Conghaileach
22nd December 2002, 15:48
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Answering O'Reilly & Corn
RED-BAITING, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM
By Deirdre Griswold
"Workers World Party ... wants to abolish private property. I mean,
these are hardcore commies, OK?"
--Bill O'Reilly, Fox TV's host of "The O'Reilly Factor," Nov. 18
To the right-wing followers of Bill O'Reilly, there can be no greater
sin than that.
And, maybe not so surprising, O'Reilly's view matched that of his guest,
David Corn. A Washington editor of the liberal Nation magazine, Corn was
on the show to redbait the anti-war movement with "revelations" that WWP
members played an important role in organizing the Oct. 26
demonstrations against the U.S. drive to war on Iraq. Corn wrote in an
exchange of letters posted on the Nation's Web site on Dec. 4 that WWP
"calls for abolishing all private property"--proof that the party is an
ultra-left "sect."
From the tone adopted by these two figures--one a reactionary, the other
a presumed liberal--you might think Workers World wanted to nationalize
everyone's toothbrushes, or at least their homes and cars.
However, these two should know that that is nonsense. The real issue is
what to do about the tremendous accumulation of property in the hands of
a very small class of millionaires and billionaires. And not just
"personal" property, like their yachts and mansions, but their private
ownership of society's means of production--everything from factories
and mines to offices and stores, from railroads to fiber-optic cables,
from giant hog farms to supertankers full of petroleum.
For at least a century, the size of the class of super-rich owners of
the means to produce all that people need has been shrinking as capital
is concentrated through mergers and acquisitions. Small farmers, who
once made up half the U.S. population, are a dying breed, wiped out by
giant agribusinesses. Those who remain really work for the banks that
hold their mortgages and lend them money. Mom-and-pop stores have gone
the same way--either rolled over by the big chains or pulled into a
franchise arrangement that passes the risk onto the little guy but keeps
real ownership in the hands of big capital.
Some economists used to argue that the middle class in the United States
was expanding and the extremes of wealth and poverty were melting away.
Anyone claiming that today would be laughed at. Every year brings new
statistics on the growing polarization of society.
Downsizing capitalist enterprises and outsourcing work were supposed to
generate a new middle class of entrepreneurs. Now that hard times are
coming back after eight years of boom, many self-employed people are
finding that they have no security, pay a fortune for health care and a
pension plan, and own nothing of lasting value except a depreciating
computer and work skills that are getting harder and harder to sell.
They're just unemployed or underemployed workers, in other words.
Nor can the millions of workers whose hard-earned savings are invested
in mutual-fund pension plans be considered owners of this economy. As
has been made very clear through the recent scandals at Enron and other
corporations, these small shareholders have no power at all. The
executives and big shareholders make sure to keep them in the dark about
what's really going on. If you have savings in a bank, does that make
you a banker? Small investors are not the owners of the companies that
took their money. They don't even have the security of depositors in a
bank.
Capitalism, the system that has created a world economy based on
whatever brings the highest profit--be it flowers, high-tech weapons or
narcotic drugs--is a particular form of private property. It replaced
feudalism and slavery as a form of private ownership of the means of
production.
At one time, the idea of abolishing slavery--a system of private
property in human beings--was just as subversive as communism is to
O'Reilly and Corn.
Likewise, the feudal nobles whose fortunes depended on owning the land
and all the "souls" who worked it could not conceive of turning the land
over to the people. Centuries of peasant revolutions, however,
eventually made feudalism obsolete in most of the world.
Private property has not been eternal. In fact, for 99 percent of human
existence property was communal and human needs were satisfied through
sharing and cooperation. An article entitled "The Biology of
Benevolence" in the Dec. 2 issue of Psychology Today reported on a study
showing that cooperation is hard-wired in our brains. "The choice to
cooperate stimulates pleasure centers in the brain and can even overcome
the urge to strive for increased financial gains," wrote Dan Schulman.
"This reward circuitry may provide a biological basis for altruism,
selfless behavior that is unique to humans."
Workers World Party believes that the only system able to replace dog-
eat-dog capitalism and lift human society to a higher level is
socialism. The class struggle of the workers, combined with all the
other progressive forces in society, can bring down the repressive state
controlled by the capitalist class. The main task of a workers'
revolution is to liberate the means of production from private ownership
and reorganize economic life to produce for human need instead of
private profit.
In the small minds of David Corn and Bill O'Reilly, this is sheer hell.
