In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The Archives-From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-“Ungovernable” Europe enters economic depression

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CWI Summer School

“Ungovernable” Europe enters economic depression

20/07/2012

Greece and Spain to fore in Europe’s deepening political, economic and social crisis

Kevin Parslow, Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales



The most crucial discussion at the CWI School 2012, held last week in Belgium, with up to 400 participants, was on Europe. This was introduced by International Secretariat member Peter Taaffe and there were a number of excellent contributions from the floor, as comrades grappled with real and immediate situations posed for socialists internationally. Kevin Parslow from the Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) summarises the plenary session.

Socialistworld.net

The world crisis had coined a number of new words: ‘grexit’, ‘spanic’, brixit and others, to represent different possibilities in the crisis. But what nobody could do on a capitalist basis was under-write or solve this crisis economically. Not even German capitalism, as Chancellor Angela Merkel confessed, has unlimited resources. In the 1920s, the Dawes Plan, underwritten by US capitalism, saved Germany and Europe for six years until the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression; it was the economic price paid to prevent revolution. Now, no power in the world can act in a similar fashion to solve the European crisis.

The European capitalists have created the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to bail out struggling economies. But the combined debts of Spain and Italy, next in the firing line, amount to €2.8 trillion, six times the resources of the ESM! Economists and politicians say a collapse of the euro is inconceivable yet the same was said of the Soviet Union. In both cases, the capitalists could not see how the situation could go on but could not envisage its collapse! In the case of the euro, the staggering events brought on by the world economic crisis will drive its demise; Peter pointed out that there have been 70 currency collapses since 1945.

The CWI had predicted from before the euro’s creation that it carried within it all the seeds of its own destruction. What had brought it into being and how it lasted so long was due to the prolonged boom up to 2007. But the profound economic and political crisis, rocking all capitalist institutions, means the eurozone is staggering from one crisis to another.


Northern Europe not immune

Northern Europe has been affected by the crisis, with youth unemployment reaching 28% in Sweden. Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, as Arne Johansson of Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna pointed out, once a blueprint for the welfare state and social democracy, is now a model for neo-liberalism privatisation of public services under its right-wing government and books are being written over the demise of the ‘Swedish model’. Oil workers have taken strike action in Norway and the crisis is so acute in the Netherlands that the left-wing Socialist Party there is heading the opinion polls. Even mighty Germany will not be immune; although in a boom, partly due to a long-term devaluation of the euro compared to the deutschemark, the government parties have been rocked by bad results in the regional elections.

Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union have also been devastated by the crisis, which has caused political and economic upheavals in Hungary, Romania and elsewhere. The intervention of the CWI in Kazakhstan has shown the possibilities for winning support for genuine socialist ideas in former Stalinist countries.

But it is mainly in southern Europe where the social, economic and political situation is most acute, with Greece in the vanguard and Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and others not far behind.

Greece

Greece accounts for less than 2% of eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) yet it is important for the capitalists in Europe, the working class and the CWI. We are watching avidly as our Greek section grapples with the task of giving leadership in the face of a five-year depression, terrible social conditions, worsening by the day and a society forced backwards by the barbarians of the European capitalists, represented by the ‘troika’ of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. In the recent general elections, the majority of Greek voters, although with reduced turnouts, voted for parties against the austerity packages imposed on them. However, the electoral system, which gives the winner of general elections an extra 50 seats, has allowed the right-wing New Democracy to form a pro-austerity government with the ex-socialist PASOK and its split, Democratic Left. Already, this government has called off attempts, if it ever meant its election slogans, to renegotiate the austerity package accepted by previous governments and will press on with further cuts.

Our Greek section faces great challenges, defending the working class from the attacks, putting the right demands which take consciousness forward and pursuing the correct tactics, to win over the most combative workers and youth to genuine Marxist ideas. The situation was explained graphically by Nikos Kanellis and Nikos Anastasiadis of our Greek section: the regular demonstrations in the centre of Athens, the general strikes which failed to defeat the austerity measures, and the effect of the elections as a ‘political earthquake’, which lifted the depression after the failure of the general strikes. Syriza had gone from 4% of the vote in 2009 to 26% in June 2012 and it was attracting to its ranks ex-PASOK supporters, which could have its dangers in pulling Syriza rightwards. In fact, a lack of decisiveness, particularly on the euro, in the last few days of the election campaign may have cost Syriza victory.

Greece will default on its debts at some stage and will be ejected from the euro. The question of a new currency will be posed. The euro has been associated with modernity compared to the old drachma but how will workers be defended if Greece (or any country) is forced out? Therefore, we have not called for ‘Get out of the euro!” but workers, although feeling the euro was a step forward, will not tolerate years of eurozone-imposed debts and will push to leave in the future.

Some capitalist economists – such as those in Deutsche Bank – have raised the idea of a double or parallel currency to run alongside the euro for a period. This would have the effect of driving down living standards through internal devaluation. The break of Argentina from the dollar-peso peg at the turn of the 21st century was accompanied by parallel currencies but this excluded whole groups of society from the monetary system and was accompanied by the reintroduction of barter. There was some discussion on this question in the school and this will continue further.

These points raised discussion in the meeting as to the best demands to put to workers. However, as Lynn Walsh of the IS pointed out, whatever becomes of the euro, socialists in Greece have to demand cancellation of debts, nationalisation of the banks and industry, a rejection of austerity, control of foreign exchange and trade as part of a socialist plan as the only way to defend workers’ living standards.

Golden Dawn threat

The far right in Greece, in the form of Golden Dawn, gained about 7% in the two general elections this year. The rise of the far right and reaction throughout Europe is the other side of the coin of this period to the rise of socialist ideas. Whereas the crisis will force workers to the left, the far right will also gain when the working class organisations do not give a strong enough lead, as has already been seen in Greece, in Hungary with Jobbik, with the votes for the Front National in France and other far-right parties in Europe. Having the correct ideas to take on the far right, which means taking up the social problems they exploit to gain support, is vital for CWI sections.

Other alternative formations have also sprung up where the traditional parties of both right and left have been discredited by their pro-capitalist austerity policies. The successes of the Pirate party in Germany and of the comedian Bepe Grillo’s movement in Italy show the discontent with ‘old’ politics throughout Europe.

The situation in Greece has elements of civil war about it. It is not a coincidence that there have been comparisons with the Weimar Republic in Germany between 1919 and 1933, and particularly the austerity regime of Chancellor Brüning that led to the rise of the Nazis. However, we have to caution that the idea that the capitalists can go directly to military rule or fascism is wrong. The working class will have a number of opportunities before that is posed but socialists need to warn of the dangers if the working class fails to take power.

Spain

Much of the focus of attention recently has passed to Spain, where a situation reminiscent of that prior to the civil war was developing. Austerity measures have provoked a massive reaction, typified by the Asturian miners’ march to Madrid to protest at the slashing of coal subsidies. Prime Minister Rajoy had sent a text during European summit negotiations, protesting at proposed harsh measures, which said: “Spain is not Uganda”. Unfortunately for him, it was pointed out that Uganda’s economy was growing while Spain’s had contracted! The banking crisis had led to guarantees of €100 billion directly to the Spanish banks yet this would do nothing to solve the underlying problems of the economy and the Spanish government would probably need a separate bailout.

The crisis in Spain has also raised the issue of national question. The autonomous regions control almost 40% of public spending and austerity policies will come up against the anger of the nationalities and regions, particularly in Catalonia, the Basque country and even now in Andalusia. What could develop is left nationalism, with struggles against austerity fusing with nationalist sentiments. This conjuncture may also arise in Scotland and Wales, and other European countries. The task of Marxists is to put forward a programme on the national question that links it to the struggle against capitalism and towards socialism.

Francois Hollande won the French presidential elections, and the Socialist Party the assembly elections, promising some concessions, but nothing on the scale of Francois Mitterrand’s presidency that nationalised 38 banks before forced to reverse his policies in the early 1980s. The scepticism towards all parties was shown by the much lower turnout for the elections. The vote was more against Sarkozy and the UMP than pro-Socialist. The significant factor was the rise of the Front de Gauche led by Mélenchon.

Left parties

As the CWI explained from the mid-1990s, the move of the old social-democrat and Labour parties throughout Europe to openly embrace capitalism would leave a space for new formations to put forward socialist ideas. Parties such as Rifondazione Comunista in Italy grew in the 1990s but fell back when they failed to develop clear socialist policies. But the crisis has spurred the formation and enlargement of new left formations, including the Front de Gauche, the Socialist party in the Netherlands, Die Linke in Germany and others. Syriza has been pushed into a position where it is openly challenging for government and could form the next administration in Greece when the current one falls, as it most likely will and probably not after long. The CWI has orientated towards these formations and, while not necessarily mass in numbers yet, electorally they represent a force and workers and youth will join them, or similar organisations, in the future. The CWI will be present in these organisations to give a clear socialist direction to them.

Peter also referred to the situation in Ireland, where the United Left Alliance, including the CWI section, the Socialist Party, now has 5 TDs (members of parliament) and is leading the mass campaign against the household tax. Sinn Fein, the party of Republicanism in Ireland, could become the largest party in the South at the next election, and a stronger socialist contingent could also be elected. As Joe Higgins, one of the Socialist Party TDs pointed out, the Socialist Party has come under attack in sections of the right-wing press, using a spurious pretext of the TDs’ ‘expenses’ for supporting the household tax campaign. The government is intimidating non-payers of the household tax but this campaign could be as big as the poll tax in Britain, which led to the downfall of Prime Minister Thatcher.

Similarly, Britain’s coalition government is riven with divisions and there has been an upsurge in strikes in the public and private sectors. The National Shop Stewards Network is playing an important role in galvanising the trade union movement and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is beginning to make small but important moves forward on the electoral plane.

Europe has become “ungovernable”, as it enters its ‘Japanisation’ phase, a long period of depression. “How much pain can the countries under stress endure? Nobody knows. What would happen if a country left the eurozone? Nobody knows. Might even Germany consider exit? Nobody knows. What is the long-run strategy for exit from the crises? Nobody knows. Given such uncertainty, panic is, alas, rational. A fiat currency backed by heterogeneous sovereigns is irremediably fragile.

