on people’s corns?

It is a lamentable fact that every time a new form of society is about to come forth from the womb of one on the point of death, it always does so by a long and painful child-birth, producing in every family, and in every heart, trouble and anguish; suffering that every innovator would fain spare those whose convictions he hurts.

As for us revolutionary Socialists, we have discarded the folds of this flag on which the names of so many deeds of butchery are displayed in letters of gold.

Flags are but emblems; and are worth something only in so far as they represent something worthy. What, after all, is one’s native country? Or what, in actual fact, do all these “fatherlands” consist?

Allow me, if you please, gentlemen of the jury, to draw for you a mental picture, to speak if I may a kind of parable, which will the better help you to understand what our feelings are. One’s native land, every country, no matter under what form of government it be masked, is made up of two groups of men, consisting on the one hand of a quite small number, on the other including the immense majority of people.

The first of these is seated round a well furnished table where nothing is lacking. At the head of this table, in the seat of honour, you find the great financiers; some, perhaps, are Jews, others Catholics or Protestants, or it may be even Freethinkers. It is possible for them to be in entire disagreement on questions of religion or philosophy, and even on questions affecting their individual interests, but as against the mass of the people, they are as thick as thieves.

Seated on their right and left hand you have Cabinet Ministers, high officials of every department of civil, religious or military administration. Paymasters-general with salaries of 30, 40, and 60 thousand francs a year: a little further off fully fledged barristers, by their unanimity glorious interpreters of the “Universal Conscience” – the whole Bench and Bar, not forgetting their precious assistants, the solicitors, notaries and ushers.

Large shareholders in mines, factories, railways, steamship companies and big shops: manorial magnates, big landed proprietors; all are seated at this table: everybody that has two-pence is there too, but at the foot. These latter are the small fry, who have for that matter, all the prejudices, all the conservative instincts, of the big capitalists.

Ah! gentlemen of the jury, I wish that you may be of the number of these privileged ones seated around this festive board. Verily, you are not so badly off there, after all, you know. In return for a little work – when you have any work at all – work I say which is oft-times intelligent, occasionally agreeable, which always leaves you with some spare time for yourself, directive work that flatters your pride and vanity – in return for this you can enjoy a life of plenty, made pleasant by every comfort, every luxury that the progress of science has placed at the service of Fortune’s favoured ones.

Far from the table I see a great herd of beasts of burden doomed to repulsive, squalid, dangerous, unintelligent toil, without truce or rest, and above all without security for the morrow; petty shop-keepers chained to their counters, Sundays and holidays, more and more crushed by the competition of the big shops; small industrial employers, ground down by the competition of the big factory owners; small peasant proprietors, brutalised by a sixteen to eighteen hours day, who only toil that they may enrich the big middlemen: millers, wine factors, sugar refiners. At a still greater distance from this table of the happy ones of this world, I see the crowd of proletarians who have but their strength of arm or their brain for sole fortune, factory hands, men and women exposed to long periods of unemployment, petty officials and shop-assistants forced to bow and scrape and hide their opinions, domestic servants of both sexes, labouring flesh, cannon fodder, matériel of “pleasure”.

There are your beloved countries! Your country to-day is made up of this monstrous social inequality, this horrible exploitation of man by man.

When the proletarians doff their hats to the flag as it passes by, it is to this that they uncover. They in effect say:

 

“What a splendid country is ours! How free, kind and just is she!
How! how you must laugh, Mr. Attorney-General, when you hear them sing:

“ah! glorious is death indeed,
When for our native land – for liberty – we bleed!”

 

The Marxist Internet Archives offer an alternative translation.

Anti-patriotism by Gustave Herve 1905 (marxists.org)

 

Power to the People

 “Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.” - Arundhati Roy

Many, many times, the Socialist Party has been asked to join in support of Scottish independence. Our reply in refusing to do so has always been that not only would such support result in our being side-tracked from our work of socialist propaganda but that the aims and results of the Scottish nationalist movement at best were concerned with pushing forward the local and nascent ruling interests and at worst could be and usually were actively anti-working class. We have not been afraid to point out, too, that the independence movement which speak so much of “freedom," “independence,” “liberty,” etc., were they to come to power and were they to find unwelcome opposition or criticism, would not hesitate to act in the same despotic and dictatorial manner against which they were the erstwhile protesters.

What is socialism without a country? People should have their national home before they become socialists we are told. The Socialist Party stand for a united world society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the resources of the Earth by all the people who live in it. The Socialist Party aim to create a united world free from all national divisions. As socialists we’d like to end nations, not to create new ones.

The future of society rests with the world working class. If they want to, they can make a world of peace and happiness, in which men and women can live in freedom. This is more than a dream; it could so easily become reality. The Socialist Party does not stand aside from the struggles of nationalism. These struggles are a potent force for the delusion of workers, for the promotion of divisive, anti-working class theories, for the diversion from the essential object of the establishment of socialism. So we cannot stand aside from them; we must expose their basic fallacy, we must be undyingly hostile to them and we must strive to replace their theories with the idea of the united, co-operative world of socialism.

What then has independence done for people? Without going into details we can say that national independence is good for local politicians and business men. It opens up careers and money-making opportunities for them.  National differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends, based ultimately on the pursuit of profit and power by the minority capitalist class. The only way out of this impasse is that workers to join together for the socialist objective of overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism. When will workers learn that the only liberation that counts is from the wage slavery of capitalism?

We stand for a society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution. In this society wealth will be produced for use instead of for profit; it will be freely available to everyone instead of for sale to those who can afford it. It will be a society in which all human beings will be together with the single aim of making life as abundant, free and pleasurable as possible. There will be one people, working together for one object.

In socialism, the national divisions of capitalism will fade into history. From the experience and the learning will come the free world—peaceful, abundant and united.

 

 “You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let us use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.” - Charlie Chaplin