Today is 14th August, Independence Day of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, my motherland. On 14th of August, 1947 Pakistan came into being after a hard tussle between the All India Congress, All India Muslim League and British Government. My ancestors, like many other people, migrated from India to smell the “free air” of this land of pure. The sacrifices of these migrates became a legend.
I want to look back in time and access the whole independence process once again on this special day. Starting from what went right and what went wrong to what must be done.
The British came in and formed their East India Company. There sole purpose was trade. The waged wars against the locals, developed sophisticated communication and transport system to facilitate trade. They even suppressed the War of Independence of 1857 and India came under direct British rule.
Why were British so interested in India to bear all the pain of some development and wars? The answer is simply that the whole balance of trade was in favor of the British. Triggered by the Industrial Revolution, British were the super power of the world and looking for the world markets in order to utilize their increased productivity. Europeans systematically colonized a great deal of world in order to gain primarily in economic terms. The primary slogan of the colonial process was Commerce while Christianity and Civilization were just there to facilitate commerce. The developments that East India Company and British Government brought around in India were nothing in comparison with the economic growth. So, “economic growth without development” meant that a huge chunk of the capital was flowing out. India became more and more dependent on the British.
In order to assist the exploitation of India, the British created a whole system of government. That system of government served the British cause since it was their creation. That is not hard to understand. To further support the system, they created a class of people that was Indian in their outlook but Europeans in thought. They were equipped with English education and adapted to an English life style. That way they created a class with similar interest of exploitation of masses.
This class served the British but soon realized the unequal terms on which it was working. They new that the white are still their masters no matter how intelligent or civilize they become. They created a movement against the British that later on resulted in partition of India.
There was another kind of revolt that was rising in India too: the revolt by the poor masses of India against the exploitation on the hand of the foreigners. The British facilitated the movement of the “brown sahibs” because they had at least the same self-interest. The “brown sahibs” tried their level best to change the tide of the movement. They portrayed the English as the actual troublemakers while they were themselves an integral part of the exploitative system of government. They were successful to a very large extent.
What happened when Pakistan came into being? Very effectively, a new ruling elite (of brown sahibs) came into creation. This elite was those who were working under the British. With the departure of British, this elite replaced them.
The whole British machinery that facilitated exploitation stayed where it was. There was no change brought to the system. Only the machinery was run by a new set of people. This machinery was meant to serve the British system and now that no change was brought to it, it still worked for their old masters. The colonial hierarchy maintained itself, with only minor changes at the above. The colonial legacy continued with the dawn of a new era of exploitation.
There was not freedom under the British system of government, say our ancestors. But what we see is that the whole system was persevered after the 1947 and the system kept on running in the same manner. In that case, there was not freedom after 1947 too. Why do we celebrate this Independence Day then? I wonder…
After a long dark night there is dawn, I heard that somewhere. I believe that.
Pakistan will be independent only when there are structural changed brought to the colonial system of government. The whole system of government that curbs human independence must be destroyed in order to smell the fresh air of freedom. Things will change because they will have to change.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Socialism and Religion -- V. I. Lenin
Present-day society is wholly based on the exploitation of the vast masses of the working class by a tiny minority of the population, the class of the landowners and that of the capitalists. It is a slave society, since the "free" workers, who all their life work for the capitalists, are "entitled" only to such means of subsistence as are essential for the maintenance of slaves who produce profit, for the safeguarding and perpetuation of capitalist slavery.
The economic oppression of the workers inevitably calls forth and engenders every kind of political oppression and social humiliation, the coarsening and darkening of the spiritual and moral life of the masses. The workers may secure a greater or lesser degree of political liberty to fight for their economic emancipation, but no amount of liberty will rid them of poverty, unemployment, and oppression until the power of capital is overthrown. Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labor of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
But a slave who has become conscious of his slavery and has risen to struggle for his emancipation has already half ceased to be a slave. The modern class-conscious worker, reared by large-scale factory industry and enlightened by urban life, contemptuously casts aside religious prejudices, leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois bigots, and tries to win a better life for himself here on earth. The proletariat of today takes the side of socialism, which enlists science in the battle against the fog of religion, and frees the workers from their belief in life after death by welding them together to fight in the present for a better life on earth.
Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen's religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like minded citizens, associations independent of the state. Only the complete fulfillment of these demands can put an end to the shameful and accursed past when the church lived in feudal dependence on the state, and Russian citizens lived in feudal dependence on the established church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws (to this day remaining in our criminal codes and on our statute-books) were in existence and were applied, persecuting men for their belief or disbelief, violating men's consciences, and linking cozy government jobs and government-derived incomes with the dispensation of this or that dope by the established church. Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.
The Russian revolution must put this demand into effect as a necessary component of political freedom. In this respect, the Russian revolution is in a particularly favorable position, since the revolting officialism of the police-ridden feudal autocracy has called forth discontent, unrest and indignation even among the clergy. However abject, however ignorant Russian Orthodox clergymen may have been, even they have now been awakened by the thunder of the downfall of the old, medieval order in Russia. Even they are joining in the demand for freedom, are protesting against bureaucratic practices and officialism, against the spying for the police imposed on the "servants of God". We socialists must lend this movement our support, carrying the demands of honest and sincere members of the clergy to their conclusion, making them stick to their words about freedom, demanding that they should resolutely break all ties between religion and the police. Either you are sincere, in which case you must stand for the complete separation of Church and State and of School and Church, for religion to be declared wholly and absolutely a private affair. Or you do not accept these consistent demands for freedom, in which case you evidently are still held captive by the traditions of the inquisition, in which case you evidently still cling to your cozy government jobs and government-derived incomes, in which case you evidently do not believe in the spiritual power of your weapon and continue to take bribes from the state. And in that case the class-conscious workers of all Russia declare merciless war on you.
So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.
If that is so, why do we not declare in our Program that we are atheists? Why do we not forbid Christians and other believers in God to join our Party?
The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.
Our Program is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Program, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of the appropriate scientific literature, which the autocratic feudal government has hitherto strictly forbidden and persecuted, must now form one of the fields of our Party work. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.
But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an "intellectual" question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism.
Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Program; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various "Christians". But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.
Everywhere the reactionary bourgeoisie has concerned itself, and is now beginning to concern itself in Russia, with the fomenting of religious strife -- in order thereby to divert the attention of the masses from the really important and fundamental economic and political problems, now being solved in practice by the all-Russian proletariat uniting in revolutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of splitting up the proletarian forces, which today manifests itself mainly in Black-Hundred pogroms, may tomorrow conceive some more subtle forms. We, at any rate, shall oppose it by calmly, consistently and patiently preaching proletarian solidarity and the scientific world-outlook -- a preaching alien to any stirring up of secondary differences.
The revolutionary proletariat will succeed in making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.
The economic oppression of the workers inevitably calls forth and engenders every kind of political oppression and social humiliation, the coarsening and darkening of the spiritual and moral life of the masses. The workers may secure a greater or lesser degree of political liberty to fight for their economic emancipation, but no amount of liberty will rid them of poverty, unemployment, and oppression until the power of capital is overthrown. Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labor of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
But a slave who has become conscious of his slavery and has risen to struggle for his emancipation has already half ceased to be a slave. The modern class-conscious worker, reared by large-scale factory industry and enlightened by urban life, contemptuously casts aside religious prejudices, leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois bigots, and tries to win a better life for himself here on earth. The proletariat of today takes the side of socialism, which enlists science in the battle against the fog of religion, and frees the workers from their belief in life after death by welding them together to fight in the present for a better life on earth.
Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our Party is concerned. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen's religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like minded citizens, associations independent of the state. Only the complete fulfillment of these demands can put an end to the shameful and accursed past when the church lived in feudal dependence on the state, and Russian citizens lived in feudal dependence on the established church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws (to this day remaining in our criminal codes and on our statute-books) were in existence and were applied, persecuting men for their belief or disbelief, violating men's consciences, and linking cozy government jobs and government-derived incomes with the dispensation of this or that dope by the established church. Complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.