Before now, I had never really understood how the 1930s could happen. Now I do.” This was the gloomy prognosis for capitalism of Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. It shows the extreme pessimism of the European capitalist class.

Trade union militancy

Peter concluded that Marxists must root themselves in the situation. The current young generation will be the ‘lucky generation’. For 50 years, the pioneers of Marxism in Europe have seen marvellous developments but would give it all up to participate in current events. We can now look forward to the socialist revolution which is developing in Europe and worldwide.

In his reply to an excellent discussion, Tony Saunois of the IS remarked on the increase in trade union militancy. The general strikes that have taken place have tended to be protests, which some right-wing leaders of the trade unions have been only too eager to choke off. Not yet have these strikes raised the question of power for the working class. This will come in the future, as will the need for workers to get organised politically, either in broad mass formations or revolutionary parties directly. At the moment though, there is still an anti-party mood in most countries of Europe.

The tasks of the CWI include building our own sections but also to fight for new mass parties with demands to transform these new organisations as part of the struggle to transform society. In that way, our sections need to grow into bigger parties and shape events. Tony said we are in a protracted crisis and in a race against time. The key question for the CWI is to face up to the challenges and build our forces to transform society

In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The Archives-From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-Jail the banksters! Nationalize the banks under popular democratic control

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Jail the banksters! Nationalize the banks under popular democratic control
Jul 11, 2012
By SocialistAlternative.org

Below we republish an editorial from the current issue of The Socialist, the newspaper of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales).

In 2008 the Socialist warned that: "the calls for regulation are like asking the bank robbers’ gangs to keep a check on the bank robbers. What is urgently needed is popular control of the major banks and finance houses, not ’oversight’ by unelected quangos and elected capitalist politicians, whose allegiance is to big business." Now the bank robbery has been exposed yet again.


Then, when Britain’s banking system went into meltdown, the government spent £109 billion bailing it out. Since then, in one of the greatest con tricks in history, we’ve been told that it was excessive spending by the public sector and by working class people that was responsible for the crisis.


The only solution, we were told, was for us to accept horrendous cuts in our pay, living standards, and public services. So far, only 15% of the cuts have been carried out.


But this has already resulted in 350,000 public sector workers losing their jobs, huge attacks on public sector pensions, and tens of thousands of the most vulnerable in society being threatened with losing the pittance of benefits they were previously entitled to. As a result suicide is on the increase. Last weekend one desperate man in Birmingham tragically set himself on fire after his benefits were stopped.


Meanwhile, the bankers are still laughing all the way to the bank. The speculators’ and banksters’ bonuses have gone back to pre-crisis levels, not that they slipped so low. From day one the Con-Dem government has set out to give every assistance to its friends in the City of London. The toothless Vickers’ commission, set up to investigate the banks, made only the most minimal proposals, with even these not being introduced until 2019.


Bankers’ party


Cameron’s ’veto’ on the Euro treaty last December was in part an attempt to protect the City of London from even minimal regulation. No wonder. Hedge funds, financiers, and private equity provided 27% of Tory party funding in 2011. Overall the ’Square Mile’ now provides a majority, 51%, of Tory party funding. The Tory party is one of the oldest and historically one of the most successful capitalist parties in the world. That it is now funded by the spivs in the City reflects the reality of British capitalism in the 21st century: where the shots are called not by manufacturing industry - so-called ’productive capitalism’ - but by the short-term gamblers of the financial markets.


Since the banks were bailed out they have singularly failed to carry out the tasks that we were told made them so indispensable. Mortgage lending is down 40% from pre-crisis levels, with banks demanding a 25% deposit. As a result a generation is condemned to short-term, insecure and expensive private lets.


Banks are currently refusing credit to over 40% of small and medium-sized businesses. And, as has been revealed, many of those who were given loans were also mis-sold expensive and risky financial instruments as a condition of the loan. Even the most basic task of managing individuals’ bank accounts has proved beyond NatWest/RBS. Customers of its subsidiary Ulster Bank are still unable to access their bank accounts two weeks after the recent ’computer glitch’ began.


And now this latest scandal lays bare how the banks have been fiddling to maximise their profits. The Libor rate (London interbank lending interest rate) is set by 16 banks daily submitting numbers for the cost of their borrowing. The middle eight figures are then used to set the rate. Barclays lied about their numbers for their own advantage.


There are vast sums of money involved in gambling on interest rates. The Bank of International Settlements estimates that total interest rate derivatives contracts totalled $554 trillion (£357 trillion) in the first half of 2011, many times larger than the world’s entire output!


The fraud had a direct effect on the lives of millions of people. For example, the Libor rate is used to calculate the pricing of mortgages, credit card interest rates, savings accounts and more. Such is the scale of the scandal that Bob Diamond, CEO of Barclays, has finally been forced to resign on 3 July. But there is life after death! The chairman of Barclays, Marcus Aegis who resigned the day before, has now come back!


This farcical reshuffling of the chairs on Barclays’ decks solves nothing. The bankers responsible for this fraud should be jailed. Every one of the financial spivs and speculators should be sacked - with not a penny in pay-offs. However this is not just a question of individuals.


Over the coming days it is likely to be revealed that many more banks were involved in fiddling the Libor rate. It seems clear that the Bank of England knew that this was taking place. Diamond’s resignation is an attempt to prevent the full dirty mess being revealed.


Labour leader Ed Miliband has rightly attacked the government for failing to set up a public inquiry, instead appointing a few MPs to carry out what will undoubtedly be a whitewash.


We demand a public inquiry in the real sense of the word. That is an inquiry where all of the banks’ books are opened to an investigation team made up of trade union representatives, representatives of ordinary mortgage holders, pensioners, and young people.


However, New Labour has no solution to this crisis and is, along with the Con-Dems, culpable for it. In government New Labour continued the ’light touch’ - ie non-existent - regulation of the financial system that had begun under Thatcher. In 2008 New Labour bailed out the banks while leaving the same banksters in charge. Since then they have colluded in the lie that it is public services and public sector workers that are responsible for the economic crisis.


Rotten system


The Socialist is clear - the banking system should be nationalised under democratic popular control. Only on this basis would it be possible to get rid of the spivs and speculators that are holding working class people to ransom. A genuinely nationalised banking sector would be run for the benefit of the majority, rather than for the super-rich.


Those struggling to pay their mortgage would have it converted to an affordable rent; small businesses could get cheap loans, and public works such as a massive house-building programme could be cheaply financed.


The need to build a mass party of working people which stands for this demand as part of a broader socialist programme has never been clearer. As the rotten heart of Britain’s banking system is revealed to millions many will be drawing this conclusion.


We demand:


• A democratic workers’ inquiry into the banking scandals, involving representatives of the trade unions, mortgage holders, pensioners and young people


• Jail the bankers responsible for this fraud. Kick out all the banksters, spivs, and speculators. No compensation or ’ golden handshakes’ for those who caused this crisis


• No more big-business loan sharks! Millions of people have been forced to get into debt just to survive. These debts to be written off


• Cheap mortgages and loans to be provided to individuals on a secure basis, with guaranteed low interest rates


• Nationalise all the banks on the basis of democratic public ownership - run by representatives of banking workers and trade unions, the wider working class, as well as the government. Take them completely out of the hands of the fat cats who made the mess! Compensation should be paid only on the basis of proven need


________________________________________


How would socialism be different?


The banking crisis is a crisis of the capitalist system. Capitalism means private ownership of the big corporations and banks that dominate the economy and the rich getting richer off of our hard work. And it is a system in crisis. In one year, in 2008, $50 trillion of wealth was destroyed worldwide through economic crisis.


Nationalisation of the banking and finance sector, and the big corporations, could allow an elected and accountable socialist government to begin planning production for need and not for profit. Everyone could have a decent job with a living wage, high quality housing and free education.

From TIn Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The Archives-he Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-What Happened to Occupy?

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What Happened to Occupy?
Jun 27, 2012
By Greg Beiter, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587 Shop Steward, Seattle, WA (personal capacity)

SEATTLE--Groupings within the Occupy movement here in Seattle and around the country called for a May 1 "general strike" to protest wealth inequality and corporate dominance.

Over a thousand came out to demonstrate against the underlying logic of the capitalist system. However, midway through the day, some Black Bloc anarchist protesters smashed windows and clashed with police.


The methods used here by a few dozen anarchists contrast with how the Occupy movement operated in its beginnings last fall in New York City. By occupying Zuccotti Park near Wall Street to protest the massive wealth and power disparity in the U.S. and organizing mass marches, the movement attracted active support from workers and youth and the sympathy of tens of millions.


When videos of New York police pepper-spraying non-violent protesters went viral on the internet and were played repeatedly on TV news, Occupy protests spread across the country nearly overnight.


Despite the movement's rapid initial success, as a whole it has not been able to move beyond occupying public spaces. When local authorities broke up encampments, much of the momentum and direction of the movement was further dissipated.


Tens of thousands came out to protests and occupations. But millions more were radicalized by the movement's message and implicit criticism of capitalism. Unfortunately, Occupy today remains a shadow of its former self. This leaves those inspired to action left without an active movement to join to challenge corporate control over society.


It is important to ask: What went wrong? What can activists learn from this experience to build a more effective movement to challenge capitalism and corporate power in the future?


While Occupy was successful at bringing tens of thousands of young people and workers into action, many for their first protests ever, it was not able to mobilize the wider mass of the population - the tens of millions that opinion polls showed sympathized with the movement's message. Mass movements of millions protesting in the streets are what have brought about every progressive social change in U.S. history – from the right to organize a union to civil rights for African Americans.


Why demands are necessary for successful mass struggle


What could Occupy have done to mobilize its widespread sympathy? This was heavily debated amongst Occupy activists. The key question centered on the issue of demands.


