No. 19 • Prisons • $2.00

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journal of the world socialist movement in the united statesjournal of the world socialist movement in the united statesrrrrrrrrrrrrrreviewssssssssssssssocialistwwwwwwwwwwwwwworld A

BOLISH

EMPLOYME

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PRISONERS

OF CAPITALPRISONERS

OF CAPITAL

In every class-divided society since

history began, laws have beenset up in order to protect the

interests of the ruling class. That isthe purpose of law and government.

In a socialist world, where thereare no classes, customs thatsupport the interests of the

whole human communitywill replace laws.

INSIDE:capital’s global stockade

a world without prisons

a day in the life

the security scam

the morality of amerika

the thirteenth amendment

leonard peltier & the primal needs of capital

world socialist review/2 INTERNET http://www.worldsocialism.org/usa

Millions of human beingsaround the world areforcibly detained, their

liberties removed by governmentalauthorities. Anyone who takes seri-ously the immediate potential forreplacing capitalism with a world ofreal abundance and freedom knowsalready that the great majority ofcrimes are either crimes againstproperty or involve the illegal traf-ficking of property — or are thelikely direct result of living therestricted and stressful life of a wage-slave.While there are those who justifythe existence of laws on moral andideological grounds, the defendersof the status quo must always arguetheir case referring to aswashbuckler’s haven of spuriousdoctrines, some of them philosophi-cal (“free will”), theological (“goodand evil”), psychological (“mentalillness”) or political (“justice”). Andyet the wasting away of countless millions of human livesremains a potent critique of a society of private property, asmuch as the maltreatment and exploitation of animals orchildren in our society. The sheer hypocrisy and failure of thelaw is inevitably the feature subject of this issue.

It is illegal to kill one’s fellows in a fit of rage but perfectlylegal to kill fellow workers from other countries to satisfy theruling class’s need to protect or assert its economic or politicalspheres of influence in another part of the world. One must notsteal, say both the law and the Bible, and yet it is perfectly legaland morally acceptable to rob working people every day of thewealth they produce above their wages, distilling the high lifefor the greedy and lazy few out of the gradated deprivationsvisited on the majority, stymying people’s efforts to provideenough for themselves and their children. The subject ofprisons goes to the very heart of our so-called civil society,putting to shame the naïve suggestion that we live in a demo-cratic society. The truth is that a society of privilege must beprotected by the brute powers of the law. We are not allowedto enjoy more wealth than the crumbs we are permitted in ourwages or welfare income, and anybody who attempts this in oursociety will be handcuffed and taken away.

Make no mistake about it, the lack of freedom inside theprison cells directly mirrors the lack of freedom for workingpeople outside them. On the outside you will be forced to work,unless you want to live in a cardboard box and seek food in agarbage can; you will be forced to accept your wages or salary

Prisoners of capitalfor the work you do, forcedto accept the nature of thejob, forced to spend vasthours of your life even out-side work just preparingfor it and getting to andfrom it. You will be forcedto put up with the otherside effects of capitalism— its pollution, its stress,its shoddy goods, its wars,and the fact that billionsmust starve to death, in-cluding tens of millions ofchildren each year. Your“free” time itself will becarved up into the variousconsumer “entertain-ments” and “pleasures”available for the right price.What is truly yours in capi-talism is debatable.

Your fate and that of theprisoners who languish be-hind bars every day are in-

separably intertwined. Indeed, inside or outside prison, we willnever be free until we establish a society in which humans comefirst and the production of wealth is oriented toward meetingour needs and those of our children — one in which we are nolonger forced to work in order to be adequately fed, clothed andhoused, and in which the economic priorities of the rich nolonger send poor and uneducated youth to die abroad, orcondemn the planet to a slow death by self-poisoning. Whenproperty is owned in common, we will find ways as a commu-nity to better meet our needs for wealth, creativity, decision-making, love, rest, productivity, and freedom.

We challenge the myth of the present era that some peopleare good and others evil, or that crime is an entirely moral issue.We maintain as scientific socialists that behavior must beunderstood in its social context: that of a society divided intotwo classes, one owning the vast proportion of wealth withoutworking for it, and the other producing all the wealth whileowning but a miniscule proportion of it.

