Wallace's Corner

A socialist perspective on today's events

Organizing for their own defeat

7 December 1998

In Ontario, working people have been hit hard by the Progressive Conservative provincial government led by Premier Mike Harris. The agenda of the present ruling party (which took office after the ousting of former Premier Bob Rae's NDP) is to wholeheartedly support corporate power, beat down the trade union movement, drastically cut government spending on social assistance programs, education and health.

Opposition has been raised by the labour movement, community organizations, and a host of groups advocating "social justice".

One organization, the Centre for Social Justice, has produced a series of Factsheets for the Ontario Federation of Labour. The sheets delineate the deepening disparity in control and ownership of wealth, the drop in incomes of working families, how workers are forced to work longer hours for less pay.

The Factsheets note the following:

Long ago it was recognized by Socialists that the disparity of wealth under capitalism would increase.

But what does the Centre for Social Justice advocate to remedy this? One of the Factsheets states:

Agitate for improved UI [Unemployment Insurance] and social assistance until we find another way to meet basic cash needs in an economy that isn't generating enough paid work for enough people.

Another goes on to state:

There are alternatives to the growing reliance on market forces. There are fairer, more people-friendly ways of doing things that can act to help close the gap between rich and poor while creating a better world to live in.

Those "fairer" ways include:

This is essentially the program of the reform-minded New Democratic Party (and before that the CCF) all over again - a program advocated for over 60 years in Canada.

Socialists, however, are quick to point out that even under reform NDP provincial governments the disparity between capitalists and workers grows, poverty increases, wages can rise then fall. In its essentials capitalism will not and cannot be changed to be run for the benefit of the working class.

Begging for crumbs from the capitalist table will not solve workers' problems and neither will a greater equalization of incomes nor trying to preserve what they have. The Centre asks working people to endorse a program for defeat.

Over 100 years ago, Karl Marx concluded that the motto of the working class should not be "a fair days wage for a fair days work". Rather, it should be "Abolition of the Wage System". We in the Socialist movement agree.

Let us call upon working people to abolish the system of capitalism itself and ensure once and for all their complete victory.

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