Socialists and other activists within the movement argued from the beginning that to mobilize more working and young people into struggle, Occupy would have to adopt specific demands. Occupy needed to be seen as fighting to alleviate the problems that affect them. They could have done this by calling for taxing the rich to stop budget cuts to public services, for a massive public jobs program, and for student debt forgiveness, among other demands.


Unfortunately, some within the movement opposed the idea of unifying demands altogether. Some anarchists and anti-capitalist activists opposed demands that called for reforms within capitalism, arguing that consciousness within the movement was ahead of this.


While it's true that the consciousness of many activists within Occupy was more radical than the rest of society, the key goal of the movement should be to pull the millions sympathetic to the movement closer to it. During certain historical periods, consciousness can rapidly leap forward as millions radicalize under the impact of events. Occupy's sudden spread from New York City to hundreds of other cities was a small example. But a larger part of this process is the movement engaging with the broad masses of the population, those whose consciousness is moving towards the movement but who haven't yet moved into struggle.


Demands are a key tool for transforming passive sympathy into active support, turning a supporter into an activist. By showing people that the movement has taken up the issues that directly affect their lives and is fighting for them, millions more can be drawn into struggle.


A good example of this is the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and '70s. Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights leaders and organizations, for example, demanded an end to segregation and the creation of jobs in black communities as a way of pulling wider layers of sympathetic African American workers and youth into marches, protests, and sit-ins. Just protesting existing conditions wasn't enough to motivate them to make the sacrifices needed in order to enter into the struggle. They needed to hear what the movement was concretely fighting for, what it was demanding that would genuinely improve their daily lives.


Having slogans like "for the 99%" is useful, but that alone won't advance the movement if further demands don't explain how it will fight for the 99%. Recognizing this fact, sections of Occupy in certain areas have built effective struggles around concrete demands and specific attacks on working people. In Minneapolis and other cities, the Occupy Homes campaign has fought foreclosures and prevented banks and police from evicting struggling homeowners. This campaign has directly linked Occupy activists with working people and raised useful demands like reducing outstanding loan principles on "underwater" homes and calling for city- and state-wide moratoriums on home foreclosures.


From reforms to system change


At the same time, one of the best features of Occupy was that it didn't focus on just one area of oppression or exploitation under capitalism, but called into question the entire system. Anarchists also played a useful role inside the movement by pointing out that capitalism was the root cause of most of the daily miseries of our society. They correctly argued for calling out and fighting capitalism itself, not just its symptoms.


However, our movement won't contribute to bringing about an end to capitalism by just declaring that we are against it. We need to raise demands that would massively benefit working and poor people, like heavy taxes on corporate profits and the rich to fund jobs and social programs, a single-payer healthcare system, nationalizing the banks, and investing in renewable energy. This would win over millions of supporters, who could be brought into active struggle for these reforms.


But even these basic progressive changes would be completely intolerable to corporate America, meaning that a consistent struggle for these demands will quickly be confronted with the need to fight the capitalist system itself. The illusion that capitalism can be reformed to be more humane must be shattered. Socialists have a key role to play by pointing out the ways that big business and the profit system function as the key obstacles to achieving the reforms sought by workers and youth and offering the alternative vision of a socialist society.


In terms of concrete strategy to win, this means declaring political independence from both parties of big business so as to continue to fight for demands on the basis of what working people need, not on the basis of what is “politically realistic” in Washington.


Unfortunately, most people don't just wake up one day and decide they're against capitalism and for a socialist alternative. It typically takes struggle and bitter experience. But the first step is drawing them into struggle, where they can see for themselves how the politicians, corporate chiefs, media, and police are not on their side. When confronted with a movement that challenges their power, those within the establishment either attack the movement or attempt to co-opt it for their own gain.


Again, on this count the Civil Rights movement provides valuable lessons. When the movement began in the 1950s and early '60s, most activists fought only for immediate reforms like an end to segregation and the Jim Crow laws in the South. But by the late '60s, after experiencing brutal repression, the assassination of leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, along with still being stuck in the worst jobs, schools, and neighborhoods, over a million black people drew revolutionary conclusions.


We can't just declare we're against capitalism and expect millions to instantly agree. We need to engage in a dialogue with communities on the issues facing them, distill people’s anger, hopes, and aspirations into fighting demands, and then explain what strategies and tactics we think will be necessary to achieve them. We as a movement need to build a bridge from existing consciousness to the need for an alternative to capitalism. This is why we need demands that advance mass consciousness towards the movement in steps, to draw in hundreds and thousands more into action.


If millions were mobilized into the streets, some of the more immediate demands could be won. This would embolden more to enter the struggle, as they drew the conclusion that mass movements can change society.


New and larger mass movements will emerge in the near future. Occupy will serve as an important point of reference for these movements, allowing activists to draw lessons on how to more effectively pull wider layers of working people into struggle.


However, you don't have to wait for the eruption of struggle in the future to influence what shape they will take. You can join Socialist Alternative today and help us build the movements we are involved in now in our schools, workplaces, and communities. A powerful socialist movement will help ensure that the lessons of past movements can be applied to put our struggles on a stronger footing.

In Honor Of The Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-From The Archives-From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-Fight for a Socialist Society!

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Fight for a Socialist Society!
Jul 2, 2012
By Tony Wilsdon

Socialists are for massive investment in new jobs and for retooling the economy to both protect the environment and put all the unemployed back to work. Democratic planning by the majority of society could ensure that everyone has a good job and that the economy provides the products we need.

Every unemployed person is a wasted resource that could be produc­tive in a new socialist economy and society. Full employment would provide a massive increase in wealth. This would allow U.S. society and the global economy to get out of its crisis and provide a living-wage job, decent housing, and quality health care for everyone.


By taking decision-making out of the hands of the owners of the huge energy companies and affiliated industries, socialist policies would be able to not only create tens of millions of new jobs but also transition the economy away from fossil fuels, which are threatening to destroy the planet as we know it.


Nothing short of a planned, full-scale overhaul of the methods by which our society’s goods are produced, distributed and powered will be sufficient to reverse the damage being done to the Earth under capital­ism. In November 2009, Scientific American published “A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables,” showing it is possible to meet humanity’s energy needs from renewable sources.


Socialism is a very simple concept. It is the idea that ordinary work­ing people can run their workplaces, schools, and society without bosses. Workers already make all the products, provide all the services, and distribute all the goods.


The capitalist elite hardly step into the workplace. Their social role has been to pick off the profits and to orchestrate their two corporate parties to ensure their needs are met and there is no challenge to their system. They hoard cash and find new ways to exploit us. Profits are made by exploiting workers and cutting corners to destroy the environment


The majority of working people – the working class – already runs this system. Our power is enormous if we are conscious of it. This coun­try would stop without our labor. Our same labor can build a new and far better society, based not on profit but on mutual cooperation and democratic planning.


In a socialist society, a democratic plan would be drawn up by the majority of the population based on their needs. In that way, the needs and priorities of the people in society can be worked out. A national plan of production, with decision-making taking place at a local, regional, and national level, would then be drawn up to ensure that the economy is restructured to provide for these needs. It’s not a question of a lack of technical skill, as had plagued human societies in the past. We have the technical skill. It’s a question of power and how decisions are made.


In order to change our society, we need to take the wealth of the 500 largest corporations out of the hands of this elite 1% and put it into the hands of the majority of the population. Then we need to have a broad level of participation at a local, state, and national level by ordinary workers – not the millionaires who run our present government – to plan how we would administer this wealth to provide for the needs of the majority. That is genuine socialism.

Happy, Happy Birthday Karl Marx, On The 200th Anniversary Of His Birth-Some Thoughts - From The Archive Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-Ten Reasons Why Progressives Should Not Vote for Obama

Happy, Happy Birthday Karl Marx, On The 200^th Anniversary Of His Birth-Some Thoughts 

A link to NPR’s Christopher Lydon’s Open Source  2018 program on the meaning of Karl Marx in the 21^st century on the 200^th anniversary of his birth:

http://radioopensource.org/marx-at-200/

By Seth Garth

Normally Frank Jackman would be the natural person to do his take on the name, the role, the legacy of one German revolutionary exiled to London after the revolutions of 1848 faded away, Karl Marx, on the 200^th anniversary of his birth in 1818. And Frank at first fought me a little, said he had grabbed a bunch of Marx’s books and pamphlets like the Communist Manifesto and the abridged Das Capital abetted by his friend and colleague Engels’ The Peasant Wars In Germany and Scientific Socialism. No question heavy lifting, heavy reading which our respective youths would have been read until early in the morning page turners but now would seemingly act as a sedative, a sleep aid, at least for me since Frank said it had made him more alert although agreeing that the works were not “read until early in the morning page turners.” Frank’s argument to me at least for his grabbing the assignment was that he had of the two of us been more influenced by Marx’s works and programs and had actually been a supporter of the old time Trotskyist organization the Socialist Workers Party for a while back in the early 1970s after he got out of the Vietnam blood bath American army and was ready to “storm heaven” (his words) to right the wrongs of this wicked old world (my words grabbed via Sam Lowell take) and as well had been doing leftwing commentary since Hector was a pup (somebody unknown’s expression).

Frank then went chapter and verse at me with what he remembered (both from long ago and the recent re-readings) about how he had all his life, all his early life looking for something, some movement to move him, to move us who grew up with him poor as church mice, maybe poorer to a more just world. Had made me laugh, since on some of the stuff I have been right alongside him, when he mentioned the old Student Union for World Goals which a bunch of us had put together in high school. A grouping with a program that was inundated with all the anti-communist, red scare, Cold War platitudes we could find. We basically were a little to the left of Ike, Grandpa Ike, Dwight D. Eisenhower who was President of the United States (POTUS in twitter-speak) in our youth filled with bauble about the virtues of capitalism, although I think we would have been hard pressed to make that word connection and probably said something like prosperity which we had garnered very little of in the now remembered golden age of the 1950s.     