The Russian revolution must put this demand into effect as a necessary component of political freedom. In this respect, the Russian revolution is in a particularly favorable position, since the revolting officialism of the police-ridden feudal autocracy has called forth discontent, unrest and indignation even among the clergy. However abject, however ignorant Russian Orthodox clergymen may have been, even they have now been awakened by the thunder of the downfall of the old, medieval order in Russia. Even they are joining in the demand for freedom, are protesting against bureaucratic practices and officialism, against the spying for the police imposed on the "servants of God". We socialists must lend this movement our support, carrying the demands of honest and sincere members of the clergy to their conclusion, making them stick to their words about freedom, demanding that they should resolutely break all ties between religion and the police. Either you are sincere, in which case you must stand for the complete separation of Church and State and of School and Church, for religion to be declared wholly and absolutely a private affair. Or you do not accept these consistent demands for freedom, in which case you evidently are still held captive by the traditions of the inquisition, in which case you evidently still cling to your cozy government jobs and government-derived incomes, in which case you evidently do not believe in the spiritual power of your weapon and continue to take bribes from the state. And in that case the class-conscious workers of all Russia declare merciless war on you.
So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.
If that is so, why do we not declare in our Program that we are atheists? Why do we not forbid Christians and other believers in God to join our Party?
The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.
Our Program is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Program, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of the appropriate scientific literature, which the autocratic feudal government has hitherto strictly forbidden and persecuted, must now form one of the fields of our Party work. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.
But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an "intellectual" question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism.
Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Program; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various "Christians". But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.
Everywhere the reactionary bourgeoisie has concerned itself, and is now beginning to concern itself in Russia, with the fomenting of religious strife -- in order thereby to divert the attention of the masses from the really important and fundamental economic and political problems, now being solved in practice by the all-Russian proletariat uniting in revolutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of splitting up the proletarian forces, which today manifests itself mainly in Black-Hundred pogroms, may tomorrow conceive some more subtle forms. We, at any rate, shall oppose it by calmly, consistently and patiently preaching proletarian solidarity and the scientific world-outlook -- a preaching alien to any stirring up of secondary differences.
The revolutionary proletariat will succeed in making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.
The Renewing of Socialism by John Bellamy Foster
Articles in Monthly Review often end by invoking the socialist
alternative to capitalism. Readers in recent years have frequently
asked us what this means. Didn't socialism die in the twentieth
century? Wasn't it defeated by capitalism? More practically: if
socialism is still being advocated what kind of socialism is it? Are
we being utopian in the sense of advancing a pleasant but impossible
dream?
Such questions deserve answers, however tentative. That we have
largely neglected to provide them up until now has been due more to
our sense of history than anything else. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later it
was difficult to address the question of socialism for at least two
reasons: (1) its almost complete identification in the popular mind
with the fallen Soviet system; and (2) the triumphalist vision of
capitalism that was paraded at the time. Since these beliefs were
more a product of prevailing ideology than reality, we concluded that
history would soon begin to dissolve them and the question of
socialism would again come to the fore. A wide and open dialogue on
the future of socialism could then begin anew. That time we are
convinced is now upon us. Moreover, the danger to the world of not
countering the mantra that "there is no alternative" to capitalism is
now too great, given persistent problems of economic stagnation, the
growth of empire and war, and the threat of ecological collapse.
"The legacy of socialism," Paul Sweezy wrote in Monthly Review in
January 1993, "consists in its being the real-life alternative to
capitalism. On the world-historical stage it plays the role of the
significant other. This is not to deny that the leading ideas of
socialism—equality and cooperation as against hierarchy and
competition—are part of socialism's legacy. But they are not unique
to socialism, and historically, they long antedate socialism. In one
way or another, they figure in all of humanity's great religious
traditions."*
Socialism as a socio-political movement grew out of the attempt to
overcome capitalism that has been part of world history ever since
capitalism's emergence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It
was prefigured by the Peasants' War of the Anabaptists and Thomas
Münzer during the German Reformation of the sixteenth century. It
appeared again in the movement of Winstanley and the Diggers in the
English Revolution of the seventeenth century. It raised its head
once more with Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals in the French
Revolution of the eighteenth century. It was Babeuf and his Equals
who argued in 1795–96 that "equality must be measured by the capacity
of the worker and the need of the consumer, not by the intensity of
the labor and the quantity of things consumed."1 Karl Marx was later
to say this even more succinctly in his famous slogan in the Critique
of the Gotha Programme—"from each according to his abilities, to each
according to his needs!"—offered as the ultimate criterion of
socialist or communist society. What all of these early movements of
revolt called for was substantive equality, abolishing class and
other social distinctions, and going beyond the mere formal political
equality offered by bourgeois society. In opposition to the growth of
private property they advocated common ownership of the means of
production.
The term "socialism" first made its appearance in France following
the French Revolution in relation to the ideas of the great utopian
socialists, Charles Fourier and Comte Henri de Saint-Simon, and was
soon embraced by the Owenite movement in Britain led by industrialist
Robert Owen. The utopian socialists saw capitalism as historically
transitory, destined to perish just as feudalism had before it, and
believed that it would be replaced by a society of true equality and
the full flowering of human reason. Writing at the moment that
industrial capitalism and an industrial working class were emerging
in Britain (where a full-scale industrial revolution was underway)
and in France, the criticisms of capitalism's evils by the utopian
socialists were often trenchant. Fourier wrote that "under
civilization [i.e., capitalism] poverty is borne of super-abundance
itself." In industrial capitalism's place they advocated far-reaching
reform in factory conditions, education, the situation of women, the
relation between town and country, etc.
The visions offered by the utopian socialists, however, lacked a
systematic conception of the causes of the material conditions that
they described or the real class obstacles to social change. Although
sympathizing with the working class, they did not yet see the workers
as the main agents of socialist transformation. Owen ended his Book
of the New Moral World with an appeal to King William IV of Britain
in which he said: "under your reign, Sire, the change from this
system, with all its evil consequences, to another founded on self-
evident truths, ensuring happiness to all, will, in all probability,
be achieved." Fourier announced that he would be home at noon every
day to await a wealthy benefactor who would provide the money for a
colony that would implement the principles of his new society. He
waited twelve years in vain. Followers of Saint-Simon declared in
their organ, The Globe, on November 28, 1831: "The working classes
cannot rise unless the upper classes reach out their hand. It is from
these latter that the initiative must come."2
While the utopian socialists ultimately reached out to the ruling
classes to support their ideas, more revolutionary movements arose
from the practical struggles of industrial workers themselves, who
not infrequently saw their own class action as the means of
overturning the new system of exploitation. It fell to Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, born in the relatively developed Rhineland in 1818
and 1820, respectively, and equipped with the dialectical tools of
analysis offered by Hegelian philosophy, to provide this burgeoning
working-class movement with a systematic critique of capitalism,
identifying its driving force in capital accumulation as well as the
obstacles that faced any attempt to move beyond it. So superior was
their analysis to that of the utopian visions that had preceded it
that it quickly became the leading theoretical basis for socialism.
With this as its intellectual basis socialism took on the character
of a historically-based movement for revolutionary change and a real
threat to the existing capitalist order.
The socialist movement spread throughout the nineteenth century,
following in capitalism's footsteps across the globe. Workers'
revolts occurred on occasion, most notably in the Paris Commune of
1870–71, while huge socialist parties developed—officially dedicated
to overturning capitalism—with the Social Democratic Party in Germany
the most prominent. By the beginning of the twentieth century it was
already clear, to quote from the same article by Sweezy, that "the
future of humanity would be shaped by the outcome of a bitter and
most likely protracted struggle between capitalism and its internally
generated opposition."
This conflict between capitalism and its internally-generated
antagonist was, however, enormously complicated by imperialism. From
the beginning capitalism was a global system, expanding into the
Americas, Asia, and Africa through a relentless process of
colonization that also involved slavery and genocide. Capitalism had
arisen in a small corner of the globe in Europe and immediately took
the form of a hierarchy of states, in which there was a definite
center and periphery with intermediate states in between. At its
center the system was structured according to its own internal
requirements of production and consumption. In the colonized areas of
the periphery economies were geared almost exclusively to the needs
of the "mother country." This structural relationship was accompanied
by conditions of outright pillage—with the whole system maintained
ultimately by the superior force that the imperialist countries were
able to bring to bear to protect their interests. The natural
resources of the periphery were plundered and the economic surplus
that these nations produced was frequently siphoned away. Colonial or
neocolonial satellites were placed in conditions of debt peonage with
the capitalist metropoles acting as creditors. In this way the
countries that first industrialized retained an advantageous position
at the center of the world economy, while the barriers facing other
nations seeking to develop and to escape a peripheral position within
the world-economic system were enormous and for most countries grew
worse over time. Indeed for almost all of these nations the barriers
separating center from periphery have proven insurmountable over the
centuries of capitalist development.
