De Leonist Society of Canada - Freedom, Peace, Brotherhood

Freedom, Peace, Brotherhood
From the De Leonist Society Bulletin, December 1986

FREEDOM, PEACE, BROTHERHOOD

BY HERBERT STEINER

The decay and disintegration of the capitalist system has become a glaring reality. Minions of workers are being displaced by ever-advancing technology, and the increasing spate of mergers by corporate giants is helping to bring about a resurgence of race prejudice and religious bigotry. These social sores feed on the anger and frustration of workers without jobs. And they are taught their plight is due to the influx of Hispanics, Mexicans or Asians. it is grist for the capitalist propaganda mill that keeps workers divided instead of strongly united.

Daniel De Leon graphically described the capitalist purpose when he wrote in 1908: "Without division in their ranks capitalsim would not and can not preserve its rule of human ruination. Nothing was more effective to that end than the fomenting of racial animosities and racial conceit. These means capitalism employed. The successful use thereof has kept Labor a dislocated giant."

The pro-capitalist unions stand helplessly by. As for capitalist profit, the whirlwind of racial hatred and violence is encouraged, and the unions are reduced to impotence. Then, there is the sad spectacle of fellow unionists scabbing on their "brothers." As one striking worker at a local strike in California put it: "If I don't go back, I've got no job. It's not that I don't care about the union. I need a job. For every person working in there over 20 would like to take their jobs." (San Francisco Examiner. October 3).

And we must not forget the religious bigots who thrive on racial prejudice and who entice the easily deceived into accepting their "godly" concept of government. In the words of Thomas Jefferson* "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people [of any religious creed] maintaining a free government."

In the present period of economic insecurity and fear the twin evils of racism and religious bigotry continue to fester and will proliferate as long as class rule continues its downward path.

Despite the many years of striving for "equal rights" in jobs and decent housing for the various ethnic groups it must eventually culminate for many of them in bitter frustration often breaking out into violence. And this will help prepare the groundwork for the man on horseback to stop the possibility of working class revolt.

Let us explore the De Leonist reason for our consistent and persistent contention that only bona fide Marxian Socialism can and win, bring into existence a world in which racist and religious animosities are forever eliminated, and mankind will live with freedom, peace, and in brotherhood .

What are the basic socio-economic factors that pit worker against worker? They are the same capitalist factors producing chronic unemployment, depressions, poverty and insecurity, and the growing fear that the super-powers are rushing madly to the atomic holocaust that that will leave our planet in ashes.

If the working class is to effect a revolutionary and peaceful change from the present bankrupt social order to a bona fide Socialist world, we must understand that the imperative need is the right organization! How is it to be done! Consider these economic facts!

Modern production is a social act. All goods and services are the result of the collective efforts of the entire working class. The plants and tools have been designed and built by generations of cooperative labor, and our collective lives depend upon them. As the industries and the services are run socially they must and should be owned socially, and carried on for the use of and to satisfy the needs of all the people. Workers of all races and creeds must unite and organize in accordance with the social conditions and the political traditions of our country.

First, we must organize politically as a class to demand at the ballot that all the means of life become the whole property of society. Our political demand must be backed-up with our integrally organized Socialist Industrial Unions just in case the capitalists try to abort the Socialist revolution. These unions will become the Industrial Government of the future Socialist society.

In the words of Arnold Petersen, former National Secretary of the SLP, "The dream that in an attainable future man shall live at peace with himself and his fellows when no man's hand shall be raised against his brother; when brotherhood shall become something more than just a matter of kin and blood; when it shall be a fraternity of all the children of earth dwelling together in peace, in harmony, and in abundance."