Then as the thaw came, or as people, young people mostly broke the spell of the red scare Cold War night, after we have sown our oats out in the Summer of Love, 1967 and saw some writing on the wall that we were ‘raw meat” for the draft come college graduation day getting hopped up about Robert Kennedy’s ill-fated, ill-starred bid for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination in 1968. I already mentioned the Army experiences which did both of us in for a while but which frankly drove Frank outside bourgeois politics (he had expected that he would tie his wagon to Robert Kennedy and when that idea fell apart with Kennedy’s assassination offering Hubert H. Humphrey his services against the main villain of the ear Richard M. Nixon in the expectation that he would ride that train out of the draft and/or begin the road to a nice sinecure via Democratic Party politics). I am not sure if he began serious reading on Marx in the Army or not but when he got out in 1971 he certainly was doing the “read until the early morning” routine. I grabbed some of his tidbits, associated with some of the radical circles in Cambridge he started to frequent, went down the line with him in Washington on May Day, 1971 where we both got busted but soon after withdrew a bit from both him and serious leftwing politics. I was crazy, still am, for films, for seeking some kind of career as a film critic and so spent more of my time in the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square than protesting on Boston Common. He can address sometime his own withdrawal from left-wing organizational politics and moving on to journalism, political commentary on his own dime.

That is enough of the political justification for Frank’s fighting me on this assignment. Frank, however, took the unusual step, for him anyway, of mentioning his being pissed off about losing the Marx assignment and mentioned it to site manager Greg Green. The guy who gives out the assignment and who has had more than one person, me included, scratching their heads both in the assignments they have gotten of late or like Frank not have gotten. Whatever Frank laid out for Greg he had both of us come in to his office to discuss the issue. You know as much as you need to about Franks’ “cred.”

My frame of reference and what amounted to the winning argument was that I had been Peter Paul Markin’s closest friend in high school. Markin, forever known as Scribe for the obvious reason that he always carried a notebook and pen or pencil in his shirt pocket AND always, always had two thousand facts ready to throw at anybody who would listen, mainly girls, which drove more that one of our corner boy crowd to threaten grievous bodily is the real primary source for whatever we knew about Karl Marx before we went crazy later and started to seriously read the stuff. So I knew the details of how Frank, Frankie Riley, Jimmy Jenkins, Si Lannon and maybe a couple of others first heard about the name and ideas of one Karl Marx and who would later act on them a little. This is where I was a little ahead of Frank knowing that Greg, after taking over as site manager when Allan Jackson was purged from that position, was interested much more in “”human interest” stories than the “tiresome” (his words) esoteric left-wing jargon that he knew Frank would meandering into, no, would get in knee deep.     

(For the record some of the other guys who hung around with Scribe and the rest of us like Ricky Rizzo and Dave Whiting, both who would lay their heads down in hellhole Vietnam and wound up on the town monument and Washington black granite, Red Riley and even Frank Jackman when he was hopped up on that Student Union thing almost lynched him when he started talking favorably about Karl Marx and the idea of red revolution in those dead ass red scare Cold War nights. All they wanted to hear about was whatever intelligence Scribe had on some girl they were interested in of which he somehow almost incongruously had been plenty of information about or what his next plan was for the “midnight creep” which I assume needs no further explanation except he planned the capers but no way would Frankie Riley or the rest of us let him lead the expeditions-hell we would still be in jail.)

Others, including Frank Jackman, have now seemingly endlessly gone over the effect Scribe had on them a little later when the turbulent 1960s we all got caught up in, blew a gasket, in the Summer of Love, 1967 as the culmination of what he also had been talking about for years on those lonely forlorn weekend nights when we hung around good guy Tonio’s Pizza Parlor “up the Downs” in the growing up Acre section of North Adamsville. What most of the guys did not know, or did not want to know, was that a little of what Scribe was thinking at the time, was that maybe Karl Marx might be proven to be right, might have been onto something when he spoke about the working classes, us, getting a big jump ahead in the world once things turned upside down. He held those views  pretty closely then, especially when he was practically red-baited into silence by those guys who were even more hung up, as was Scribe in many ways, on the new normal American negative propaganda about Russia, Communism, and Karl Marx. Nobody, this from later Scribe once he flamed red, was born a radical, a revolutionary, and certainly not a Marxist but certain conditions, among them being as poor as church mice, gave a clue to where some people might go. The intellectuals, although Scribe did not call them that, would come to their Marxism more through books and rational thought than as prime victims of the usually one-sided class struggle of the rich against the poor. That was about as far as Scribe would go, wanted to go, because in many ways, although maybe a little less fulsomely, he wanted to go the same bourgeois politics path as Frank in politics.        

Like I say Scribe described to some of us a glimmer, a faux Marxist primer, then in high school, not at all thought out like it would be by him or us later in the late 1960s and early 1970s when we got back respectively from our tours to the “real” world from ‘Nam and knew we had been fucked over by our government. That the “reds” in Vietnam were poor folk, peasants, with whom we had no quarrel. But that was later.

Here is a better example of the glimmer Scribe shined on us back in the day. I remember one night, it had to be one high school night given the teacher and class he was descripting, Scribe had told me that he had had to stay after school one day for Mr. Donovan, the World History teacher and football coach which tells you what he was about, when Scribe had given a surly answer about some question Mr. Donovan had asked. That surliness coming from two sources, one Donovan having members of the class endlessly reading aloud the freaking book boring everybody within a mile of the room and that he really believed he already knew more about history than Donovan and so was personally bored as well. The question had not been about Marxism but something else and during that afternoon detention Donovan had asked him if he was a “Bolshevik.” Scribe recoiled in horror he said knowing that to say yes would get him in some trouble (probably more after school time at least) and for the simple fact that he could not say truthfully whatever teen angst and alienation he was feeling was driven by that kind of understanding of the world-then.         

What this history teacher confrontation did do was get Scribe looking again, and this tells as much about him as any other anecdote, at his dog-eared copy of Karl Marx’s (and his co-thinker and financial “angel” Friedrich Engels) classic statement of his views The Communist Manifesto to confirm whether he was a “Marxist,” “Communist,” whatever and he came away from that re-reading knowing that he was not one of those guys, a red. That was the kind of guy Scribe was when he was confronted with something he didn’t understand. The rest of us would have said “fuck it” and let it go at that or have challenged old Donovan with a spurious “yeah, what about it.” Maybe some silly remark like “better red than dead” or “my mommy is a commie,” expressions making the rounds in that dead air time.

So this little sketch really is a “human interest” story and not all that much about Marx in any political sense and that is also why I think that Greg bought my argument over Frank’s. Whatever Marx, Marxism, hell, just general radical non-parliamentary socialism held for the 19^th devotees (and bloodthirsty enemies too) extending into the greater part of the 20^th century fell down, went to ground, with the demise of the Soviet Union back in 1991-92, and whatever intellectual curiosity Marx and Marxism held fell down too so other than as an exotic utopian scheme today there is no reason to go chapter and verse on the details of what Marx was programmatically projecting.

To finish up on this sketch though I should like to mention the way Scribe, which again will tell something about the mad monk when he was in his flower, got his copy of the Manifesto back when he was fourteen or fifteen. He had heard for some source, maybe some “beat” over in Harvard Square when he used to go there after a particularly bad day in the mother wars, it was a cool document or something, who knows with Scribe was kind of strange. He couldn’t find the book in either the school or town libraries for the simple fact that neither had the document nor did when he inquired they want to have it in circulation. Yeah it was that kind of time. A friendly young librarian suggested that he try the Government Printing Office which might have a copy if somebody in Congress (like the red-baiter par excellence Senator Joseph McCarthy) or some governmental agency had ordered it printed for whatever reason as part of an investigation or just to put it in the record for some reason. He got the address in Washington and the GPO sent back a brochure with their publications for sale. And there it was. He ordered a copy and a few weeks alter it came in the mail. Here’s the funnier part, funnier that the government providing copies on the cheap (or maybe free I forget what he said on that point) of such a notorious document the document had been placed on the publication list because it was part of the record for the raucous House Un-American Activities Committee meeting in San Francisco in 1960 when they were practically run out of town by protestors as the Cold War began to thaw in certain places. Of course that was a recollection by Scribe later when we were deep into the Summer of Love out in that very town and he had asked some older people what that protest was all about.

Yeah, Scribe was a piece of work and he would eventually drag some of us along with him in his good days like the Summer of Love and later after Vietnam time running around with radical students in Cambridge when checking out Mark and Marxism was all the rage. Like I said old Marx has had his up and downs, has taken his beatings but some things Scribe said he said and which we later read about like the poor getting a better shake because they provided the value provided by their cheap labor were spot on. Worse, in a way when I looked, re-read, for this assignment some of the stuff reads like it could have been written today. How about that.             

Click on the headline to link to the Socialist Alternative (CWI) website.

Ten Reasons Why Progressives Should Not Vote for Obama

June 21, 2012
By Anh Tran, Seattle, Washington

Despite the tremendous hope placed in Barack Obama by millions of people, a glimpse at his first term reveals that he is unwilling to stand up for the interests of the millions because of his ties to the millionaires, big business, and capitalism. Here are ten reasons Obama does not deserve your vote in 2012:


Wall Street and Corporate America fund Obama’s campaigns.
His top contributors in 2008 were the same big banks guilty of causing the housing crisis. He awarded these nearly 80% of his donors with senior-level government jobs (telegraph.co.uk, 6/2011).


Obama bailed out Wall Street…
The bailouts amounted to more than $16 trillion (therawstory.com, 10/2010). Since then, corporate profits accounted for 88% of economic growth and have now exceeded pre-recession profit levels.


...Not working people, students, or homeowners.
Under Obama, the gap between workers’ wages and corporate profits climbed to its highest point since right before the Great Depression (politifact.com, 8/2011), the number of Americans living in poverty increased to 46 million - a 50-year high (LA Times, 9/2011), the total student debt topped $1 trillion (Wall Street Journal, 3/2012), and home foreclosures are projected to rise to 1.5 million (LA Times, 10/2011).


Obama failed to stop massive cuts to education and public services.
His 2011 bipartisan budget deal represented the largest drop ever in U.S. domestic spending, including slashing $493 million from Pell Grants and billions more from education, health, and labor (www.scpr.org, 4/12/2011).