As a result of the growth of capitalist empire and the resulting flow
of tribute from periphery to center, the internationalism so
important to socialist struggles frequently broke down. Considerable
segments of the working classes of Britain, France, the United
States, Germany, Italy, etc. supported the expansion of their
respective empires under the belief that it improved the positions of
their nations and themselves. Eventually, as imperialist wars for
control of world territory led to the First World War, the working
classes of the advanced capitalist countries subordinated themselves
en masse to the imperial goals of their states and corporations. The
leading socialist parties, such as the German Social Democratic
Party, capitulated overnight to nationalistic war fever, thereby
abandoning socialist internationalism and giving way to what was to
be a major fratricidal conflict.
This capitulation to nationalism by the major social democratic
parties, driven in part by the self-interest of their leaders,
created a deep and unbridgeable split within the socialist movement.
Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, standing for the most radical and defiant
sections of German Social Democracy and Russian Social Democracy,
respectively, opposed the First World War, arguing instead for
socialist internationalism. The Russian Revolution of 1917, erupting
in the midst of the First World War, was spurred forward by the
socialist leadership of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. The rise of
the Soviet Union constituted a turning point in world history: the
first attempt on the part of a major state to overthrow capitalism
and create a socialist society.
alternative to capitalism. Readers in recent years have frequently
asked us what this means. Didn't socialism die in the twentieth
century? Wasn't it defeated by capitalism? More practically: if
socialism is still being advocated what kind of socialism is it? Are
we being utopian in the sense of advancing a pleasant but impossible
dream?
Such questions deserve answers, however tentative. That we have
largely neglected to provide them up until now has been due more to
our sense of history than anything else. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later it
was difficult to address the question of socialism for at least two
reasons: (1) its almost complete identification in the popular mind
with the fallen Soviet system; and (2) the triumphalist vision of
capitalism that was paraded at the time. Since these beliefs were
more a product of prevailing ideology than reality, we concluded that
history would soon begin to dissolve them and the question of
socialism would again come to the fore. A wide and open dialogue on
the future of socialism could then begin anew. That time we are
convinced is now upon us. Moreover, the danger to the world of not
countering the mantra that "there is no alternative" to capitalism is
now too great, given persistent problems of economic stagnation, the
growth of empire and war, and the threat of ecological collapse.
"The legacy of socialism," Paul Sweezy wrote in Monthly Review in
January 1993, "consists in its being the real-life alternative to
capitalism. On the world-historical stage it plays the role of the
significant other. This is not to deny that the leading ideas of
socialism—equality and cooperation as against hierarchy and
competition—are part of socialism's legacy. But they are not unique
to socialism, and historically, they long antedate socialism. In one
way or another, they figure in all of humanity's great religious
traditions."*
Socialism as a socio-political movement grew out of the attempt to
overcome capitalism that has been part of world history ever since
capitalism's emergence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It
was prefigured by the Peasants' War of the Anabaptists and Thomas
Münzer during the German Reformation of the sixteenth century. It
appeared again in the movement of Winstanley and the Diggers in the
English Revolution of the seventeenth century. It raised its head
once more with Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals in the French
Revolution of the eighteenth century. It was Babeuf and his Equals
who argued in 1795–96 that "equality must be measured by the capacity
of the worker and the need of the consumer, not by the intensity of
the labor and the quantity of things consumed."1 Karl Marx was later
to say this even more succinctly in his famous slogan in the Critique
of the Gotha Programme—"from each according to his abilities, to each
according to his needs!"—offered as the ultimate criterion of
socialist or communist society. What all of these early movements of
revolt called for was substantive equality, abolishing class and
other social distinctions, and going beyond the mere formal political
equality offered by bourgeois society. In opposition to the growth of
private property they advocated common ownership of the means of
production.
The term "socialism" first made its appearance in France following
the French Revolution in relation to the ideas of the great utopian
socialists, Charles Fourier and Comte Henri de Saint-Simon, and was
soon embraced by the Owenite movement in Britain led by industrialist
Robert Owen. The utopian socialists saw capitalism as historically
transitory, destined to perish just as feudalism had before it, and
believed that it would be replaced by a society of true equality and
the full flowering of human reason. Writing at the moment that
industrial capitalism and an industrial working class were emerging
in Britain (where a full-scale industrial revolution was underway)
and in France, the criticisms of capitalism's evils by the utopian
socialists were often trenchant. Fourier wrote that "under
civilization [i.e., capitalism] poverty is borne of super-abundance
itself." In industrial capitalism's place they advocated far-reaching
reform in factory conditions, education, the situation of women, the
relation between town and country, etc.
The visions offered by the utopian socialists, however, lacked a
systematic conception of the causes of the material conditions that
they described or the real class obstacles to social change. Although
sympathizing with the working class, they did not yet see the workers
as the main agents of socialist transformation. Owen ended his Book
of the New Moral World with an appeal to King William IV of Britain
in which he said: "under your reign, Sire, the change from this
system, with all its evil consequences, to another founded on self-
evident truths, ensuring happiness to all, will, in all probability,
be achieved." Fourier announced that he would be home at noon every
day to await a wealthy benefactor who would provide the money for a
colony that would implement the principles of his new society. He
waited twelve years in vain. Followers of Saint-Simon declared in
their organ, The Globe, on November 28, 1831: "The working classes
cannot rise unless the upper classes reach out their hand. It is from
these latter that the initiative must come."2
While the utopian socialists ultimately reached out to the ruling
classes to support their ideas, more revolutionary movements arose
from the practical struggles of industrial workers themselves, who
not infrequently saw their own class action as the means of
overturning the new system of exploitation. It fell to Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, born in the relatively developed Rhineland in 1818
and 1820, respectively, and equipped with the dialectical tools of
analysis offered by Hegelian philosophy, to provide this burgeoning
working-class movement with a systematic critique of capitalism,
identifying its driving force in capital accumulation as well as the
obstacles that faced any attempt to move beyond it. So superior was
their analysis to that of the utopian visions that had preceded it
that it quickly became the leading theoretical basis for socialism.
With this as its intellectual basis socialism took on the character
of a historically-based movement for revolutionary change and a real
threat to the existing capitalist order.
The socialist movement spread throughout the nineteenth century,
following in capitalism's footsteps across the globe. Workers'
revolts occurred on occasion, most notably in the Paris Commune of
1870–71, while huge socialist parties developed—officially dedicated
to overturning capitalism—with the Social Democratic Party in Germany
the most prominent. By the beginning of the twentieth century it was
already clear, to quote from the same article by Sweezy, that "the
future of humanity would be shaped by the outcome of a bitter and
most likely protracted struggle between capitalism and its internally
generated opposition."
This conflict between capitalism and its internally-generated
antagonist was, however, enormously complicated by imperialism. From
the beginning capitalism was a global system, expanding into the
Americas, Asia, and Africa through a relentless process of
colonization that also involved slavery and genocide. Capitalism had
arisen in a small corner of the globe in Europe and immediately took
the form of a hierarchy of states, in which there was a definite
center and periphery with intermediate states in between. At its
center the system was structured according to its own internal
requirements of production and consumption. In the colonized areas of
the periphery economies were geared almost exclusively to the needs
of the "mother country." This structural relationship was accompanied
by conditions of outright pillage—with the whole system maintained
ultimately by the superior force that the imperialist countries were
able to bring to bear to protect their interests. The natural
resources of the periphery were plundered and the economic surplus
that these nations produced was frequently siphoned away. Colonial or
neocolonial satellites were placed in conditions of debt peonage with
the capitalist metropoles acting as creditors. In this way the
countries that first industrialized retained an advantageous position
at the center of the world economy, while the barriers facing other
nations seeking to develop and to escape a peripheral position within
the world-economic system were enormous and for most countries grew
worse over time. Indeed for almost all of these nations the barriers
separating center from periphery have proven insurmountable over the
centuries of capitalist development.
