| Socialist Standard
August 2005
Page 5 |
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What about
human nature?
Dear Editors
Reading the article “Talk about Socialism” in July’s Socialist Standard
I began to wonder in what, and how many, different ways socialists
approach the argument of “human nature”.
“People are naturally lazy/greedy/aggressive”, etc. – how easily these
phrases trip off the tongue, usually before the brain has been put into
gear. Aren’t we all at some time, in certain circumstances, lazy,
greedy, aggressive? I would suggest we are all a complex blend of
“general psychological characteristics, feelings and behavioural
traits” (Concise Oxford Dictionary re. Human nature).
These are some of my “human nature-an alternative view”–
Cooperation - currently in the majority world subsistence farmers and
the like already cooperate in family groups to provide basic needs, not
buying and selling but simply producing.
Cooperation/hospitality - many cultures in the world have a very strong
family/community welfare ethos and base their daily lives on working
together for the benefit of all. Most of these people live in the
majority world and although they have little they share what they have
(even with strangers).
Generosity and Compassion - from the minority world where most people’s
lives are generally less harsh a large number of people willingly
donate (money) on a regular basis in the hope of easing other people’s
difficulties, e.g. child sponsorship, AIDS programmes, clean water
programmes.
Compassion/Empathy - in areas/times of major/natural disasters
volunteers are never lacking, nor slow to offer assistance, whether
practical or monetary.
Giving/Sharing - huge armies of regular volunteers at home and abroad
are at work to help and improve people’s lives, e.g. lifts to
hospitals; shopping for the old or disabled; youth workers in clubs and
sports associations; parents’ associations linked to schools,
playschools etc. for better education and facilities; organizers of
charity events.
Yes, a lot of this is to raise money! Because that is the system now.
But these are examples of people giving time freely to organize events,
bake cakes, engage in sports and other promotional events for
altruistic reasons.
Sharing - cooperatives of consumers in local areas putting in time on a
regular basis to benefit themselves and the community.
Cooperation - bartering systems where people swap skills-a few hours
ironing for the repair of a water leak.
An observation about retired, i.e. not-working-for-money people: many
will say it’s the best time of their lives and that they don’t have
enough time to fit everything in. And what are they doing? They are
often involved in the kind of activities they actually enjoy, taking
care of the grandchildren, helping out even older folk in the
community, growing vegetables, involving themselves in ongoing
educational projects, having an occasional holiday. In fact, generally
playing a part in the community in ways which would admirably suit a
socialist society.
So, as far as things are now, in this non-socialist, totally capitalist
world, yes, of course there are those who are ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’,
‘aggressive’ and I believe volumes could be and have been written by
anthropologists giving perfectly good reasons for such behaviours in
our concrete jungles and human zoos.
I prefer to call attention to the industriousness, generosity, and
compassionate aspects of human nature.
Working together for the common good?
Yes!
People can do it, people do do it – it’s all part of that wonderful
diversity called Human Nature..
JANET SURMAN, TURKEY
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Nothing
has changed
Dears Editors
Twenty years ago, there was a high profile pop concert organised by the
Live Aid group, to help the famine in Ethiopia. Now two decades later
nothing has changed.
The Live 8 concerts addressed the effects of poverty not it causes.
Unless the present social system has changed, for many more decades
down the line there will be more Live Aids, more GB summits on this
poor continent, and more Bonos and Bob Geldofs, yet all their cries for
billions to be spent on aid are still unlikely to make more than the
smallest dent in the deprivation.
Although there is criminal incompetence of Africa’s post-colonial black
elites (the people who call themselves presidents, prime ministers, and
in some instances kings and princes of the continent have waged war on
their own people and plundered the continent’s wealth to ever bulging
Bank account in Switzerland), the main problem of the continent is
capitalism.
It is common knowledge that up to two-thirds of the world’s population
are hungry, while millions actually die from starvation each year. Why
in a world of potential plenty is so elementary a human need as food
neglected for some many people?
Some would deny that we live in a world of plenty and claim that the
cause of world hunger is natural scarcity. That in other words, some
people starve simply because not enough food can be produced.
In the present state scientific knowledge and productive techniques,
enough food could be produced adequately to feed the population of the
world.
World malnutrition then is not a natural but a social problem. Its
cause must be sought not in any lack of natural resources but in the
way society is organised. World society everywhere rests on the basis
of the resources of the world, natural and manufactured, by very rich
minorities.
