Socialist Standard, June 1996. Maximilien Rubel who died at the end of February was not just a Marx-specialist, he was also someone who wanted Socialism in the real sense of a society of common ownership and democratic control from which what he along with Marx regarded as the two great expressions of human alienation, money and the state, would have disappeared. As such he recognised, and denounced in his writings, the rulers of state-capitalist Russia and their state ideologists as the great distorters of Marx’s ideas. His ambition, on the academic field, was to produce a definitive edition of...
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A spectre is haunting America – the spectre of the middle class. Ever since Alexis de Tocqueville proclaimed the US to be a “middle-class country”, North Americans have anxiously sought to moralise and ennoble their notion of class struggle: Most were regular employees of major corporations like McDonnell Douglas, Grumman and Hughes Aircraft. If they didn’t go to work, they risked losing their livelihoods, their houses and their cars. They were, in fact, not middle- class at all in the Marxian sense of the word. They were working-class, but, unlike similar people in Britain or Germany, they called themselves...
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Herbert Spencer’s concept of Survival of the fittest…Pseudo Scientists, in Economics, Anthropology, History, etc., have have probably erected more obstacles to the clear understanding of reality than any other group, for their misconceptions are tinted with the gild of scholarship. Herbert Spencer, with his Social Statics, was perhaps the most outstanding of those scholars whose opinions and conclusions were accepted on a large scale by peoples on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain he developed quite a following, but nowhere so avid and devoted desciples as among the burgeoning tycoons in the U.S.A. Following the American Civil War,...
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From the Western Socialist, #2, 1969 “PRODUCTION FOR USE” – a phrase uttered so often by socialists as to become almost a cliché, yet understood (in a superficial fashion) by both enquirers and opponents. It describes our concept – our visualization – of a future social system superceding the present “un-social” system we call capitalism. Our enquirers and opponents alike recognize this. But the full implications of the term are not grasped, even by many who consider themselves to be socialists. The thinking of these people is so conditioned by the institutions of the present order that their thoughts...
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From the Western Socialist, #1, 1968 From mythological archives comes the legend of the phoenix, a bird of rare and unseemly attainments. After a lengthy and variegated existence, a pervasive act of its own volition caused it to be consumed in fire, and eventually to rise in callow newness from its ashes. Modern Japan has a close affinity with that fabulous bird. Playing a reckless role in the attack on Pearl Harbor, it suffered in consequence the fiery ordeal at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then, in rapid strides proceeded to rise from apparent disaster to take its place among...
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From the Western Socialist, #1, 1960 Why does the World Socialist Party belittle the nationalization of wealth, when it really means the same thing as Socialism? If the government, on behalf of the people, decides to take over the wealth of the nation, what sense is there in wasting our time doing the same thing? Would it not be better for us to get in and help them do it? -W.S. Reader We gather from W.S. Reader the wording of the query that our correspondent is a little mixed up in his differentiation, or lack of it, between the...
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Working people live on wages, which are obtained in their places of employment. Some workers own government bonds or company shares and derive income from these and from other sources. But all sources other than wages form a very small part of the average worker’s income. Mainly the workers live on wages and any changes that occur in the amount of wages have a definite bearing on their conditions of life. The wages which they receive represent a portion of the wealth they produce. This portion takes the form of money and is given to them by the owners...
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The Western Socialist July-Aug 1956 Before there can be any hope that the working class will take correct action to solve the many problems that confront it, it will be necessary to rid itself of many of its current ideas. Among these, one idea in particular has been most helpful to its enslavement; its continuous traveling in circles, that is, its wide belief in leaders and leadership. This concept, which we shall shortly define, is most universal and has a history almost as old as civilized society itself. Much of the recordings of history are also the recordings of...
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To the Editors: I read your magazine regularly and find it interesting, informative and also puzzling. What puzzles me is that you advocate socialism and at the same time oppose social reforms. I always thought that socialists saw nothing inconsistent in working for the establishment of socialism while at the same time participating in the fight for immediate demands. I believe democratic socialism can be achieved when and if a majority of the people become convinced that it is a desirable alternative to the present order. But I rather doubt that I shall see socialism in my time. In...
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The Job
From the Sept-Oct 1949 issue of the Western Socialist To a worker, a job is almost a matter of life and death, for he is dependent on it for his daily wants – food, clothes and a place to sleep. If he cannot find a job, or is without one for any length of time his situation become desperate and it has occasionally happened that protracted unemployment has led to suicide. The alternatives the worker has to wage labor are few, if any, because the means by which he lives and propagates his species are owned and controlled by...
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