The Western Socialist
Vol. 27 - No. 215
No. 4, 1960
page 18
To The Editor,
Sir — The Free Press of March 26, cites a psychiatrist from Vancouver as saying that parents are failing to show enough interest in their children. This failure is often referred to as a cause of juvenile delinquency too; along with crime comics, bad TV and a host of other effects of current society. Delinquency is a problem in all industrial areas of the earth, including the state capitalist orbit of Russia and her satellites.
It is generally recognized that democracy must be participated in by all or it just isn't democracy. Lack of responsibility due to lack of ownership is the greatest single cause of juvenile delinquency along with increased relaxation time and higher survival allowances for the workers of the older industrial countries.
Many parents as well as juveniles feel no basic compulsion to put out any more effort than what is necessary to feed themselves all the escapist pleasures or ostentatious pastimes that stultified existence direct. In a state of affairs where freedom and democracy are more talked about than practised, initiative is thwarted. Co-operative instincts are discouraged by the growing anti-social nature of minority ownership and its effects. Human activity is possible only when it results in the further expansion of capital, directly or indirectly, at the expense of human happiness.
The per capita increase in crime and delinquency can only be reversed by a growing understanding of their causes and by the resultant establishment of democracy or social ownership of the means of production and distribution by the people of the earth. The only political entity espousing this formula is the Socialist Party of Canada.
ELLEN JENKINS
Victoria, B. C.