Obama allowed insurance and pharmaceutical companies to dictate the terms of the Affordable Care Act.
Instead of sweeping away the for-profit insurance companies that dominate the dysfunctional health care system, he handed them millions of new customers with a government mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance plans. He even scrapped the public option, despite it having the support of 61% of Americans (CNN, 10/2009).


Obama has continued Bush’s war policies.
He ended “combat operations” in Iraq based on Bush’s timeline, yet he maintains a significant presence through 9,500 private contractors and 3,000 troops. He also increased funding for military spending, escalated the disastrous war in Afghanistan, and intensified drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.


Obama has continued attacks on civil liberties.
He signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite military detention of anyone, anywhere, without charge or trial, including U.S. citizens. He punished more government employee whistle-blowers than any previous president, reauthorized Bush’s Patriot Act, personally oversees a secret kill list that has included U.S. citizens, failed to close Guantanamo Bay, and allows the continuation of the domestic surveillance program against Muslim-Americans.


Obama has deported more immigrants than any other president in any two-year period.
He expanded E-Verify, further militarized the U.S.-Mexican border, and utilized the highly flawed “Secure Communities” program as a key part of his crackdown on undocumented immigrants (Reuters, 9/2011).


Obama has prioritized the interests of Corporate America and oil companies over the environment.
Obama failed to deliver meaningful action on global climate change at the Copenhagen and Durbin summits. He opened the Arctic and the East Coast to offshore drilling, expanded fossil fuel production and fracking, provided loans to build the first nuclear power plant in 30 years, and welcomed the beginning of construction on the Keystone XL pipeline.


Even as the first African American president, Obama has failed to address the social and economic situation of people of color.
African American unemployment increased more than other racial groups under Obama (guardian.co.uk, 10/2011). African American unemployment stands at 13.6% and Latino unemployment at 11%, compared to white unemployment at 7.4% (CNN, 5/2012). Meanwhile, Obama continues to fund the failed “War on Drugs” while doing nothing to address the mass incarceration of African Americans.

From The Marxist Archives-In Commemoration of the Paris Commune by Max Shachtman (When He Was A Revolutionary And Could "Speak" Marxism)

Workers Vanguard No. 980
13 May 2011

In Commemoration of the Paris Commune

(Quote of the Week)

On the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune, we honor the heroic proletarian militants who seized power in the French capital in March 1871, the first historical expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Two months later, amid a reactionary frenzy whipped up by the bourgeoisies of Europe, French troops drowned the Commune in blood, massacring tens of thousands and imprisoning or deporting tens of thousands more. In a 1927 American Communist Party pamphlet, Max Shachtman, quoting from Karl Marx’s 1871 The Civil War in France, outlined the bold measures taken by the Communards, despite shortcomings, to establish workers democracy and begin undertaking socialist measures. Among the Commune’s best militants were members of the International Workingmen’s Association (First International), of which Marx was a principal leader.

The Commune took hold of the old bureaucratic and militarist apparatus, the bourgeois state, and crushed it in its hands, and on its broken fragments it placed the dictatorship of the proletariat, the workingmen of Paris organized as the ruling class of France. With a single stroke it abolished the standing army of the Second Empire and the Third Republic and replaced it with the people’s militia, a force, directly responsible to the Commune, of all the men capable of bearing arms....

The ruling body was based upon a real proletarian democracy, providing for the recall of unsatisfactory representatives, abolishing special allowances, paying all state officials the wages of workers, and realizing that “ideal of all bourgeois revolutions cheap government by eliminating the two largest items of expenditure—the army and the bureaucracy.” The parliamentarism of the bourgeois society was smashed and the Commune transformed itself into a “working corporation legislative and executive at one and the same time,” and held itself up to the provinces of France as the mirror of their own future. Church and State were separated, ecclesiastical property was confiscated and all education secularized.

The pawned property and furniture of the workers were returned, the workers were relieved of the payment of the overdue rents, it abolished the sickening piety of charity and “relief,” and resumed the pay of the National Guard. Thru Frankel, the Internationalist delegate of labor, it took its first steps, however few and unclear, to destroy the system of capitalist production and socialize it by turning it over to the trade unions; to ameliorate the conditions of the workers; to enforce a “fair wage” proviso in Commune contracts and abolish the abominable system of fines and garnisheeing of wages by employers; it planned the institution of the eight-hour day. Its internationalist character was testified to by the Hungarian, Frankel’s presence as delegate of labor, Dombrowski and Wroblewski, the Poles, in the defense.

Its heroic and noble spirit of sacrifice has been left as a revolutionary legacy to the new generations of the avenging proletariat. The Commune was a dim glass in which was reflected the rise of that greater and more powerful dictatorship of the proletariat, the successful proletarian revolution in Russia.

—Max Shachtman, 1871: The Paris Commune (1927)

*From The Archives Of The “Revolutionary History” Journal-The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier-Karl Marx and Jules Guesde

Click on the headline to link to a Marx-Engels Internet Archives post related to this entry

Markin comment:

This is an excellent documentary source for today’s militants to “discovery” the work of our forbears, whether we agree with their programs or not. Mainly not, but that does not negate the value of such work done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.

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The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier-Karl Marx and Jules Guesde

This document was drawn up in May 1880, when French workers’ leader Jules Guesde came to visit Marx in London. The first section was dictated by Marx himself, while the other two parts of minimum political and economic demands were formulated by Marx and Guesde, with assistance from Engels and Paul Lafargue, who with Guesde was to become a leading figure in the Marxist wing of French socialism. The programme was adopted, with certain amendments, by the founding congress of the Parti Ouvrier (PO) at Le Havre in November 1880.

Concerning the programme Marx wrote: ‘this very brief document in its economic section consists solely of demands that actually have spontaneously arisen out of the labour movement itself. There is in addition an introductory passage where the communist goal is defined in a few lines.’ Engels described the first, maximum section, as ‘a masterpiece of cogent argumentation rarely encountered, clearly and succinctly written for the masses; I myself was astonished by this concise formulation’ and he later recommended the economic section to the German social democrats in his critique of the draft of the 1891 Erfurt Programme. After the programme was agreed, however, a clash arose between Marx and his French supporters arose over the purpose of the minimum section. Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: ‘Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism.’ The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, ‘free the proletariat ‘of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ‘89’. Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of ‘revolutionary phrase-mongering’ and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, ‘ce qu’il y a de certain c’est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste’ (‘what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist’).

The introductory, maximum section of the PO programme appears in the Penguin collection of Marx’s political writings, The First International and After, in a translation from the German text in the Marx-Engels Werke. So far as we know the rest of the programme has not been published in English before. The translation which appears here is from the original French version in Jules Guesde, Textes Choisis, 1867-1882, Editions sociales, 1959, pp.117-9. We are grateful to Bernie Moss for providing a copy of the text.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Programme of the Workers Party
Considering,

That the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race; That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production (land, factories, ships, banks, credit);

That there are only two forms under which the means of production can belong to them

(1) The individual form which has never existed in a general state and which is increasingly eliminated by industrial progress;

(2) The collective form the material and intellectual elements of which are constituted by the very development of capitalist society;

Considering,

That this collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat – organised in a distinct political party;

That a such an organisation must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation;

The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organisation and struggle, to enter the elections with the following immediate demands:

A. Political Section
(1) Abolition of all laws over the press, meetings and associations and above all the law against the International Working Men’s Association. Removal of the livret, that administrative control over the working class, and of all the articles of the Code establishing the inferiority of the worker in relation to the boss, and of woman in relation to man

(2) Removal of the budget of the religious orders and the return to the nation of the ‘goods said to be mortmain, moveable and immoveable’ (decree by the Commune of 2 April 1871), including all the industrial and commercial annexes of these corporations;

(3) Suppression of the public debt;

(4) Abolition of standing armies and the general arming of the people;

(5) The Commune to be master of its administration and its police.

B. Economic Section
(1) One rest day each week or legal ban on employers imposing work more than six days out of seven. – Legal reduction of the working day to eight hours for adults. – A ban on children under fourteen years working in private workshops; and, between fourteen and sixteen years, reduction of the working day from eight to six hours;

(2) Protective supervision of apprentices by the workers’ organisations;

(3) Legal minimum wage, determined each year according to the local price of food, by a workers’ statistical commission

(4) Legal prohibition of bosses employing foreign workers at a wage less than that of French workers;

(5) Equal pay for equal work, for workers of both sexes;

(6) Scientific and professional instruction of all children, with their maintenance the responsibility of society, represented by the state and the Commune;

(7) Responsibility of society for the old and the disabled;

(8) Prohibition of all interference by employers in the administration of workers’ friendly societies, provident societies, etc., which are returned to the exclusive control of the workers;

(9) Responsibility of the bosses in the matter of accidents, guaranteed by a security paid by the employer into the workers’ funds, and in proportion to the number of workers employed and the danger that the industry presents;

(10) Intervention by the workers in the special regulations of the various workshops; an end to the right usurped by the bosses to impose any penalty on their workers in the form of fines or withholding of wages (decree by the Commune of 27 April 1871);

(11) Annulment of all the contracts that have alienated public property (banks, railways, mines, etc.), and the exploitation of all state-owned workshops to be entrusted to the workers who work there;

(12) Abolition of all indirect taxes and transformation of all direct taxes into a progressive tax on incomes over 3,000 francs. Suppression of all inheritance on a collateral line and of all direct inheritance over 20,000 francs.


Editorial Notes
1.Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1975, p.312.

2. Ibid., p.324.

3. Engels, Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891, in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1983, Vol.3, p.438.

4. Bernard H. Moss, The Origins of the French Labour Movement, 1830-1914, 1976, p.107.

5. Ibid., p.11

6. Marx’s famous remark, quoted by Engels in a letter to Eduard Bemstein, can be found in Marx and Engels, Werke, Vol. 35. p.388. The ‘livret’ was a certificate which a worker was legally obliged to present when taking up a new job, confirming that his debts and obligations to his previous employer had been discharged. The practice was finally abolished in 1890.