As a result of the growth of capitalist empire and the resulting flow
of tribute from periphery to center, the internationalism so
important to socialist struggles frequently broke down. Considerable
segments of the working classes of Britain, France, the United
States, Germany, Italy, etc. supported the expansion of their
respective empires under the belief that it improved the positions of
their nations and themselves. Eventually, as imperialist wars for
control of world territory led to the First World War, the working
classes of the advanced capitalist countries subordinated themselves
en masse to the imperial goals of their states and corporations. The
leading socialist parties, such as the German Social Democratic
Party, capitulated overnight to nationalistic war fever, thereby
abandoning socialist internationalism and giving way to what was to
be a major fratricidal conflict.
This capitulation to nationalism by the major social democratic
parties, driven in part by the self-interest of their leaders,
created a deep and unbridgeable split within the socialist movement.
Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, standing for the most radical and defiant
sections of German Social Democracy and Russian Social Democracy,
respectively, opposed the First World War, arguing instead for
socialist internationalism. The Russian Revolution of 1917, erupting
in the midst of the First World War, was spurred forward by the
socialist leadership of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. The rise of
the Soviet Union constituted a turning point in world history: the
first attempt on the part of a major state to overthrow capitalism
and create a socialist society.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Nehru's appraisal of the Soviet Union in mid 1930s
Jawaharlal Nehru in his autobiography said:
"While the rest of the world was in the grip of depressions and going backward in some ways, in Soviet country a great new was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In perticular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Centeral Asia under the Soviet Regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russi, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a brigth and heartening phenomenon in the dark and dismal world."
"While the rest of the world was in the grip of depressions and going backward in some ways, in Soviet country a great new was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In perticular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Centeral Asia under the Soviet Regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russi, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a brigth and heartening phenomenon in the dark and dismal world."
A forgotten hero -- Umer A. Chaudhry
A forgotten hero (Dawn Magzine; August 7, 2005)
By Umer A. Chaudhry
In Pakistan, it is not uncommon to forget those who were able to gain
significant achievements and deserve to be remembered. This apathy
increases if that particular individual is not a Muslim. During the
independence movement there were a lot of non-Muslims, or non-Muslim
Leaguers, who worked hard and even sacrificed their lives for the
cause of independence. But we hardly hear about them and the
textbooks on history are silent about these men of great honour.
Bhagat Singh, the freedom fighter from Punjab is one such forgotten
hero. It might not be unjust to rank him with inspirational figures
like Che Guvera. In his youth, Bhagat Singh was very distressed by
the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919. According to some, he
personally visited the Bagh in which hundreds of men, women and
children were killed while they were enjoying a peaceful festival.
Although he was young, he was an active participant of Gandhi's first
Non-Cooperation Movement. He was highly disturbed when Gandhi called
it off.
Later on, in 1923, Bhagat Singh joined the National College in
Lahore. He was 15 at that time and enjoyed a good command over Urdu,
English, Hindi, Gurmukhi and Sanskrit. He was also involved in
dramatics. It was during his college days that he met fellow
revolutionaries like Sukhdev, Jaigopal, B.K. Dutt, Chandrashekar
Azad, Rajguru, Phonindinarth Ghosh, Markand Trivedi and others, and
became a member of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha.
At that time he was completely dedicated to the cause of national
liberation and even avoided marriage. In a note that he left behind,
Bhagat Singh wrote: "My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause,
that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or
worldly desire that can lure me now. If you remember, when I was
small, Bapuji (Arjun Singh) declared at my thread ceremony that I had
been dedicated to the service of my country. I am thus waiting to
fulfill that commitment. I hope you will forgive me."
In 1924 Bhagat became a member of Hindustan Republican Association.
Working in close alliance with Chandrashekar Azad, Bhagat took the
militant philosophy seriously. He was involved in some terrorist
activities that he disapproved of later on. A propagandist, he wrote
a number of articles and pamphlets under a pseudonym.
Between 1927-1928, Bhagat Singh involved himself in studying the
revolutionary literature and revolutionary history of India. Bhagat
Singh refined his opinion about terrorism by rejecting the definition
of terrorism as the destructive, coercive and unjust use of force. He
justified his position by saying that when "patriots take up arms for
the sake of their country and its safety, when they eliminate
exploitation and oppression, or when they avenge the injustice done
to the oppressed and go to the gallows, they use violence but they do
not spread terror".
The British Government created Simon Commission, headed by Sir John
Simon, to report on the political problems of India in 1928. Lala
Lajpat Rai conducted a peaceful march against the commission in front
of the Lahore Railway Station. The police, in retaliation, baton
charged the demonstrators. The police chief Scott was believed to
have hit Lala Lajpat Rai directly on his head that resulted in death.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and Azad vowed revenge and planned to
kill the police chief. But due to some mistake they killed his
junior, J.P. Saunders, and went underground and escaped from Lahore.
Over the next few days, public notices were seen in the name of
Indian Socialist Democratic Army. One such notice said: "We regret
having killed a human being but this man was a part of that
unmerciful and unjust system that must be destroyed."
His party was referred to as terrorists and he had to rebuild his
reputation in the eyes of the people. Pamphlets were one of the
easiest methods for spreading ideological and political information.
But Bhagat Singh realized the limited audience that these pamphlets
enjoyed. He was seeking some more effective way to propagate his
ideas. He thought of courting arrest to shout out propaganda during
the trial to generate popular support. He knew that he would have a
better position as a political prisoner to criticize the British
Government. Once inside, there were chances that he might have the
opportunity to gain support of the native policemen and the prisoners.
Most importantly, he thought that his sacrifice and martyrdom might
inspire the youth to become involved in a revolutionary movement and
prevent them from flowing with the mainstream national movement.
The Indian legislators rejected the Indian Safety Bill introduced by
the Government in 1929. Shortly afterwards, the Viceroy of India
attempted to pass it as an ordinance. Bhagat Singh, along with his
comrade B.K. Dutt threw a small and relatively harmless explosive in
the parliament. The bomb was strategically thrown to inflict as
little harm as possible. Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt remained in the
visitor's gallery where they were arrested. The aim of the activity,
according to the leaflets thrown in the Assembly Hall, was to make
a "loud noise to make the deaf hear".
On July 15, Bhagat Singh launched a successful hunger strike for jail
reforms that showed that his activism remained alive even behind the
bars. In July, 1929, the Lahore Conspiracy Case (Saunders Murder
Case) was reopened leading to the a death sentence. Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on the March 23, 1931. Bhagat Singh
was only 23.
To understand the struggle of Bhagat Singh it is necessary to
understand that he was a young man who, due to his interest in
studying, developed a revolutionary tradition that the British failed
to eliminate. His clarity of vision and determination of purpose made
him stand out in the mainstream Indian political movement.
In a letter to his co-patriot, Sukhdev, Bhagat Singh wrote: "I can
say with all my might that I am immersed in the hopes and doubts that
give life a meaning. But when the time comes, I will sacrifice
everything. In the true sense this is sacrifice... you will realize
this soon".
By Umer A. Chaudhry
In Pakistan, it is not uncommon to forget those who were able to gain
significant achievements and deserve to be remembered. This apathy
increases if that particular individual is not a Muslim. During the
independence movement there were a lot of non-Muslims, or non-Muslim
Leaguers, who worked hard and even sacrificed their lives for the
cause of independence. But we hardly hear about them and the
textbooks on history are silent about these men of great honour.
Bhagat Singh, the freedom fighter from Punjab is one such forgotten
hero. It might not be unjust to rank him with inspirational figures
like Che Guvera. In his youth, Bhagat Singh was very distressed by
the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919. According to some, he
personally visited the Bagh in which hundreds of men, women and
children were killed while they were enjoying a peaceful festival.
Although he was young, he was an active participant of Gandhi's first
Non-Cooperation Movement. He was highly disturbed when Gandhi called
it off.
Later on, in 1923, Bhagat Singh joined the National College in
Lahore. He was 15 at that time and enjoyed a good command over Urdu,
English, Hindi, Gurmukhi and Sanskrit. He was also involved in
dramatics. It was during his college days that he met fellow
revolutionaries like Sukhdev, Jaigopal, B.K. Dutt, Chandrashekar
Azad, Rajguru, Phonindinarth Ghosh, Markand Trivedi and others, and
became a member of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha.