Until the vast majority of us are liberated from the prison ofbeing workers, we must denounce all the moralistic assump-tions and shoddy social analyses of our public behaviors thatlead so many of us to be locked away behind bars. We will onsuch a glorious day liberate our brothers and sisters in jail, andwe urge them now to join us in the worldwide project ofdesigning a system that promotes for real the enjoyment of theabundant wealth and freedom that are our birthright. Ø

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Prisons are nothing if not about boundaries, and globalcapitalism has long utilized the boundaries of the nationstate to its advantage. All nation states have their respec-

tive unique organizations of government, and each is filled witha type of head warden and plenty of guards to keep the inmatestoeing the line. And, as wardens go, these heads of state are mostoften hubris-filled, authoritarian, power-intoxicated peoplewho stab each other in the back vying for power, wealth, andprestige.

Warden Bush himself has risen in the last decade, astonish-ingly, from Head Honcho of the Lone Star State to HeadWarden of the whole U.S. penal empire (proof positive nooutstanding intellect is required to be a warden), and now seemsto be vying for Global Executive Imperial Director of CapitalistPrisons. This is best exemplified by the recent drubbing givento Warden Hussein and his prisoners, while simultaneouslysticking it to the domestic inmates of the U.S. HomelandSecurity Unit. And what about the prisoners of the U.S.national enclosure?

During my 14 years as a prisoner in Texas prisons, I’ve hadample time to reflect on the concept of prisons and imprison-ment. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not only those lockedbehind the concrete enclosures officially designated as “prisons”who are imprisoned, and that there are many types of prisons.I would define imprisonment as a state of existence in which thefreedom to make choices and exercise options is extremelylimited, controlled, or denied altogether by persons who havepower over you, and in which misery, deprivation, dehuman-ization, violence, and coerced servitude are norms accompaniedby the constant threat of negative sanctions.

Under this broadened rubric, I would venture to say that theworld itself has become a type of prison, not literally of the wallsand bars type, but one in which the inmates wear manaclesforged by capitalism, and who find themselves, the world over,in various states of relative captivity and exploitation. It wasnoted once by the Situationists that existence under capitalismis not life at all, but mere survival. In any prison setting the nameof the game is survival whether it be in San Quentin, the junglesof Colombia, or in Iraq.

…In capital’s global stockadeOne recent and extremely hot day, while slaving in the prison

kitchen at the Huntsville Walls Unit, a Mexican fellow prisonerand I found ourselves in the refrigeration vault attempting tocool off. We were also discussing the novels of B. Traven. Iexplained to my friend that B. Traven had escaped the risingtide of reaction in post-World War I Germany, and probablya firing squad as well, and after much travel under numerousaliases, he settled in the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico. This wasin the 1920s, and besides studying the languages and culturesof the indigenous peoples in that region, Traven wrote novelsfrom a working-class and somewhat materialist philosophicalperspective.

To attempt a rudimentary explanation of materialism to myfriend, I queried him as to why he had risked death by heat orexhaustion and/or the bullets of border guards just to come tothe U.S.A. His instant reply was, “To make more money!”“Exactly!” I said. “Human beings are social beings who, just byvirtue of being human, have material wants and needs that mustbe met. Unfortunately, we live in an anti-social, class-dividedeconomic system based on competition and callousness inwhich working people are forced to sell themselves as dearly aspossible in order simply to survive. Material forces compelledyou to strike out against all odds to claim a better price for yourlabor power. Just as the same material forces in Germany 90-odd years ago resulted in war, revolution and reaction, andcompelled B.Traven to flee for his life.” My Mexican amigoperceived survival in the U.S. Homeland Security enclosure assweeter than within the Mexican national enclosure. Ironically,though, my friend, once imprisoned by national boundariesand poverty, now finds himself a chattel in a Texas prison …working for free.

Open the doors …In our conversation we touched upon the economic motiva-

tions and contingencies between the recent war and the rise inTexas parole rates. Texas, along with many other states facingdebt crises, has no federal funds to support its prison system, inpart because of the imperialist “permanent war” on terrorism.In short, as the bomb bay doors swing open raining death anddestruction over foreign lands, prison doors here swing openreleasing prisoners to an already rended social fabric. It’s ashame that the relative break Texas prisoners are experiencingis in part at the expense of workers’ misery in the Middle East.I have no doubt that more than a few of the inmates of thosenational enclosures would swap their current digs for three hotsand a cot here in a Texas prison.