7. The Code Napoleon, the French law.

8. i.e. not by direct descendants.

From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-From The Pen Of Revolutionary Socialist James Connolly- The Workshop Talks - Socialism Made Easy (1909)

From The Pages Of The Socialist Alternative Press-From The Pen Of  Revolutionary Socialist James Connolly- The Workshop Talks - Socialism Made Easy (1909)

Click on the headline to link to the Socialist Alternative (CWI) website.

******
The Workshop Talks - Socialism Made Easy

by James Connolly

First Published: 1909


Socialism is a foreign importation!

* * *
I know it because I read it in the papers. I also know it to be the case because in every country I have graced with my presence up to the present time, or have heard from, the possessing classes through their organs in the press, and their spokesmen upon the platform have been vociferous and insistent in declaring the foreign origin of Socialism.
* * *
In Ireland Socialism is an English importation, in England they are convinced it was made in Germany, in Germany it is a scheme of traitors in alliance with the French to disrupt the Empire, in France it is an accursed conspiracy to discredit the army which is destined to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine, in Russia it is an English plot to prevent Russian extension towards Asia, in Asia it is known to have been set on foot by American enemies of Chinese and Japanese industrial progress, and in America it is one of the baneful fruits of unrestricted pauper and criminal immigration.
* * *
All nations today repudiate Socialism, yet Socialist ideas are conquering all nations. When anything has to be done in a practical direction toward ameliorating the lot of the helpless ones, or towards using the collective force of society in strengthening the hands of the individual it is sure to be in the intellectual armory of Socialists the right weapon is found for the work.

A case in point

There are tens of thousands of hungry children in New York today as in every other large American city, and many well-meant efforts have been made to succour them. Free lunches have been opened in the poorest districts, bread lines have been established and charitable organisations are busy visiting homes and schools to find out the worst cases. But all this has only touched the fringe of the destitution, with the additional aggravation that anything passing through the hands of these charitable committees usually cost ten times as much for administration as it bestows on the object of its charity.
* * *
Also that the investigation is usually more effectual in destroying the last vestiges of self-respect in its victims than in succouring their needs.
* * *
In the midst of this difficulty Superintendent Maxwell of the New York Schools sends a letter to a committee of thirteen charitable organizations which had met together to consider the problem, and in this letter he advocates the method of relieving distress long since initiated by the Socialist representatives in the Municipality of Paris. I quote from the New York World:

"A committee of seven was appointed to inquire more fully into the question of feeding school children and to report at a subsequent meeting. School Superintendent Maxwell sent a letter advocating the establishment in New York schools with city money of lunch kitchens, these to sell food at actual cost and to give to needy children tickets just like those paid for, to the end that no child might know that his fellow was eating at the expense of the city by the color of his ticket. This is done in Paris."


Contrast this solicitude for the self-respect of the poor children, recognized by Superintendent Maxwell in the plan of these "foreign Socialists" with the insulting methods of the capitalist "bread lines" and charitable organizations in general.
* * *
But all the same it is too horible to take practical examples in relieving the distress caused by capitalist society from pestilent agitators who wish to destroy the society whose victims they are succouring, and mere foreigners, too. The capitalist method of parading mothers and children for an hour in the street befofe feeding them is more calculated to build up the proper degree of pride in the embryo American citizens; and make them appreciate the benefits their fathers and brothers are asked to vote for.
* * *
Read this telling how hungry children and mothers stood patiently waiting for a meal on the sidewalk, and whoop it up for pure ecstacy of joy that you are permitted to live in a system of society wherein a great metropolitan daily thought that the fact of five hundred children getting a "hearty luncheon" was remarkable enough to deserve a paragraph:

"Five hundred ill-fed children who attend the schools on the lower east side got a hearty luncheon yesterday when the first of the children's lunchrooms was opened at Canal and Forsyth streets. Long before noon there was a large gathering of children, some of them accompanied by their mothers, awaiting the opening of the doors."

Well, I am not interested in internationalism. This country is good enough for me.

Is that so? Say: Are you taking a share in the Moscow Windau-Rydinsk Railway?
* * *
"No, where is that?"

My dear friend, where that railway runs has nothing to do with you. What you have to do is simply to take a share, and then go and have a good time whilst the Russian railway workers, whom you do not know, working in a country you never saw, speaking a language you don't understand, earn your dividend by the sweat of their brows.
* * *
Curious, ain't it?

We Socialists are always talking about the international solidarity of labour, about the oneness of our interests all over the world, and ever and anon working off our heaving chests a peroration on the bonds of fraternal sympathy which should unite the wage slaves of the capitalist system.

But there is another kind of bond - Russian railway bonds - which join, not the workers, but the idlers of the world in fraternal sympathy, and which creates among the members of the capitalist class a feeling of identity of interest, of international solidarity, which they don't perorate about but which is most potent and effective notwithstanding.
* * *
You do not fully recognise the fact that the internationality of Socialism is at most but a lame and halting attempt to create a counterpoise to the internationality of capitalism. Yet so it is.


Here is a case in point. The Moscow-Windau-Rydinsk railway is, as its name indicates, a railway running, or proposed to be run, from one part of Russia to another. You would think that that concerned the Russian people only, and that our patriotic capitalist class, always so ready to declare against working class Socialists with international sympathies, would never look at it or touch it.
* * *
You would not think that Ireland, for example - whose professional patriots are forever telling the gullible working men that Ireland will be ruined for the lack of capital and enterprise - would be a good country to find money in to finance a Russian railway.
* * *
Yet, observe the fact. All the Dublin papers of Monday, June 12, 1899, contained the prospectus of this far away Russian railway, offered for the investment of Irish capitalists, and offered by a firm of London stockbrokers who are astute enough not to waste money in endeavouring to catch fish in waters where they were not in the habit of biting freely.

And in the midst of the Russian revolution (of 1905) the agents of the Czar succeeded in obtaining almost unlimited treasures in the United States to pay the expenses of throttling the infant Liberty.

As the shares in Russian railways were sold in Ireland, as Russian bonds were sold in America, so the shares in American mines, railroads and factories are bought and sold on all the stock exchanges in Europe and Asia by men who never saw America in their lifetime.

Now, let us examine the situation, keeping in mind the fact that this is but a type of what prevails all round; you can satisfy yourself on that head by a daily glance at our capitalist papers.

Capital is International

The shares of Russian railways, African mines, Nicaraguan canals, Chilian gas works, Norwegian timber, Mexican water works, Canadian fur trappings, Australian kanaka slave trade, Indian tea plantations, Japanese linen factories, Chinese cotton mills, European national and municipal debts, United States bonanza farms are bought and sold every day by investors, many of whom never saw any one of the countries in which their money is invested, but who have, by virtue of so investing, a legal right to a share of the plunder extracted under the capitalist system from the wage workers whose bone and sinew earn the dividends upon the bonds they have purchased.

When our investing classes purchase a share in any capitalist concern, in any country whatsoever, they do so, not in order to build up a useful industry, but because the act of purchase endows them with a prospective share of the spoils it is proposed to wring from labour.

Therefore, every member of the investing classes is interested to the extent of his investments, present or prospective, in the subjection of Labour all over the world.

That is the internationality of Capital and Capitalism.

The wage worker is oppressed under this system in the interest of a class of capitalist investors who may be living thousands of miles away and whose very names are unknown to him.

He is, therefore, interested in every revolt of Labour all over the world, for the very individuals against whom that revolt may be directed may - by the wondrous mechanism of the capitalist system - through shares, bonds, national and municipal debts - be the parasites who are sucking his blood also.

That is one of the underlying facts inspiring the internationalism of Labour and Socialism.

But the Socialist proposals, they say, would destroy the individual character of the worker. He would lean on the community, instead of upon his own efforts.

Yes: Giving evidence before the Old Age Pensions' Committee in England, Sir John Dorrington, M.P., expressed the belief that the "provision of Old Age Pensions by the State, for instance, would do more harm than good. It was an objectionable principle, and would lead to improvidence."

There now! You will always observe that it is some member of what an Irish revolutionist called "the canting, fed classes," who is anxious that nothing should be done by the State to give the working class habits of "improvidence," or to do us any "harm." Dear, kind souls!

To do them justice they are most consistent. For both in public and private their efforts are most whole-heartedly bent in the same direction, viz., to prevent improvidence - on our part.

They lower our wages - to prevent improvidence; they increase our rent - to prevent improvidence, they periodically suspend us from our employment - to prevent improvidence, and as soon as we are worn out in their service they send us to a semi-convict establishment, known as the Workhouse, where we are scientifically starved to death - to prevent improvidence.

Old Age Pensions might do us harm. Ah, yes! And yet, come to think of it, I know quite a number of people who draw Old Age Pensions and it doesn't do them a bit of harm. Strange, isn't it?

Then all the Royal Families have pensions, and they don't seem to do them any harm; royal babies, in fact, begin to draw pensions and milk from a bottle at the same time.

Afterwards they drop the milk, but they never drop the pension - nor the bottle.

Then all our judges get pensions, and are not corrupted thereby - at least not more than usual. In fact, all well-paid officials in governmental or municipal service get pensions, and there are no fears expressed that the receipt of the same may do them harm.

But the underpaid, overworked wage-slave. To give him a pension would ruin his moral fibre, weaken his stamina, debase his manhood, sap his integrity, corrupt his morals, check his prudence, emasculate his character, lower his aspirations, vitiate his resolves, destroy his self-reliance, annihilate his rectitude, corrode his virility - and - and - other things.
* * *
Let us be practical. We want something pr-r-ractical.

Always the cry of hum-drum mediocrity, afraid to face the stern necessity for uncompromising action. That saying has done more yeoman service in the cause of oppression than all its avowed supporters.

The average man dislikes to be thought unpractical, and so, while frequently loathing the principles or distrusting the leaders of the particular political party he is associated with, declines to leave them, in the hope that their very lack of earnestness may be more fruitful of practical results than the honest outspokenness of the party in whose principles he does believe.