At that time he was completely dedicated to the cause of national
liberation and even avoided marriage. In a note that he left behind,
Bhagat Singh wrote: "My life has been dedicated to the noblest cause,
that of the freedom of the country. Therefore, there is no rest or
worldly desire that can lure me now. If you remember, when I was
small, Bapuji (Arjun Singh) declared at my thread ceremony that I had
been dedicated to the service of my country. I am thus waiting to
fulfill that commitment. I hope you will forgive me."
In 1924 Bhagat became a member of Hindustan Republican Association.
Working in close alliance with Chandrashekar Azad, Bhagat took the
militant philosophy seriously. He was involved in some terrorist
activities that he disapproved of later on. A propagandist, he wrote
a number of articles and pamphlets under a pseudonym.
Between 1927-1928, Bhagat Singh involved himself in studying the
revolutionary literature and revolutionary history of India. Bhagat
Singh refined his opinion about terrorism by rejecting the definition
of terrorism as the destructive, coercive and unjust use of force. He
justified his position by saying that when "patriots take up arms for
the sake of their country and its safety, when they eliminate
exploitation and oppression, or when they avenge the injustice done
to the oppressed and go to the gallows, they use violence but they do
not spread terror".
The British Government created Simon Commission, headed by Sir John
Simon, to report on the political problems of India in 1928. Lala
Lajpat Rai conducted a peaceful march against the commission in front
of the Lahore Railway Station. The police, in retaliation, baton
charged the demonstrators. The police chief Scott was believed to
have hit Lala Lajpat Rai directly on his head that resulted in death.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and Azad vowed revenge and planned to
kill the police chief. But due to some mistake they killed his
junior, J.P. Saunders, and went underground and escaped from Lahore.
Over the next few days, public notices were seen in the name of
Indian Socialist Democratic Army. One such notice said: "We regret
having killed a human being but this man was a part of that
unmerciful and unjust system that must be destroyed."
His party was referred to as terrorists and he had to rebuild his
reputation in the eyes of the people. Pamphlets were one of the
easiest methods for spreading ideological and political information.
But Bhagat Singh realized the limited audience that these pamphlets
enjoyed. He was seeking some more effective way to propagate his
ideas. He thought of courting arrest to shout out propaganda during
the trial to generate popular support. He knew that he would have a
better position as a political prisoner to criticize the British
Government. Once inside, there were chances that he might have the
opportunity to gain support of the native policemen and the prisoners.
Most importantly, he thought that his sacrifice and martyrdom might
inspire the youth to become involved in a revolutionary movement and
prevent them from flowing with the mainstream national movement.
The Indian legislators rejected the Indian Safety Bill introduced by
the Government in 1929. Shortly afterwards, the Viceroy of India
attempted to pass it as an ordinance. Bhagat Singh, along with his
comrade B.K. Dutt threw a small and relatively harmless explosive in
the parliament. The bomb was strategically thrown to inflict as
little harm as possible. Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt remained in the
visitor's gallery where they were arrested. The aim of the activity,
according to the leaflets thrown in the Assembly Hall, was to make
a "loud noise to make the deaf hear".
On July 15, Bhagat Singh launched a successful hunger strike for jail
reforms that showed that his activism remained alive even behind the
bars. In July, 1929, the Lahore Conspiracy Case (Saunders Murder
Case) was reopened leading to the a death sentence. Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on the March 23, 1931. Bhagat Singh
was only 23.
To understand the struggle of Bhagat Singh it is necessary to
understand that he was a young man who, due to his interest in
studying, developed a revolutionary tradition that the British failed
to eliminate. His clarity of vision and determination of purpose made
him stand out in the mainstream Indian political movement.
In a letter to his co-patriot, Sukhdev, Bhagat Singh wrote: "I can
say with all my might that I am immersed in the hopes and doubts that
give life a meaning. But when the time comes, I will sacrifice
everything. In the true sense this is sacrifice... you will realize
this soon".
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Hiroshima Day
60 years ago today, a bomb changed the destiny of mankind for ever. One hundred and sixty-seven thousand people seized to exist. There death marked the coming of the atomic age. The world might never be the same again. Three days later and other city of Japan also shared similar fate with Hiroshima.
What is more tragic then the death of these thousands of innocent civilians is that humans still have not learnt their lesson. The military use of of atomic energy should have seized to exist at that point in time. On the contrary, it is still booming. Countries of the world are trying to maintain their nuclear dominance. What is the use to these bombs that US, China, France and Russia have created over decades? They are only meant for destruction. One by one, each country is entering this arm race lead by the upholders of "peace" and "liberty", United States of America.
Over several years, precious resources have been sucked out to finance the military nuclear projects. These precious resources could have used for development and betterment of mankind. To make this world a better place for us to live. But no matter how hard you cry, you can not be heard by the deaf. The huge explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nothing for these deaf ears.
It is tragic to know that only 17% of the world defense budget can eradicate poverty from the face of this planet. And yet we cry with all our power that resources are scarce. What bullshit?
It is sad but true that leaders of the world learnt nothing from the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. United States still continues it nuclear program while criticizing others on their nuclear policies. United States of America is a nuclear threat to this world.
Oh! This world filled with contradictions. I hope that will change.
What is more tragic then the death of these thousands of innocent civilians is that humans still have not learnt their lesson. The military use of of atomic energy should have seized to exist at that point in time. On the contrary, it is still booming. Countries of the world are trying to maintain their nuclear dominance. What is the use to these bombs that US, China, France and Russia have created over decades? They are only meant for destruction. One by one, each country is entering this arm race lead by the upholders of "peace" and "liberty", United States of America.
Over several years, precious resources have been sucked out to finance the military nuclear projects. These precious resources could have used for development and betterment of mankind. To make this world a better place for us to live. But no matter how hard you cry, you can not be heard by the deaf. The huge explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nothing for these deaf ears.
It is tragic to know that only 17% of the world defense budget can eradicate poverty from the face of this planet. And yet we cry with all our power that resources are scarce. What bullshit?
It is sad but true that leaders of the world learnt nothing from the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. United States still continues it nuclear program while criticizing others on their nuclear policies. United States of America is a nuclear threat to this world.
Oh! This world filled with contradictions. I hope that will change.
Saying No to the Hasba Bill
Quite recently the right-wing religious government of the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) have tried to implement a bill, known as Hasba Bill. They say that it is a try to "islamize" the province.
The bill is very clearly against the freedom and civil liberties. The bill grants special power to the Omudsman to keep an eye on the people and institutions and ensure that everything is going in accordance with the rules and regulations of Islam. This ombudsman is also incharge of the Hasba Police to allow him to perform his duties in an efficient manner. The Hasba police may enter the houses of people to "check" if they are working in accordance with the injunctions set forth by the religion.
Lets see how "representative" is the right-wing Muthida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in NWFP. MMA got 48% votes in the previous elections that had a voting turnout ration of somewhere around 20%. That way MMA only represents only 9-10% of the population of the province. Also, around 52% of the votes were coasted AGAINST the MMA. That shows us how "representative" the government of NWFP really is. That also shows one major flaw in the legal system of Pakistan where unrepresentative party is allowed to form the government.
Furthermore, even representative governments can sometimes be wrong. That is one important lesson that history teaches us.
The progressives of Pakistan are in strong opposition to the bill. They want that the bill to defeated on popular basis, not by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This bill exposes the mentality of the right-wing government of NWFP that want to implement the Taliban system of government in Pakistan. This is unacceptable.
Down with Hasba Bill
Down with MMA
Long Live the people's liberty
The bill is very clearly against the freedom and civil liberties. The bill grants special power to the Omudsman to keep an eye on the people and institutions and ensure that everything is going in accordance with the rules and regulations of Islam. This ombudsman is also incharge of the Hasba Police to allow him to perform his duties in an efficient manner. The Hasba police may enter the houses of people to "check" if they are working in accordance with the injunctions set forth by the religion.
Lets see how "representative" is the right-wing Muthida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in NWFP. MMA got 48% votes in the previous elections that had a voting turnout ration of somewhere around 20%. That way MMA only represents only 9-10% of the population of the province. Also, around 52% of the votes were coasted AGAINST the MMA. That shows us how "representative" the government of NWFP really is. That also shows one major flaw in the legal system of Pakistan where unrepresentative party is allowed to form the government.