Existence in prison, for those who give a damn, entails aconstant vigilance toward maintaining hard-won rights andreforms in order just to be able to exercise a modicum of choiceand improved conditions. Hard-won, because prisoners haveput in painful hours of legal research, often under conditions ofharassment, to litigate for these reforms. Very often, work-

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strikes, hunger-strikes, and other forms ofresistance were initiated in the course ofstruggle, resulting in beatings and loss oflife for prisoners. Failure to protect thesereforms can mean the difference betweenshowering once a day as opposed to onceevery three days, or the right not to bestrip-searched in 20-degree weather orshackled to a post in 100-degree weather.These reforms constantly face the threatof retraction or modification by theprisoncrats and their legal teams, and it ismuch the same for wage-slaves in the U.S.and abroad. Here, the eight-hour dayseems to have fallen by the wayside, andtime-and-a-half after 40 hours meets theslippery slope à la Bush.

For the domestic inmates of the U.S.Homeland Security Enclosure, such so-cial safety net reforms as food stamps,Medicare, Medicaid and unemploymentbenefits, have been cut back at a timewhen workers are suffering high unem-ployment rates and the insecurities ofrecession. Yet these reforms, important asthey are to making survival more toler-able, are never the ultimate answer, andcan never provide lasting security. Theyare only defensive measures.

Political servitudeServitude is an almost universal at-

tribute of imprisonment. The 13thAmendment to the U.S. Constitutionprecludes involuntary servitude, except aspunishment for criminal acts. Texas pris-oners are required to slave for forty hoursa week, often out in the gruelling heat, forno financial remuneraton. This is all le-gitimized by the Constitution. The line inthe Constitution would seem to implythat there is something voluntary aboutthe practice of wage slavery, or having tochoose between it and starvation.

Wage slaves the world over cannot findwork, and when they do, often have toperform it under horrendous conditionsfor a paltry sum. Indeed, for many wageslaves in capital’s global prison, workingto provide food and shelter for self andfamily amounts to a Hobson’s choice ofkilling one’s self simply to survive. Here inthe relative comfort of the so-called FirstWorld, many wage-slaves are overworkedand underpaid, and the economic insecu-

rity of high unemployment compels manyworkers to seek employment in the armedforces or to take jobs as prison guards.None of these conditions would be freelychosen or volunteered for, or even toler-ated, were the workers aware of the highlypractical alternative of Socialism.

Short-term myopiaPrisons are notorious polluters, subject-

ing both inmates and nearby residents tosenseless toxic pollution. This has as muchto do with cutting budgetary corners as itdoes with crass disrespect for the environ-ment. Our global capitalist stockade ismuch the same, being polluted from eco-nomic corner-cutting and a myopic short-term gain outlook held by our warders.Our collective conditions of confinementhave become perilously worse. No longerare we merely enslaved and oppressed. Wenow find ourselves subjected to cancer-causing pollutants at every level and thevery real threat of extinguishing life onthis planet.

From that perspective, the drag effect ofmillions of minds being conditioned tobelieve that survival under capitalism isthe best we humans can achieve is prob-ably the single greatest threat to a livablefuture. No prison conditions were everimproved without a significant number ofprisoners becoming politically consciousand solid in a struggle. Yet simple reformswill not suffice and in the end will onlybring about our ultimate demise. Capital’sstockade is global, so escape is not anoption. That leaves the choice betweenacquiescing to death in prison or collec-tively bringing about a socialist futurewith life for all humanity.

It is one of a prisoner’s worst fears thathe or she may die within prison walls. Allprisoners long to walk the earth oncemore. Yet when I finally emerge from thewalls of this Texas prison in a couple ofyears, I will still be within the confines ofcapitalism, manacled by economic hard-ship, insecurity, war, pollution, and gov-ernmental represson. I thirst with all mybeing to one day live in a world withoutprisons of any kind, and that’s why I’m asocialist.

Let’s get solid, Fellow Prisoners, andcreate a truly Free World!