In the phraseology of politics, a party too indifferent to the sorrow and sufferings of humanity to raise its voice in protest, is a moderate, practical party; whilst a party totally indifferent to the personality of leaders, or questions of leadership, but hot to enthusiasm on every question affecting the well-being of the toiling masses, is an extreme, a dangerous party.

Yet, although it may seem a paradox to say so, there is no party so incapable of achieving practical results as an orthodox political party; and there is no party so certain of placing moderate reforms to its credit as an extreme - a revolutionary party.

The possessing classes will and do laugh to scorn every scheme for the amelioration of the workers so long as those responsible for the initiation of the scheme admit as justifiable the "rights of property"; but when the public attention is directed towards questioning the justifiable nature of those "rights" in themselves, then the master class, alarmed for the safety of their booty, yield reform after reform - in order to prevent revolution.

Moral - Don't be "practical" in politics. To be practical in that sense means that you have schooled yourself to think along the lines, and in the grooves those who rob you would desire you to think.

In any case it is time we got rid of all the cant about "politics" and "constitutional agitation" in general. For there is really no meaning whatever in those phrases.

Every public question is a political question. The men who tell us that Labour questions, for instance, have nothing to do with politics, understand neither the one nor the other. The Labour Question cannot be settled except by measures which necessitate a revision of the whole system of society, which, of course, implies political warfare to secure the power to effect such revision:

If by politics we understand the fight between the outs and ins, or the contest for party leadership, then Labour is rightly supremely indifferent to such politics, but to the politics which centre round the question of property and the administration thereof Labour is not, cannot be, indifferent.

To effect its emancipation Labour must reorganise society on the basis of labour; this cannot be done while the forces of government are in the hands of the rich, therefore the governing power must be wrested from the hands of the rich peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary.

In the phraseology of the master class and its pressmen the trade unionist who is not a Socialist is more practical than he who is, and the worker who is neither one nor the other but can resign himself to the state of slavery in which he was born, is the most practical of all men.

The heroes and martyrs who in the past gave up their lives for the liberty of the race were not practical, but they were heroes all the same.

The slavish multitude who refused to second their efforts from a craven fear lest their skins might suffer were practical, but they were soulless serfs, nevertheless.

Revolution is never practical - until the hour of the Revolution strikes. Then it alone is practical, and all the efforts of the conservatives and compromisers become the most futile and visionary of human imaginings.

For that hour, let us work, think and hope; for that hour let us pawn our present ease in hopes of a glorious redemption; for that hour let us prepare the hosts of Labour with intelligence sufficient to laugh at the nostrums dubbed practical by our slave-lords, practical for the perpetuation of our slavery; for that supreme crisis of human history let us watch, like sentinels, with weapons ever ready, remembering always that there can be no dignity in Labour until Labour knows no master.
* * *
Would you confiscate the property of the capitalist class and rob men of that which they have, perhaps, worked a whole life time to accumulate?

Yes sir, and certainly not.

We would certainly confiscate the property of the capitalist class, but we do not propose to rob anyone. On the contrary, we propose to establish honesty once and forever as the basis of our social relations. This Socialist movement is indeed worthy to be entitled The Great Anti-Theft Movement of the Twentieth Century.

You see, confiscation is one great certainty of the future for every businessman outside the trust. It lies with him to say if it will be confiscation by the Trust in the interest of the Trust, or confiscation by Socialism in the interest of All.

If he resolves to continue to support the capitalist order of society he will surely have his property confiscated. After having, as you say, "worked for a whole lifetime to accumulate" a fortune, to establish a business on what he imagined would be a sound foundation, on some fine day the Trust will enter into competition with him, will invade his market, use their enormous capital to undersell him at ruinous prices, take his customers from him, ruin his business, and finally drive him into bankruptcy, and perhaps to end his days as a pauper.

That is capitalist confiscation! It is going on all around us, and every time the business man who is not a Trust Magnate votes for capitalism, he is working to prepare that fate for himself.

On the other hand, if he works for Socialism it also will confiscate his property. But it will only do so in order to acquire the industrial equipment necessary to establish a system of society in which the whole human race will be secured against the fear of want for all time, a system in which all men and women will be joint heirs and owners of all the intellectual and material conquests made possible by associated effort.

Socialism will confiscate the property of the capitalist and in return will secure the individual against poverty and oppression; it, in return for so confiscating, will assure to all men and women a free, happy and unanxious human life. And that is more than capitalism can assure anyone to-day.

So you see the average capitalist has to choose between two kinds of confiscation. One or the other he must certainly endure. Confiscation by the Trust and consequently bankruptcy, poverty and perhaps pauperism in his old age, or --

Confiscation by Socialism and consequently security, plenty and a Care-Free Life to him and his to the remotest generation.

Which will it be?

But it is their property. Why should Socialists confiscate it?

Their property, eh? Let us see: Here is a cutting from the New York World giving a synopsis of the Annual Report of the Coats Thread Company of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, for 1907. Now, let us examine it, and bear in mind that this company is the basis of the Thread Trust, with branches in Paisley, Scotland, and on the continent of Europe.

Also bear in mind that it is not a "horrible example," but simply a normal type of a normally conducted industry, and therefore what applies to it will apply in a greater or less degree to all others.

This report gives the dividend for the year at 20 per cent per annum. Twenty per cent dividend means 20 cents on the dollar profit. Now, what is a profit?

According to Socialists, profit only exists when all other items of production are paid for. The workers by their labour must create enough wealth to pay for certain items before profit appears. They must pay for the cost of raw material, the wear and tear of machine-ry, buildings, etc. (the depreciation of capital), the wages of superintendence, their own wages, and a certain amount to be left aside as a reserve fund to meet all possible contingencies. After, and only after, all these items have been paid for by their labour, all that is left is profit.

With this company the profit amounted to 20 cents on every dollar invested.

What does this mean? It means that in the course of five years - five times 20 cents equals one dollar - the workers in the industry had created enough profit to buy the whole industry from its present owners. It means that after paying all the expenses of the factory, including their own wages, they created enough profit to buy the whole building, from the roof to the basement, all the offices and agencies, and everything in the shape of capital. All this in five years.

And after they had so bought it from the capitalists it still belonged to the capitalists.

It means that if a capitalist had invested $1,000 in that industry, in the course of five years he would draw out a thousand dollars, and still have a thousand dollars lying there untouched; in the course of ten years he would draw two thousand dollars, in fifteen years he would draw three thousand dollars. And still his first thousand dollars would be as virgin as ever.

You understand that this has been going on ever since the capitalist system came into being; all the capital in the world has been paid for by the working class over and over again, and we are still creating it, and recreating it. And the oftener we buy it the less it belongs to us.

The capital of the master class is not their property; it is the unpaid labour of the working class - "the hire of the labourer kept back by fraud."

Oh, the capitalist has his anxieties too. And the worker has often a good time.

Sure: Say, where were you for the holidays?
* * *
Were you tempted to go abroad? Did you visit Europe? Did you riot, in all the abandonment of a wage slave let loose, among the pleasure haunts of the world?

Perhaps you went to the Riviera; perhaps you luxuriated in ecstatic worship of that glorious bit of nature's handiwork where the blue waters of the Mediterranean roll in all their entrancing splendor against the shores of classic Italy.
* * *
Perhaps you rambled among the vine-clad hills of sunny France, and visited the spots hallowed by the hand of that country's glorious history.
* * *
Perhaps you sailed up the castellated Rhine, toasted the eyes of bewitching German frauleins in frothy German beer, explored the recesses of the legend haunted Hartz mountains, and established a nodding acquaintance with the Spirit of the Brocken.

Perhaps you traversed the lakes and fjords of Norway, sat down in awe before the neglected magnificence of the Alhambra, had a cup of coffee with Menelik of Abyssinia, smelt afar off the odors of the streets of Morocco, climbed the Pyramids of Egypt, shared the hospitable tent of the Bedouin, visited Cyprus, looked in at Constantinople, ogled the dark-eyed beauties of Circassia, rubbed up against the Cossack in his Ural mountains, or...

Perhaps you lay in bed all day in order to save a meal, and listened to your wife wondering how she could make ends meet with a day's pay short in the weekly wages.

And whilst you thus squandered your substance in riotous living, did you ever stop to think of your master - your poor, dear, overworked, tired master?
* * *
Did you ever stop to reflect upon the pitiable condition of that individual who so kindly provides you with employment, and does no useful work himself in order that you may get plenty of it?
* * *
When you consider how hard a task it was for you to decide in what manner you should spend your Holiday; where you should go for that ONE DAY, then you must perceive how hard it is for your masters to find a way in which to spend the practically perpetual holiday which you force upon them by your love for work.
* * *
Ah, yes, that large section of our masters who have realised that ideal of complete idleness after which all our masters strive, those men who do not work, never did work, and with the help of God and the ignorance of the people - never intend to work, how terrible must be their lot in life!
* * *
We, who toil from early morn till late at night, from January till December, from childhood to old age, have no care or trouble or mental anxiety to cross our mind - except the landlord, the fear of loss of employment, the danger of sickness, the lack of common necessities, to say nothing of luxuries, for our children, the insolence of our superiors, the unhealthy condition of our homes, the exhausting nature of our toil, the lack of all opportunities of mental cultivation, and the ever-present question whether we shall shuffle off this mortal coil in a miserable garret, be killed by hard work, or die in the Poorhouse.

With these trifling exceptions we have nothing to bother us; but the boss, ah, the poor, poor boss!

He has everything to bother him. Whilst we are amusing ourselves in the hold of a ship shoveling coal, swinging a hammer in front of a forge, toiling up a ladder with bricks, stitching until our eyes grow dim at the board, gaily riding up and down for twelve hours per day, seven days per week, on a trolley car, riding around the city in all weather with teams or swinging by the skin of our teeth on the iron framework of a skyscraper, standing at our ease OUTSIDE the printing office door listening to the musical click of the linotype as it performs the work we used to do INSIDE, telling each other comforting stories about the new machinery which takes our places as carpenters, harness-makers, tinplate-workers, labourers, etc., in short whilst we are enjoying ourselves, free from all mental worry.

