Correspondence

A. E. HESTER writes :
(1) Production under your system must be international, obviously therefore each country will be interdependent upon the ether. They must, then, agree to sustain each other in food, clothing, etc. Is this possible?
(2) How could each get the full value of his labour?
(3) The natural wealth of some countries is greater than others, who could not produce on equal terms.
(4) If Production is to be national, then Socialism is impossible and not worth consideration.

(1) Even under capitalism countries are interdependent, and, in a sense, “sustain each other in food, clothing, etc.” Hence your query “Is this possible ?” is answered in the affirmative by the facts around you to-day.

(2) No Socialist says that “each man will get the full value of his labour,” for the simple reason that, as the Socialist is always pointing out, production under Socialism will be social—as, indeed, it is to-day—and no man can say exactly what is the value contributes.
What the Socialist says is that the working class is the only section of society engaged in wealth production, and therefore the working class, collectively, should own the results of its applied energy.

(3) No one country has greater natural advantages in every direction than another. Some have the advantage in one way, some in another. And, as the development of International trade has shown, these advantages, or their results, are being exchanged in increasing quantities.

(4) The most elementary examination of present day trade shows that production is growing more international year by year. Raw materials from one part of the globe are worked up in another ; goods partly manufactured in one country are finished in another, and so on. Your query, therefore, has no basis in fact.

J. F.