— Kevin Glover

Died of a heart attack May 13, 2004. It would be hardto overestimate his contribution to the World SocialistMovement. His death reaches beyond personal loss. HarryMorrison became convinced of the case for socialism asa young man, influenced by an older brother who hadfirst heard it in Toronto. Like many others, Harry did hisshare of traveling in boxcars; he turned up in Boston c.1937 but soon was off to California. Returning in 1939,he met and married a comrade, Sally Kligman, at one ofBoston Local’s socials. They moved back to Los Angelesin 1941 and contacted comrades there. Then finally backto Boston again in 1947 with their five-year-old daugh-ter, Anita, where Harry and Sally became active Localmembers. He loved to play the guitar at party gather-ings. Harmo served on the NAC for many years and keptparty headquarters afloat as the Local went into declinein the 70s, but heart problems eventually forced hiswithdrawal from active party work. He used this idle time,as a political prisoner might, to do research and writemore extensively on socialist topics. Then in 1987, Sallydied. Two years later, McFarland & Co. published TheSocialism of Bernard Shaw, which we still distribute, andHarry was busily sending round to publishers two otherdraft manuscripts, one on Jack London and the other onthe Soviet Union. But though he lived alone, he did notjust keep to himself. He now also had two grandchildrento enjoy. He would never turn down an invitation to asocial gathering, and liked to visit and be visited bycomrades in the area, including from the SPGB (Cdes. VicVanni and Tony McNeil the most recent).After a second heart attack in December 2002, Harrymoved into a Brookline nursing home. A socialist to theend, he would give talks on Marxism to his fellow resi-dents, with one or two comrades and family membershelping out. Harmo served on the Editorial Committeeand wrote energetically and voluminously (sometimesanonymously) for the party journal, The Western Socialist(WS); he later also became the party’s chief contactperson and correspondent, firing off letters with as muchflair as his articles. He had a real gift for articulating thesocialist analysis and was a fine outdoor speaker whoenjoyed beating the pants off opponents in local debates.During the 40s and 50s, he spoke from the party’s plat-form on Boston Common; and even after television, thugs,traffic and the underground parking garage pretty muchdestroyed Speaker’s Corner down by Charles Street in the60s, he kept the socialist presence there alive through-out the 70s, staging impromptu talks along the TremontStreet side. For a decade or so in the 60s and 70s, theWSP meanwhile kept a weekly radio spot on WCRBBoston, and Harry was among those comrades who wrotefive-minute scripts for the show; he was even one of theon-air readers. When the WSP decided in 1974 to pub-lish a pamphlet commemorating the WS’s 300th issue –The Perspective for World Socialism, which we still dis-tribute — 30 or so of his radio essays found their wayinto it. During the same period, he very ably and adroitlyput across the socialist viewpoint to the late HaywoodVincent’s listeners on AM radio and to Adam Burak’s onFM as well. Ø

HARMO (Harry Morrison)1912 – 2004

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Few institutions illustrate the op-pression of people in capitalismbetter than prisons. Millions of

people, almost completely members ofthe working class, in the United Statesand around the world, are presently wast-ing away for violations of the laws ofprivate property or for crimes that stemfrom residing in a society based on wantfor some and privilege for others.

There is no question that the vast ma-jority of crimes today for which individu-als are incarcerated are crimes of property.The Crime Index for 2001 makes it clearthat somewhere in the region of 84 to 90percent of crimes are entirely property-related. Surveying the statistics from sev-eral states, we find that 173,000 out of192,000 crimes were property-related inAlabama (90 percent). In California, 1.13million people were arrested for propertycrimes out of a total of 1.34 millionarrests (84 percent). In Florida, there were782,000 property crimes out of 913,000crimes (85 percent). In Kentucky, therewere 109,000 property crimes out of119,000 crimes (91 percent). All statesfell roughly in this range, with 84 percentbeing the lowest. Violent crimes repre-sented the next largest group, standing atabout 10-18 percent of all crimes. Mur-ders fell into the smallest group, repre-senting roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percent of allcrimes.

Capitalism is a society of haves andhave-nots. The market economy gener-ates such poverty and artificial scarcitiesthat it is the prime cause of thefts. Even

average wage and salary earners must se-riously budget their incomes to obtain thenecessaries and luxuries of life. The verysystem is rooted in an individualistic dog-eat-dog ethic that wastes resources on avast scale, thus pre-empting any possibil-ity for making rational use of our techno-logical and productive capacity. Workersare denied access to the wealth they havecollectively produced as a class, and somust make do with the crumbs calledwages and salaries with which to obtainwhat they need or want. By contrast, theyproduce surplus value for their employ-ers, which entitles a small class of ownersto live off a vast store of accumulatedwealth.