Our unselfish tired-out bosses are sitting at home, with their feet on the table, softly patting the bottom button of their vests.

Working with their brains.

Poor bosses! Mighty brains!

Without our toil they would never get the education necessary to develop their brains; if we were not defrauded by their class of the fruits of our toil we could provide for education enough to develop the mental powers of all, and so deprive the ruling class of the last vestige of an excuse for clinging to mastership, viz., their assumed intellectual superiority.

I say "assumed," because the greater part of the brainwork of industry today is performed by men taken from the ranks of the workers, and paid high salaries in proportion as they develop expertness as slave-drivers.

As education spreads among the people the workers will want to enjoy life more; they will assert their right to the full fruits of their labour, and by that act of self-assertion lay the foundation of that Socialist Republic in which labour will be so easy, and the reward so great, that life will seem a perpetual holiday.
* * *
But Socialism is against religion. I can't be a Socialist and be a Christian.
O, quit your fooling! That talk is all right for those who know nothing of the relations between capital and labour, or are innocent of any knowledge of the processes of modern industry, or imagine that men, in their daily struggles for bread or fortunes, are governed by the Sermon on the Mount.

But between workingmen that talk is absurd. We know that Socialism bears upon daily life in the workshop, and that religion does not; we know that the man who never set foot in a church in his lifetime will, if he is rich, be more honored by Christian society than the poor man who goes to church every Sunday, and says his prayers morning and evening; we know that the capitalists of all religions pay more for the service of a good lawyer to keep them out of the clutches of the law than for the services of a good priest to keep them out of the clutches of the devil; and we never heard a capitalist, who, in his business, respected the Sermon on the Mount as much as he did the decisions of the Supreme Court.

These things we know. We also know that neither capitalist nor worker can practice the moral precepts of religion, and without its moral precepts a religion is simply a sham. If a religion cannot enforce its moral teachings upon its votaries it has as little relation to actual life as the pre-election promises of a politician have to legislation.

We know that Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourselves, but we also know that if a capitalist attempted to run his business upon that plan his relatives would have no difficulty in getting lawyers, judges and physicians to declare him incompetent to conduct his affairs in the business world.

He would not be half as certain of reaching Heaven in the next world as he would be of getting into the "bughouse" in this.

And, as for the worker. Well, in the fall of 1908, the New York World printed an advertisement for a teamster in Brooklyn, wages to be $12 per week. Over 700 applicants responded. Now, could each of these men love their neighbours in that line of hungry competitors for that pitiful wage?

As each man stood in line in that awful parade of misery could he pray for his neighbour to get the job, and could he be expected to follow up his prayer by giving up his chance, and so making certain the prolongation of the misery of his wife and little ones?

No, my friend, Socialism is a bread and butter question. It is a question of the stomach; it is going to be settled in the factories, mines and ballot boxes of this country and is not going to be settled at the altar or in the church.

This is what our well-fed friends call a "base, material standpoint," but remember that beauty and genius and art and poetry and all the finer efflorescences of the higher nature of man can only be realised in all their completeness upon the material basis of a healthy body, that not only an army but the whole human race marches upon its stomach, and then you will grasp the full wisdom of our position.

That the question to be settled by Socialism is the effect of private ownership of the means of production upon the well-being of the race; that we are determined to have a straight fight upon the question between those who believe that such private ownership is destructive of human well-being and those who believe it to be beneficial, that as men of all religions and of none are in the ranks of the capitalists, and men of all religions and of none are on the side of the workers the attempt to make religion an issue in the question is an intrusion, an impertinence and an absurdity.

Personally I am opposed to any system wherein the capitalist is more powerful than God Almighty. You need not serve God unless you like, and may refuse to serve Him and grow fat, prosperous and universally respected. But if you refuse to serve the capitalist your doom is sealed; misery and poverty and public odium await you.

No worker is compelled to enter a church and to serve God; every worker is compelled to enter the employment of a capitalist and serve him.

As Socialists we are concerned to free mankind from the servitude forced upon them as a necessity of their life; we propose to allow the question of all kinds of service voluntarily rendered to be settled by the emancipated human race of the future.

I do not deny that Socialists often leave the church. But why do they do so? Is their defection from the church a result of our attitude towards religion; or is it the result of the attitude of the church and its ministers towards Socialism?

Let us take a case in point, one of those cases that are being paralleled every day in our midst. An Irish Catholic joins the Socialist movement. He finds that as a rule the Socialist men and women are better educated than their fellows; he finds that they are immensely cleaner in speech and thought than are the adherents of capitalism in the same class; that they are devoted husbands and loyal wives, loving and cheerful fathers and mothers, skilful and industrious workers in the shops and office, and that although poor and needy as a rule, yet that they continually bleed themselves to support their cause, and give up for Socialism what many others spend in the saloon.

He finds that a drunken Socialist is as rare as a white blackbird, and that a Socialist of criminal tendencies is such a rare avis that when one is found the public press heralds it forth as a great discovery.

Democratic and republican jailbirds are so common that the public press do not regard their existence as "news" to anybody, nor yet does the public press think it necessary to say that certain criminals belong to the Protestant or Catholic religions. That is nothing unusual, and therefore not worth printing. But a criminal Socialist - that would be news indeed!

Our Irish Catholic Socialist gradually begins to notice these things. He looks around and he finds the press full of reports of crimes, murders, robberies, bank swindlers, forgeries, debauches, gambling transactions, and midnight orgies in which the most revolting indecencies are perpetrated. He investigates and he discovers that the perpetrators of these crimes were respectable capitalists, pillars of society, and red-hot enemies of Socialism, and that the dives in which the highest and the lowest meet together in a saturnalia of vice contribute a large proportion of the campaign funds of the capitalist political parties.

Some Sunday he goes to Mass as usual, and he finds that at Gospel the priest launches out into a political speech and tells the congregation that the honest, self-sacrificing, industrious, clean men and women, whom he calls "comrades" are a wicked, impious, dissolute sect, desiring to destroy the home, to distribute the earnings of the provident among the idle and lazy of the world, and reveling in all sorts of impure thoughts about women.

And as this Irish Catholic Socialist listens to this foul libel, what wonder if the hot blood of anger rushes to his face, and he begins to believe that the temple of God has itself been sold to the all-desecrating grasp of the capitalist?

While he is yet wondering what to think of the matter, he hears that his immortal soul will be lost if he fails to vote for capitalism, and he reflects that if he lined up with the brothel keepers, gambling house proprietors, race track swindlers, and white slave traders to vote the capitalist ticket, this same priest would tell him he was a good Catholic and loyal son of the church.

At such a juncture the Irish Catholic Socialist often rises up, goes out of the church and wipes its dust off his feet forever. Then we are told that Socialism took him away from the church. But did it? Was it not rather the horrible spectacle of a priest of God standing up in the Holy Presence lying about and slandering honest men and women, and helping to support polidcal parties whose campaign fund in every large city represents more bestiality than ever Sodom and Gomorrah knew?

These are the things that drive Socialists from the church, and the responsibility for every soul so lost lies upon those slanderers and not upon the Socialist movement.
* * *
Well, you won't get the Irish to help you. Our Irish-American leaders tell us that all we Irish in this country ought to stand together and use our votes to free Ireland.

Sure, let us free Ireland!

Never mind such base, carnal thoughts as concern work and wages, healthy homes, or lives unclouded by poverty.

Let us free Ireland!

The rackrenting landlord; is he not also an Irishman, and wherefore should we hate him? Nay, let us not speak harshly of our brother - yea, even when he raises our rent.

Let us free Ireland !

The profit-grinding capitalist, who robs us of three-fourths of the fruits of our labour, who sucks the very marrow of our bones when we were young, and then throws us out in the street, like a worn-out tool, when we are grown prematurely old in his service, is he not an Irishman, and mayhap a patriot, and wherefore should we think harshly of him?

Let us free Ireland!

"The land that bred and bore us." And the landlord who makes us pay for permission to live upon it.

Whoop it up for liberty!

"Let us free Ireland," says the patriot, who won't touch Socialism.

Let us all join together and cr-r-rush the br-r-rutal Saxon. Let us all join together, says he, all classes and creeds.

And, says the town worker, after we have crushed the Saxon and freed Ireland, what will we do?

Oh, then you can go back to your slums, same as before.

Whoop it up for liberty!

And, says the agricultural workers, after we have freed Ireland, what then?

Oh, then you can go scraping around for the landlord's rent or the money-lenders' interest same as before.

Whoop it up for liberty!

After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won't touch Socialism, we will protect all classes, and if you won't pay your rent you will be evicted same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic.

Now, isn't that worth fighting for?

And when you cannot find employment, and, giving up the struggle of life in despair, enter the Poorhouse, the band of the nearest regiment of the Irish army will escort you to the Poorhouse door to the tune of "St. Patrick's Day."

Oh, it will be nice to live in those days!

"With the Green Flag floating o'er us" and an ever-increasing army of unemployed workers walking about under the Green Flag, wishing they had something to eat. Same as now!

Whoop it up for liberty!

Now, my friend, I also am Irish, but I'm a bit more logical. The capitalist, I say, is a parasite on industry; as useless in the present stage of our industrial development as any other parasite in the animal or vegetable world is to the life of the animal or vegetable upon which it feeds.

The working class is the victim of this parasite - this human leech, and it is the duty and interest of the working class to use every means in its power to oust this parasite class from the position which enables it to thus prey upon the vitals of Labour.

Therefore, I say, let us organise as a class to meet our masters and destroy their mastership; organise to drive them from their hold upon public life through their political power; organise to wrench from their robber clutch the land and workshops on and in which they enslave us; organise to cleanse our social life from the stain of social cannibalism, from the preying of man upon his fellow man.

Organise for a full, free and happy life FOR ALL OR FOR NONE. SPEED THE DAY