Furthermore, even representative governments can sometimes be wrong. That is one important lesson that history teaches us.
The progressives of Pakistan are in strong opposition to the bill. They want that the bill to defeated on popular basis, not by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This bill exposes the mentality of the right-wing government of NWFP that want to implement the Taliban system of government in Pakistan. This is unacceptable.
Down with Hasba Bill
Down with MMA
Long Live the people's liberty
Friday, August 05, 2005
Blair’s delusions by Mahir Ali
IT was reported the other day in Britain that Tony Blair had told family members and close political allies that he had no intention of contesting another parliamentary election. Unfortunately, the next British general election could be almost five years away, and Blair has offered no indication of when he intends to step down as prime minister.
Last month offered an opportune time to go, as the blowback from Britain’s biggest foreign policy disaster since the Suez crisis hit the streets of London. However, Blair says he does not believe his decision to tag along as a sidekick to cowboy-president George W. Bush as the latter set out to conquer Iraq had anything to do with the terrorism in London.
According to one recent opinion poll, more than 65 per cent of Britons disagree with this assessment. Another survey puts the figure closer to 85 per cent. Then there’s the MI5, various other intelligence networks, think tanks, scores of media analysts. Is it possible that they could all be wrong while Blair spearheads the veracious minority?
Yes it is possible. But in this case it certainly isn’t true. And, in fact, if Blair seriously harbours the delusion that events in Iraq had no bearing whatsoever upon the recent events in Britain, then his precarious grasp of reality ought to disqualify him anyhow from occupying any position of power or responsibility.
There are reasons to suspect, though, that Blair has all along been reasonably well aware of his actions and their possible consequences. In the unlikely event of finding himself in the dock, at some point in the future, before a war crimes tribunal, George Dubya may be able to get away with pleading diminished responsibility. Not so Tony.
In his case, temporary insanity might be a more successful ploy. After all, it was a moment of madness that led him down the slippery slope to aiding and abetting unprovoked aggression against a sovereign state: the moment he decided that legality, morality, compassion and common sense be damned, he was going to follow wherever Bush and the neocons led, because that’s where Britain’s best interests lay. The majority of Britons did not agree, but that did not matter then any more than it does now.
It was, of course, a monumental error, the nature of the enormity laid bare not by of anything that has happened, or may happen, in London, but by all that has occurred in Iraq over the past two years or so. As Andrew Murray, chair of Britain’s Stop The War Coalition, puts it, “Every day is July 7 in occupied Iraq, where Britain has, along with the US, arbitrarily, violently and unlawfully constituted itself the de facto authority.”
No one other than Blair can say for certain whether he is clear in his mind about the consequences of his collaboration with the Bush administration, yet there are subtle indications that he harbours a guilty conscience. There are times when, as Shakespeare might have put it, the (not quite) honourable gentleman doth protest too much.
In recent weeks, for instance, his consternation at suggestions that the London bombings may not have occurred but for Britain’s participation in the aggression against Iraq has taken the shape of remarkably spurious arguments. Those claiming a connection between the two sets of circumstances have been accused of making excuses for the terrorists.
The absurdity of this charge can be illustrated through a historical example. Almost all historians agree that the humiliations Germany was subjected to in the aftermath of the First World War contributed significantly to a national mood that facilitated the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
I seriously doubt whether anyone has ever accused any of these historians of making excuses for Nazism. Not on this account, anyhow. Because no one has ever presumed that an explanation for the genesis of Nazism somehow diminishes the evil inherent in that ideology.
As Michael Moore plainly puts it in one of his highly readable polemics, Tony Blair is not an idiot. He must know the difference between explanations and excuses. It may well be the case, however, that he thinks he has little choice but to go the whole hog in following the lead from Washington. Explanations were scorned or at least sharply frowned upon in the wake of 9/11, as if any attempt to discover causes for the atrocities would somehow legitimize the vicious actions of Mohammed Atta and his gang.
This supremely unintelligent and potentially self-defeating approach is of a piece with the reluctance of governments to acknowledge serious mistakes they or their predecessors may have made in the past. Not a single member of the Bush administration, for instance, has publicly suggested that US support for Saddam Hussein in the Reagan years just might have been an error of judgment. And it took General Pervez Musharraf to point out what the Bush and Blair regimes won’t openly concede: that the international jihadi menace dates back to the crusade against the communist regime in Kabul, when the West encouraged and financed the import of mujahideen from all over the Muslim world, some of whom eventually turned on their erstwhile sponsors. However, Musharraf, too, fails the historical truth test by virtue of his dogged refusal to admit that Pakistan is reaping the Islamist whirlwind primarily as a consequence of the seeds sown by a previous military ruler. Frankly facing up to the sins of the Ziaul Haq years is a necessary (albeit not a sufficient) condition for undoing a decade’s worth of serious damage to the fabric of Pakistani society. The plan to exclude foreign students from madressahs is typical of the present administration’s half-measures.
The proposed registration of all madressahs by the end of the year may prove largely meaningless. The question that needs to be asked is: Does Pakistan need madressahs at all? Beyond obscurantist indoctrination, is there anything they offer that cannot be provided at regular schools and in university faculties dedicated to religious knowledge and inquiry?
Intriguingly, among the various notions Tony Blair has liberally been spouting of late is his determination to spread the “true message” of Islam. The idea of a western stamp of authentication for any particular brand of their religion is unlikely to find favour among many Muslims. However, should he find himself at a loose end whenever he decides to conclude his tenure as prime minister, might it not be prudent for Pakistan to offer him gainful employment as comptroller-in-chief of madressahs? Such a posting would, after all, go a long way towards allaying western suspicions about the aims and curriculums of these institutions. Blair, after all, is a pious man whose enthusiasm for single-faith schools in Britain would translate well to the new setting.
In the event, it would be best not to allow him to recruit any of his mates from Washington, because that would only unleash dogmatism all over again. That unendearing trait has manifested itself this week in Bush’s decision to appoint UN-hater John Bolton as his ambassador to the United Nations without Senate approval. That’s not entirely unlike sending Jack the Ripper to a convent (or even to a bordello). With nearly five years of White House experience behind him, the US president could write the textbook on how to win enemies and infuriate people. The trouble is, he’s virtually illiterate. Perhaps Condi Rice could ghost it for him.
Blair might not require a ghost-writer when he eventually gets down to the task of penning his memoirs. But will he be honest enough to acknowledge his grievous errors and offer a mea culpa? I somehow doubt it. It won’t matter much, though. His flaws as a veritable heir to Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberal legacy would have damned him anyhow.
The massive miscalculation that led to British troops revisiting Iraq more or less guarantees a Macmillan-like reputation for Blair. He will probably try to claim more than his fair share of the credit for the peace process in Northern Ireland that led to the last week’s announcement by the Irish Republican Army that it was ending its armed campaign. But even in that context, chances are that he’ll draw the wrong conclusions.
The fact that the IRA’s goal of a united Ireland was always defensible never justified its terrorist tactics — even though, as it has frequently been pointed out in recent weeks, the risk to civilian lives was usually minimized via phoned-in warnings. That goal has not been achieved, but former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley pointed out in The Guardian on Monday that the effective dissolution of the border between Ulster and the Republic of Ireland was only a matter of time because of economic compulsions.
That may seem like a rose-tinted vision, and it is not inconceivable that a degree of unrest may lie ahead before the partition of 85 years ago is undone. The fact remains, however, that Northern Ireland no longer appears to be under British military occupation, and the peace that prevails today — notwithstanding misgivings among Catholic and Protestant communities — is the consequence of negotiations. With former terrorists. And prospects for a settlement only manifested themselves once the British government recognized that no military solution to the conflict was possible.
A comparable strategy cannot be expected to work with those wedded to the idea of a universal Islamic caliphate or some such claptrap, but, somewhat like the unrepentant Real IRA, they can be sidelined by pursuing a sensible course that includes ending the occupation of Iraq.
Unfortunately, sensible courses and Tony Blair no longer have anything in common. His place in history will be determined not by any achievements he may have to his credit but by his relationship with the Bush doctrinists. In other words, there’s more ignominy to come.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/08/03/op.htm#4
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The revolutionary wave must start from the Third World
It is very important to understand that Marxism is a science. Science is something that is not written on the stone is and is open to debate and new discoveries resulting from our experiences in the world around us. One such experience is the starting of the global revolutionary wave.
