Editorial – Last Post for capitalism?

Last month, on the 11^th of November, as usual the bugles sounded the Last Post at the Menin Gate, and on Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph the wreaths were laid for all the millions who have perished in the madness of warfare. The very politicians who were laying these wreaths may have been planning for future conflicts and at a stroke of a pen be quite prepared to spend billions on new weapons of war. This is the outcome of a global economic system which divides humanity into artificial nation states.

War is generally a political means to an economic end. Most wars are fought to capture raw resources, new markets, trade routes and spheres of influence. The competitive divisive economics of this dog-eat-dog race called capitalism which exists in every nation state makes wars inevitable. That is why they regularly break out. Just look at the waste of war. Vast resources and materials are used building the weapons of war such as aircraft carriers, tanks, missiles, bombs. Thousands of highly skilled workers work to build these hideous weapons of mass destruction. Then great numbers of fit healthy young workers are put in uniforms and trained to be professional assassins in the legalised slaughter that is war.

The global economic system, the monetary/profit system of capitalism, pits worker against worker, factory against factory, business against business, and ultimately nation state against nation state. It is inefficient and destructive of the best potentialities in humankind. Yet it is now obsolete and long past its sell-by date.

There is an alternative to the anti-social destructive system which is ruining this fragile planet in the name of money/profit. It is ready and waiting, but it requires the class-conscious participation of the majority to no longer acquiesce in this outdated divisive system. It is a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by and in the interest of the whole community.

Its achievement calls for international cooperation not of the world’s bankers, but of the world’s workers. It is us, the workers, who with our combined skills and talents produce everything from a pin to an oil tanker, so let us all show our support for a world without artificial borders and frontiers which only serve to divide humanity. Beyond capitalism we can build a system based on cooperation not on ruthless competition. We could put the flags of nation states into a museum. They too serve only to divide humanity. We can then move forward to a more fair and just society where human needs and the health of the planet are the driving force. So let us all help to speed the day when this wonderful earth and its rich resources are held in common for the benefit of all humanity. Because once we decide to wave goodbye to capitalism, those bugles could sound the Last Post on war, for the last time.

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