How odd, then, that no one has ever suggested that private property
rules in heaven. n
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Answering O'Reilly & Corn
RED-BAITING, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM
By Deirdre Griswold
"Workers World Party ... wants to abolish private property. I mean,
these are hardcore commies, OK?"
--Bill O'Reilly, Fox TV's host of "The O'Reilly Factor," Nov. 18
To the right-wing followers of Bill O'Reilly, there can be no greater
sin than that.
And, maybe not so surprising, O'Reilly's view matched that of his guest,
David Corn. A Washington editor of the liberal Nation magazine, Corn was
on the show to redbait the anti-war movement with "revelations" that WWP
members played an important role in organizing the Oct. 26
demonstrations against the U.S. drive to war on Iraq. Corn wrote in an
exchange of letters posted on the Nation's Web site on Dec. 4 that WWP
"calls for abolishing all private property"--proof that the party is an
ultra-left "sect."
From the tone adopted by these two figures--one a reactionary, the other
a presumed liberal--you might think Workers World wanted to nationalize
everyone's toothbrushes, or at least their homes and cars.
However, these two should know that that is nonsense. The real issue is
what to do about the tremendous accumulation of property in the hands of
a very small class of millionaires and billionaires. And not just
"personal" property, like their yachts and mansions, but their private
ownership of society's means of production--everything from factories
and mines to offices and stores, from railroads to fiber-optic cables,
from giant hog farms to supertankers full of petroleum.
For at least a century, the size of the class of super-rich owners of
the means to produce all that people need has been shrinking as capital
is concentrated through mergers and acquisitions. Small farmers, who
once made up half the U.S. population, are a dying breed, wiped out by
giant agribusinesses. Those who remain really work for the banks that
hold their mortgages and lend them money. Mom-and-pop stores have gone
the same way--either rolled over by the big chains or pulled into a
franchise arrangement that passes the risk onto the little guy but keeps
real ownership in the hands of big capital.
Some economists used to argue that the middle class in the United States
was expanding and the extremes of wealth and poverty were melting away.
Anyone claiming that today would be laughed at. Every year brings new
statistics on the growing polarization of society.
Downsizing capitalist enterprises and outsourcing work were supposed to
generate a new middle class of entrepreneurs. Now that hard times are
coming back after eight years of boom, many self-employed people are
finding that they have no security, pay a fortune for health care and a
pension plan, and own nothing of lasting value except a depreciating
computer and work skills that are getting harder and harder to sell.
They're just unemployed or underemployed workers, in other words.
Nor can the millions of workers whose hard-earned savings are invested
in mutual-fund pension plans be considered owners of this economy. As
has been made very clear through the recent scandals at Enron and other
corporations, these small shareholders have no power at all. The
executives and big shareholders make sure to keep them in the dark about
what's really going on. If you have savings in a bank, does that make
you a banker? Small investors are not the owners of the companies that
took their money. They don't even have the security of depositors in a
bank.
Capitalism, the system that has created a world economy based on
whatever brings the highest profit--be it flowers, high-tech weapons or
narcotic drugs--is a particular form of private property. It replaced
feudalism and slavery as a form of private ownership of the means of
production.
At one time, the idea of abolishing slavery--a system of private
property in human beings--was just as subversive as communism is to
O'Reilly and Corn.
Likewise, the feudal nobles whose fortunes depended on owning the land
and all the "souls" who worked it could not conceive of turning the land
over to the people. Centuries of peasant revolutions, however,
eventually made feudalism obsolete in most of the world.
Private property has not been eternal. In fact, for 99 percent of human
existence property was communal and human needs were satisfied through
sharing and cooperation. An article entitled "The Biology of
Benevolence" in the Dec. 2 issue of Psychology Today reported on a study
showing that cooperation is hard-wired in our brains. "The choice to
cooperate stimulates pleasure centers in the brain and can even overcome
the urge to strive for increased financial gains," wrote Dan Schulman.
"This reward circuitry may provide a biological basis for altruism,
selfless behavior that is unique to humans."
Workers World Party believes that the only system able to replace dog-
eat-dog capitalism and lift human society to a higher level is
socialism. The class struggle of the workers, combined with all the
other progressive forces in society, can bring down the repressive state
controlled by the capitalist class. The main task of a workers'
revolution is to liberate the means of production from private ownership
and reorganize economic life to produce for human need instead of
private profit.
In the small minds of David Corn and Bill O'Reilly, this is sheer hell.
How odd, then, that no one has ever suggested that private property
rules in heaven. n
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected] Subscribe wwnews-
[email protected] Unsubscribe [email protected] Support the
voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)