Karl Marx predicted that the revolution will first come in the developed world. He based his opinion on the fact that since the first world (colonizers of that time) are the most industrialized. Due to the degree of industrialization, the proletariat or the masses of the developed world were amongst the most exploited of all. Due to the exploitation, the workers and peasants of the the first world formed the most revolutionary class. That is an over-simplified version of how the global revolutionary wave will emerge from the first world and then spread to the peripheries.
But history tought us a different lesson. In the first world, the labor movements were able to organize themselves and a very orderly fashion. To avoid the revolution, the bourgeois agreed with some terms of the masses. That lead to the welfare system of government that we are currently seeing in many countries of Europe. The implementation of the bourgeois concessions removed some exploitation that the workers and peasants of those countries were going through. They were no longer the most exploited of all the classes in the world. That led labor movements of these countries to deviate from their final goals as they were not attaining the popular support from the masses. They were now experiencing something that Marx referred o as the "false consciousness". The tide of revolution was delayed by some careful tactics of the bourgeois of the first world.
This development or "achievement" of the proletariat of the developed world can not be isolated with the contemporaries in the third world. The masses of the third world were being exploited on a much higher scale since they were not organized. It took the bourgeois of the first world pretty much to sustain a welfare system at home. They sucked that "pretty much" from the third world. The bourgeois of the third world helped their masters from the first world in actualizing their objectives.
The global socialist revolutionary wave must start from the workers and peasants of the third world.
Lenin said in one of his last articles: "Ultimately the outcome of the struggle will be settles by the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., constitutes the vast majority of the world population. And it is this majority of the population which during the past few years has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity; in this respect there can not be slightest doubt concerning the final outcome of the world struggle. In the sense, the complete victory of socialism is absolutely assured."
Karl Marx predicted that the revolution will first come in the developed world. He based his opinion on the fact that since the first world (colonizers of that time) are the most industrialized. Due to the degree of industrialization, the proletariat or the masses of the developed world were amongst the most exploited of all. Due to the exploitation, the workers and peasants of the the first world formed the most revolutionary class. That is an over-simplified version of how the global revolutionary wave will emerge from the first world and then spread to the peripheries.
But history tought us a different lesson. In the first world, the labor movements were able to organize themselves and a very orderly fashion. To avoid the revolution, the bourgeois agreed with some terms of the masses. That lead to the welfare system of government that we are currently seeing in many countries of Europe. The implementation of the bourgeois concessions removed some exploitation that the workers and peasants of those countries were going through. They were no longer the most exploited of all the classes in the world. That led labor movements of these countries to deviate from their final goals as they were not attaining the popular support from the masses. They were now experiencing something that Marx referred o as the "false consciousness". The tide of revolution was delayed by some careful tactics of the bourgeois of the first world.
This development or "achievement" of the proletariat of the developed world can not be isolated with the contemporaries in the third world. The masses of the third world were being exploited on a much higher scale since they were not organized. It took the bourgeois of the first world pretty much to sustain a welfare system at home. They sucked that "pretty much" from the third world. The bourgeois of the third world helped their masters from the first world in actualizing their objectives.
The global socialist revolutionary wave must start from the workers and peasants of the third world.
Lenin said in one of his last articles: "Ultimately the outcome of the struggle will be settles by the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., constitutes the vast majority of the world population. And it is this majority of the population which during the past few years has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity; in this respect there can not be slightest doubt concerning the final outcome of the world struggle. In the sense, the complete victory of socialism is absolutely assured."
Friday, July 29, 2005
Can ‘Human Nature’ Change? -- Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff
Among the arguments against socialism is that it goes against human nature. “You can’t change human nature” is the frequently heard refrain. That may be true of basic human instincts such as the urge to obtain food to eat, reproduce, seek shelter, make and wear protective clothing. However, what has usually been referred to as “human nature” has changed a great deal during the long history of humankind. As social systems changed, many habits and behavioral traits also changed as people adapted to new social structures. Anatomically modern humans emerged some 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Over the tens of thousands of years since, many different kinds of social organizations and societies have developed. Initially, most were based on hunting and gathering, while for about the last 7,000 years many have been based on agriculture. These societies were organized as clans, villages, tribes, city-states, nations, and/or empires.
Anthropologists who studied “primitive” societies found very different human relations and human nature than the highly competitive, dog-eat-dog, selfish characteristics that have dominated during the capitalist period. The economics of these early precapitalist societies often took the form of reciprocity and redistribution. Trade existed, of course, but trade between tribes was not for personal gain. Agricultural land was neither privately owned nor could it be bought and sold, instead, it was generally allocated and reallocated by village chiefs. Much of the food collected by the chiefs was redistributed at village ceremonial feasts. There were wars and domination by local tyrants—these were not perfect societies by any means—but they had different values, social mores, and “human natures.” As Karl Polanyi explained in 1944: “The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets.” In such societies the economy was a function of the social relations and people were not allowed to profit from trading transactions.
The variety of structure and organization of past civilizations is truly striking. It was not so long ago—in the span of human existence—that the native peoples in North and South America had a very different consciousness than that imposed by the invasions and conquests of the European armies and settlers. Thus Christopher Columbus wrote after his first voyage to the West: “Nor have I been able to learn whether they held personal property, for it seemed to me that whatever one had, they all took shares of....They are so ingenuous and free with all they have that no one would believe it who has not seen it; of anything they possess, if it be asked of them, they never say no; on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their hearts went with it.”
According to William Brandon, a prominent historian of American Indians: “Many travelers in the heart of America, the Indian world real before their eyes, echoed such sentiments year after year, generation after generation. These include observers of the most responsible sort, the missionary Du Tertre for a random example, writing from the Caribbean in the 1650s: ‘...they are all equal, without anyone recognizing any sort of superiority or any sort of servitude....Neither is richer or poorer than his companion and all unanimously limit their desires to that which is useful and precisely necessary, and are contemptuous of all other things, superfluous things, as not being worthy to be possessed....’” And Montaigne wrote of three Indians who were in France in the late sixteenth century. They explained to him about the common Indian custom of dividing the people into halves, groups with special and separate duties for ritual or administrative reasons, such as the Summer and Winter people of the various North American tribes. The Indians were struck by the two opposing groups in France. “They had perceived there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others which hunger-starved, and bare with need and povertie begged at their gates: and found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice, and they tooke not the others by the throte, or set fire on their house....”1
The European settlers in the thirteen colonies in what became the United States had no doubts about their superiority in every way over the “wild savage” Indians. But let us take a look at the Iroquois Nations. They had democracy involving not political parties but people’s participation in decision-making and in removing unsatisfactory officials. Women voted with the men and had special responsibilities in certain areas. At the same time the “civilized” settlers relied on white indentured servants and black slaves and severely constrained women’s rights. It took three and a half centuries after the pilgrims landed to free the slaves and four centuries for women to get the right to vote!
We have briefly referred above to societies in which economics was subservient to social relations. That changed dramatically in the evolution of capitalism as private property, money, and trade for gain came to the forefront. Social relations became but reflections of the dominating force of society’s capitalist economics instead of the reverse. Aristotle foresaw the dangers ahead because some aspects of what would become capitalism were present in the ancient world:
There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. (Politics)
Although Aristotle supported slavery, which he apparently found natural, he thought selling and charging interest to make a gain unnatural. The situation is now reversed. Most people nowadays see slavery as unnatural, while selling to make a profit and charging interest seem like the most natural of human activities.
It is, of course, doubtful whether the concept of a “human nature” means anything at all because the consciousness, behavior, habits, and values of humans can be so variable and are influenced by the history and culture that develops in a given society. Not only has so-called human nature changed, but the ideology surrounding the components of human nature has also changed dramatically. The glorification of making money, the sanctioning of all the actions necessary to do so, and the promotion of the needed human traits—“unnatural” and repugnant to Aristotle—is now the norm of capitalist societies.
