Tucked securely into the valleys that cut a deep line between the range of mountains lying in —-, somewhere in England, are a number of small towns and villages once included among the distressed or “special” areas.
Until three years ago, industrial activity around this neighbourhood was practically at a standstill and it was the exception rather than the rule to find a working-class household whose adult males were not on the dole.
The standard of living, poor at the best of times, had sunk to an incredibly low level. Tuberculosis and kindred ailments, directly due to malnutrition, were accepted as an inevitable scourge alongside all the other evils commonly associated with extreme poverty.
That the Nazi Government, or what has come to be known as Hitlerism, is a menace to the peace of the world, is a fact as much recognised by Socialists as by all those who support the war. No Socialist will deny that all the Hitler regime stands for is repugnant and revolting to every ideal which he strives to establish.
The suppression of free expression of opinion, the concentration camp, the racial persecution and exiling of all people arbitrarily deemed out of sympathy with Nazi-ism, the public and private burning of a vast literature on Socialist and scientific subjects, the untold number of outrages committed by the Gestapo, are things indicative of a form of social life (pardon the phrase) which must befoul the finer feelings of all those worthy to be classed as really human.
Peace, we are told, has now been made. On 28th June, 1919, the representatives of the Allied powers and Germany signed a “Peace treaty”, officially terminating the “Great War”, which it had claimed would “end all war” and “make the world safe for democracy”.
To achieve the great result millions of the working class lie in war graves, millions are maimed, crippled, or disfigured for life, millions more, with constitutions shattered, are wondering what the future holds for them.
In the two preceding articles it was shown that the fundamental cause of the crisis is not to be found in the defects of the world’s monetary systems, and that the collapse of the gold standard, in this and other countries, was not responsible for the chapter of accidents but merely one of the features of the economic collapse. The real cause of that collapse has now to be determined. In discussing the depression in which the trade of the world has been floundering since the end of 1929, it is usual to relate the sequence of dismal events since then to the sharp break in general gold prices that occurred at that date.
The workers, the producers of wealth, are poor because they are robbed; they are robbed because they may not use the machinery of wealth production except on terms dictated by the owners, the propertied class. The remedy for working class poverty and other social ills is the transfer of ownership of these means of production from the Capitalist Class to society. That, in a few words, is the case for Socialism.
The work of rebuilding society on this new basis cannot be started until power is in the hands of a Socialist working class, and that cannot be until many millions have been convinced of the need for change and are broadly agreed on the way to set to work to bring it about.
After a long and bitter struggle, there is at last the prospect of peace in Ireland. The workers of Ulster and the South have fought with a fervour only equalled by the frenzy of the late world war, and are now to be able to see what it really was they fought for. If they hope for anything better than the fate common to ex-soldiers in all the countries of Europe—victors and vanquished alike—then disappointment awaits them.
Sinn Fein, behind a screen of fine-sounding no-surrender proclamations, appears to be preparing to forego the demand for full recognition of Ireland’s status as an independent Republic; while the English Government, under the pressure of a variety of political and financial factors, considers the cost of continued refusal of concessions prohibitive, and offers a form of Dominion Home Rule.
We may never know what discussions took place between President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela before the famous prisoner’s release, but it is evident they did a deal. It is possible they agreed on a detailed programme of reform. Economic forces have been pressing in on the deadlocked conflict for decades but movement has been slow. It has been thirty years since Harold Macmillan spoke of “a wind of change blowing through Africa”, but in South Africa this has been a gentle breeze which disturbed little, leaving the white monopoly of power intact. Delayed change results in greater pressure and now it seems the deadlock is about to be broken. What will this mean for our fellow workers in South Africa, both black and white?
To the Revolutionist it is almost an axiom that modern society is rotten—rotten to the root! The production of wealth—the first essential form of human activity—is carried on, not for the purpose of satisfying the physical needs of the workers, but with the motive of accumulating wealth in the shape of capital. The means of production are exalted above the producer. These supplementary organs of society are owned and controlled by a small percentage of the race, and the rest of mankind exist merely to augment them for the benefit of the few. Every human faculty capable of serving the interests of these exploiters has to be surrendered by those who possess nought else in return for the wherewithal to purchase the bare means of subsistence. It thus becomes perverted and deteriorates as a consequence. Cash dominates all social relationships and vitiates them.
The Modern Street Traffic Problem Discussed.
A philosophy in a Nutshell
“Hurry on, please!” is the catch phrase of the day. It expresses the salient characteristic—with or without the please of every modern industrial centre, just as “Get on or get out!” sums up its brutal philosophy. In the roaring traffic of the highway, indeed, we have a vivid yet typical example of this “non-stop” age.
Take modern road traffic, then, as a case in point. It illustrates the rapid yet enormous changes forced upon society by economic development, and it shows unmistakably how little the hireling worker profits by the wonderful mechanical progress his physical and mental labour has made possible.
The greatest problem awaiting solution in the world to-day is the existence in every commercial country of extreme poverty side by side with extreme wealth. In every land where, in the natural development of society, the capitalist method of producing and distributing wealth has been introduced, this problem presses itself upon us. Not only so but the greater the grip which capitalism has on industry the more intense is the poverty of the many and the more marked are the riches of the few.