Another way to work the system?To make matters worse, wealth is only

produced in capitalism if it may generatea profit. Thus, there are never sufficientitems of wealth to meet the needs of thehuman population, not even sufficientjobs in which workers may sell themselvesto the employing class to receive wages. Itis therefore no surprise to find that thevast majority of crimes occur in the poor-est neighborhoods, where most peoplemake ends meet for themselves or theirfamilies only with the utmost difficulty, ifat all, and where even the prospect offinding a job is bleak.

Such social relations of inequality as wefind in capitalism are essential to explain-

ing why so many African-Americans inthe U.S. are incarcerated for crimes ofproperty, and for crimes of selling drugs.In 1997, 33 percent of all arrests in theentire country were of blacks,1 and in1999, 49 percent of all prison inmateswere black, even though African-Ameri-cans represented only about 13 percent ofthe overall population. Most of the arrestsof this population were for low-level drugoffenses. Interestingly, while over 90 per-cent of those tried for drug offenses in thestate of California in 1995 were minori-ties, the drug-using population in thatsame state was more than 60 percentwhite. The 60 percent of drug users prob-ably did not reside in the same extremelyimpoverished communities as the non-white 90 percent of drug offenders. Onemust, after all, have a considerableamount of money (at least, more than canbe obtained from welfare checks) to spendon expensive drugs, money available toalmost no one in the poorest, often mi-nority, neighborhoods of the UnitedStates.2

Racism likely also plays a part in thedisproportionately high number of ar-rests and incarcerations of black youth —they are more likely to be stopped, frisked,arrested, prosecuted, sentenced and ex-ecuted than whites committing the samecrimes. The effects of this high rate ofincarceration upon black working-classcommunities have been devastating.What happens when 30 percent of Afri-

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1 U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1997.2 Paul Street, “Race, Prison and Poverty,” Zmag,www.zmag.org.

A world without prisons

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can-American males ages 20-29 are snaredin the “3 P’s” of prison, probation, orparole? It means, for starters, that theblack community has been effectivelydenied participation in the electoral sys-tem, after winning it in the successful civilrights marches and protests of the 1950sand 1960s. Ten states deny voting rightsfor life to ex-felons, 32 deny them tofelons on parole, and 29 states disenfran-chise felony probationers. Thus, at anygiven time, a vast proportion of blacks arenot able to exercise any political rights atall. Furthermore, parolees are often de-nied employment opportunities. Thereare counties in California in which amere 21 percent of that state’s parol-ees are working full time. Thisofficial cold shoulder further fu-els the cycle of poverty in blackcommunities. Thomas K.Lowenstein, director of the Elec-tronic Policy Network, estimatesthat 80 percent of prison inmatesare parents. Children of prisoners arefive times more likely to experience in-carceration than those children who neverhad to suffer the misery of having theirparents locked away, according to otherresearchers.3

After being released from prison, ex-cons are poorly equipped to sell them-selves in the job market. This is becausethe jobs available in prison are of the typesthat are no longer as prevalent in theUnited States, but of the kind that em-ployers pay for dirt cheap in the ThirdWorld. Unless U.S. prisoners are expectedto emigrate to the sewing sweat shops ofCentral America where they would belucky to make $200 a year, the job skillsthey obtain in prison will be next touseless, thus encouraging them to returnto the far more lucrative illegal activitiesthey engaged in before. Besides, mostblack and poor communities have so fewjobs available that job training alone willbe irrelevant in removing the economic

conditions that led to the high crime ratesin the first place.4

Poverty is simply a fact of capitalism.Capitalism is an economic system based oncommodity production. It is incapable ofproducing wealth outside of its narrowprofit motive, and incapable of hiring work-ers that it may not generate a profit from.Therefore, inevitably capitalism generatespoverty. For as long as it has existed, mil-lions of workers have been pressured intomaking money illegally, selling drugs, sell-ing their bodies, robbing banks, breakinginto homes and so on — and millions morewill continue to follow them.