Rock stars or any other celebrities will not persuade the rich class to
make world poverty history. It’s in fact the world market system that
ruled the world. Acting like a natural force beyond human control, it
has much power than any national government.
The market creates an artificial scarcity and organised waste that is
responsible for poverty and hunger in the world today. The law that
governs everywhere is “no profit, no production”.
MICHAEL GHEBRE, LONDON NW1
Dear Editors
Below is a
letter I sent to Bob Geldof.
Dear Bob,
I deeply respect your sincerity in campaigning for the end of poverty
through the world. My understanding of poverty is the insufficiency of
the necessities of life leading to an inability to enjoy the wealth
potentially able to be created in abundance by humankind, including
leisure pursuits, the arts and the basic necessities including shelter,
warmth, food and water and the freedom from illness. This deprivation
leads inevitably to hunger and disease. I believe that this
insufficiency is largely caused by money.
As I am sure you will agree, it is important to understand that
wide-scale hunger and even famine can occur when the available food
supplies are not necessarily less than sufficient to feed the people
they should be intended for. For example the well-known study of the
1943 Bengal Famine by Armatya Sen, which I am sure you are familiar
with, showed this clearly. Other famines in recent times have occurred
when there has been a sufficiency of food. Indeed food exporting from
Ethiopia continued during the famine of the 1980’s.
It is also important to understand that not all the population of an
area affected by hunger will go hungry. It is often what has been
called ‘entitlement’ that denies access to the available food. Under
the present way of ordering Society this entitlement can be determined
by money or barter and not necessarily by a person’s need for food.
Having money alone that would ordinarily secure enough of the basics
does not always ensure sufficient access to those basics as, for
example, when there is a shortage caused by ‘natural’ or human factors.
Generally, as with anything else, when there is perceived to be a
shortage, the ‘value’ of goods and services (including food) rises.
Because of the way things are ordered it is the poorest who suffer most
when the price of commodities rises. Therefore Poverty can be said to
cause hunger and hunger to cause poverty, because hunger weakens
resistance to disease, which in turn leads to an increasing tendency to
an inability on the part of its victims to tend to their needs.
As things are presently ordered, therefore, there is an advantage to
those who control the availability of essentials and who in some way or
other profit from their sale to regulate the supply of goods and
services anywhere in the world.
If the products of human labour and indeed the plentiful raw materials
throughout the world – including Africa – were freely available to
those who needed them and indeed to those who help make them available
for human consumption without the intervention of money or any other
limiting factor imposed by a minority of humans then there could not be
need of any kind, much less catastrophes like famines. Where there were
factors held to be beyond the immediate control of humankind, for
example floods or droughts, then the technology presently widely
available could be used to ameliorate their worst effects. Water can be
transported, sea water can be desalinated, rivers can, to some extent,
be contained in their capacity to cause widespread damage to the lives
of people who happen to live in their flood plains.
Presently some African countries are troubled by, among other things,
wars, corrupt government as well as crop failure due to drought and
other factors. To some extent many other parts of the world have also
been affected in similar ways over the last few centuries. The ‘debt’
that is owed by many countries in Africa and elsewhere is often at
least in part due to the efforts of other countries to trade with them.
With things ordered as they presently are – in other words governed by
money – there is no incentive for traders with Africa or anywhere else
to be ‘fair’. These traders are bound by the same rules all traders in
the present system are – i.e. to maximise their profit in trading with
anyone. If they were ‘fair’ they would quickly go out of business
because their profits would decline.
Therefore ‘wiping out’ present debts is no guarantee of a long term
solution to the poverty that has been more or less imposed on many
African countries. Rather the abandoning of the money system itself by
the entire world and sharing the resources of the earth in common is
the only real way. Perhaps those countries that have experience in
combating the worst effects of droughts could be called upon to help.
There are many examples of international co-operation at present under
the money system, Space Exploration to name one large one. Another
example near to my home is the construction of the Thames Barrier,
which utilised the expertise of the Dutch in Flood Defences, the
Americans in producing heavy duty waterproof bearings for the gates,
the British with their expertise in large scale steel structures, and
Austrians with other necessary skills. If this can all be done now,
with money as a limiting factor - imagine what could be done when the
entire world is united in the will to solve the problems any other area
may suffer! We could all share the skills and resources we all have in
plenty for the benefit of all humanity! Imagine what kind of world that
could be!
Yours,
Tony Norwell, London SE2
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