During capitalist development, including the recent past, what many have considered obvious characteristics of human nature have been shown to be nonsense. For example, it was once considered a part of human nature that women were not able to perform certain tasks competently. It was extremely unusual for women to be physicians, partially because of the belief that they were not capable of learning and using the needed skills. Now women doctors are common, and women are frequently more than half of the students in medical school. The recent harebrained remarks by Harvard University’s president that perhaps it is part of human nature that women can’t do quality work in math and science indicates that a strong ideological view of human nature still exists. This sentiment is now supposedly made more scientific by presumed genetic differences, even in areas where none have been demonstrated. It is clear what many consider human nature is actually a set of viewpoints and prejudices that flow out of the culture of a particular society.
Capitalism has existed for about 500 years—mercantile (or merchant) capitalism for about 250 followed by industrial capitalism for the last 250—less than 0.4 percent of the entire period of human existence. (In large parts of the world, capitalism arrived later as the system expanded and has held sway for an even smaller portion of time.) During this small slice of human history the cooperative, caring, and sharing nature within the human character has been downplayed while aggressive competitiveness has been brought to prominence for the purpose of fostering, and surviving within, a system based on the accumulation of capital. A culture has developed along with capitalism—epitomized by greed, individualism (everyone for themselves), exploitation of men and women by others, and competition. The competition occurs among departments in companies and, of course, among companies and countries, and workers seeking jobs, and it permeates people’s thinking. Another aspect of the culture of capitalism is the development of consumerism—the compulsion to purchase more and more, unrelated to basic human needs or happiness. As Joseph Schumpeter described it decades ago “...the great majority of changes in commodities consumed has been forced by producers on consumers who, more often than not, have resisted the change and have had to be educated by elaborate psychotechnics of advertising” (Business Cycles, vol. 2 [McGraw-Hill, 1936], 73).
If human nature, values, and relations have changed before, it hardly needs pointing out that they may change again. Indeed, the notion that human nature is frozen into place is simply another way that those supporting the present system attempt to argue that society is frozen in place. As John Dewey wrote in an article on “Human Nature” for The Encyclopeia of the Social Sciences in 1932,
The present controversies between those who assert the essential fixity of human nature and those who believe in a great measure of modifiability center chiefly around the future of war and the future of a competitive economic system motivated by private profit. It is justifiable to say without dogmatism that both anthropology and history give support to those who wish to change these institutions. It is demonstrable that many of the obstacles to change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status.
Anthropologists who studied “primitive” societies found very different human relations and human nature than the highly competitive, dog-eat-dog, selfish characteristics that have dominated during the capitalist period. The economics of these early precapitalist societies often took the form of reciprocity and redistribution. Trade existed, of course, but trade between tribes was not for personal gain. Agricultural land was neither privately owned nor could it be bought and sold, instead, it was generally allocated and reallocated by village chiefs. Much of the food collected by the chiefs was redistributed at village ceremonial feasts. There were wars and domination by local tyrants—these were not perfect societies by any means—but they had different values, social mores, and “human natures.” As Karl Polanyi explained in 1944: “The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets.” In such societies the economy was a function of the social relations and people were not allowed to profit from trading transactions.
The variety of structure and organization of past civilizations is truly striking. It was not so long ago—in the span of human existence—that the native peoples in North and South America had a very different consciousness than that imposed by the invasions and conquests of the European armies and settlers. Thus Christopher Columbus wrote after his first voyage to the West: “Nor have I been able to learn whether they held personal property, for it seemed to me that whatever one had, they all took shares of....They are so ingenuous and free with all they have that no one would believe it who has not seen it; of anything they possess, if it be asked of them, they never say no; on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their hearts went with it.”
According to William Brandon, a prominent historian of American Indians: “Many travelers in the heart of America, the Indian world real before their eyes, echoed such sentiments year after year, generation after generation. These include observers of the most responsible sort, the missionary Du Tertre for a random example, writing from the Caribbean in the 1650s: ‘...they are all equal, without anyone recognizing any sort of superiority or any sort of servitude....Neither is richer or poorer than his companion and all unanimously limit their desires to that which is useful and precisely necessary, and are contemptuous of all other things, superfluous things, as not being worthy to be possessed....’” And Montaigne wrote of three Indians who were in France in the late sixteenth century. They explained to him about the common Indian custom of dividing the people into halves, groups with special and separate duties for ritual or administrative reasons, such as the Summer and Winter people of the various North American tribes. The Indians were struck by the two opposing groups in France. “They had perceived there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others which hunger-starved, and bare with need and povertie begged at their gates: and found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice, and they tooke not the others by the throte, or set fire on their house....”1
The European settlers in the thirteen colonies in what became the United States had no doubts about their superiority in every way over the “wild savage” Indians. But let us take a look at the Iroquois Nations. They had democracy involving not political parties but people’s participation in decision-making and in removing unsatisfactory officials. Women voted with the men and had special responsibilities in certain areas. At the same time the “civilized” settlers relied on white indentured servants and black slaves and severely constrained women’s rights. It took three and a half centuries after the pilgrims landed to free the slaves and four centuries for women to get the right to vote!
We have briefly referred above to societies in which economics was subservient to social relations. That changed dramatically in the evolution of capitalism as private property, money, and trade for gain came to the forefront. Social relations became but reflections of the dominating force of society’s capitalist economics instead of the reverse. Aristotle foresaw the dangers ahead because some aspects of what would become capitalism were present in the ancient world:
There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. (Politics)
Although Aristotle supported slavery, which he apparently found natural, he thought selling and charging interest to make a gain unnatural. The situation is now reversed. Most people nowadays see slavery as unnatural, while selling to make a profit and charging interest seem like the most natural of human activities.
It is, of course, doubtful whether the concept of a “human nature” means anything at all because the consciousness, behavior, habits, and values of humans can be so variable and are influenced by the history and culture that develops in a given society. Not only has so-called human nature changed, but the ideology surrounding the components of human nature has also changed dramatically. The glorification of making money, the sanctioning of all the actions necessary to do so, and the promotion of the needed human traits—“unnatural” and repugnant to Aristotle—is now the norm of capitalist societies.
During capitalist development, including the recent past, what many have considered obvious characteristics of human nature have been shown to be nonsense. For example, it was once considered a part of human nature that women were not able to perform certain tasks competently. It was extremely unusual for women to be physicians, partially because of the belief that they were not capable of learning and using the needed skills. Now women doctors are common, and women are frequently more than half of the students in medical school. The recent harebrained remarks by Harvard University’s president that perhaps it is part of human nature that women can’t do quality work in math and science indicates that a strong ideological view of human nature still exists. This sentiment is now supposedly made more scientific by presumed genetic differences, even in areas where none have been demonstrated. It is clear what many consider human nature is actually a set of viewpoints and prejudices that flow out of the culture of a particular society.
Capitalism has existed for about 500 years—mercantile (or merchant) capitalism for about 250 followed by industrial capitalism for the last 250—less than 0.4 percent of the entire period of human existence. (In large parts of the world, capitalism arrived later as the system expanded and has held sway for an even smaller portion of time.) During this small slice of human history the cooperative, caring, and sharing nature within the human character has been downplayed while aggressive competitiveness has been brought to prominence for the purpose of fostering, and surviving within, a system based on the accumulation of capital. A culture has developed along with capitalism—epitomized by greed, individualism (everyone for themselves), exploitation of men and women by others, and competition. The competition occurs among departments in companies and, of course, among companies and countries, and workers seeking jobs, and it permeates people’s thinking. Another aspect of the culture of capitalism is the development of consumerism—the compulsion to purchase more and more, unrelated to basic human needs or happiness. As Joseph Schumpeter described it decades ago “...the great majority of changes in commodities consumed has been forced by producers on consumers who, more often than not, have resisted the change and have had to be educated by elaborate psychotechnics of advertising” (Business Cycles, vol. 2 [McGraw-Hill, 1936], 73).
If human nature, values, and relations have changed before, it hardly needs pointing out that they may change again. Indeed, the notion that human nature is frozen into place is simply another way that those supporting the present system attempt to argue that society is frozen in place. As John Dewey wrote in an article on “Human Nature” for The Encyclopeia of the Social Sciences in 1932,
The present controversies between those who assert the essential fixity of human nature and those who believe in a great measure of modifiability center chiefly around the future of war and the future of a competitive economic system motivated by private profit. It is justifiable to say without dogmatism that both anthropology and history give support to those who wish to change these institutions. It is demonstrable that many of the obstacles to change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status.
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