Prisons are among the most thrivingslave communities in the United States oreven the rest of the world (to be listedalong with the still rampant enslavementof women and children, especially inAsia). The 13th Amendment to the Con-stitution that abolished slavery on De-cember 18, 1865, clearly states: “Neitherslavery nor involuntary servitude, exceptas punishment for crimes whereof the partyshall have been duly convicted, shall existwithin the United States, or any placesubject to their jurisdiction” (author’semphasis). Slavery therefore was not com-pletely abolished after the Civil War butmaintained for the prison population.Indeed, after the Civil War, state prisonsfrequently rented out prison labor to pri-vate contractors. This is what led theVirginia Supreme Court to remark in an1871 case known as “Ruffin v. Common-wealth” that prisoners were “slaves of thestate.” For 70 years following the CivilWar most state and federal prisons werecompletely self-sufficient slave econo-mies, producing their own goods and

food, and also some industrial products,without the producers being paid. Suchblatantly slave or capitalist relations,where inmates were paid pitiful wages,were mostly abolished from the 1930suntil the 1980s, when states began toreinstate that practice once more. In1986, Supreme Court Justice WarrenBurger urged the transformation of pris-ons again into “factories with fences.”Prisons were to return to being self-suffi-cient, profit-generating enterprises.

Such alterations in prison policy fur-nish an interesting parallel with the his-toric struggle between slavery and capital-ism as modes of production. Slavery wasfinally abolished in this country in 1865not only because it was an unarguably

oppressive institution that under-standably aroused the abolitionist

sentiments of decent and just-minded men and women, butalso because it was less efficientthan wage slavery. Slaves andtheir families had to be clothed,

fed and housed even when they didnot or could not work. The ties of

obligation that the chattel slave ownerhad for his human property often ledslaves to attempt to destroy the owner’smachinery, burn his fields, even kill him.With the worldwide development of in-dustrial capitalism’s far more efficientsystem of human exploitation, the bondof obligation between worker and em-ployer was broken. Workers were now“free” — free to starve, free to be home-less, free to be let off the job, free tomanage on meagre wages, free to pay adoctor to attend to them in their illness.

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Slavery was notcompletely abolished after

the Civil War but maintained forthe prison population. Indeed, after

the Civil War, state prisonsfrequently rented out prison

labor to privatecontractors.

3 See Clyde E. DeBerry, Blacks in corrections,1994.4 See Robert C. Witt, An Inside Job, 1997, for amoving personal and sociological accountwritten by an ex-con.

You work, therefore I am … richThis freedom was truly a remarkable

contribution to society, allowing the newrulers, the capitalists, the freedom to moreor less pay their wages without any addedresponsibilities. (Although the workingclass over the past 150 years did insist onseveral further responsibilities that wouldbe paid for out of their employers’ surplusvalue, it never contemplated abolishingthe essential relations of employer andworker [owner and non-owner] — themodern version of master and slave.) Butprisons have managed to preserve a great

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deal of the social and economic relationsof chattel slavery, while similarly insistingupon a capitalist revolution in favor oftransforming the previous slave prisonersinto far more efficient wage workers, eventhough their wages are rarely more thanthe minimum.

Hard life, hard feelingsIt is often claimed that socialism is im-

possible because people are spontaneouslylazy and avoid working whenever theycan. But perversely enough, one of themost powerful arguments against thisclaim is based on observing how humansbehave in prison. These are behaviors thatexist far less commonly outside the prisonwalls, and so serve to illustrate how diverseare human behaviors and how much theyreflect the material conditions of life. Forinside the prison walls, denied freedomand dignity, humans degenerate into fear-ful, revengeful, murderous, and exploit-ative monsters in order to survive theterrible ordeals of incarceration. Everyyear, there are over 300,000 instances of(reported) rapes in prisons, almost all ofmen raping other men: 40,000 of whichare of male children in juvenile detentioncenters and 123,000 of men in countyjails, with roughly 5,000 rape victimsbeing women. Most rapes are not re-ported, so it is likely the figures are actu-ally many times greater than these avail-able statistics. It has been estimated thatunwanted sexual advances among inmatesoccur on the order of 80,000 a day.

The most likely victims of rape inAmerican prisons are smaller young whitesfrom that section of the working classfrequently and incorrectly termed “middleclass” for its greater propensity to secureemployment; they are besides either notstreet-smart, or they have no gang affilia-tions. Sixty-nine percent of rape victimsin prisons are white, while 85 percent ofrapists in prison are black. The reason forsuch an ethnically disproportionate statis-tic is that the white prisoners are less likelyto have established solidarity networkswhile in prison, since they are a minorityin the prison but a majority on the out-side, while the blacks are a minority out-side but a majority inside.

Prisoners typically fall into three classeswhile in prison. There is a group of preda-tors, also known as jockers, studs, wolvesand pitchers. This group will seek out newvictims and will always attack in groups.This group views itself as virile “men.”These men have never been penetrated orraped (or they would immediately losetheir predator status). The second groupis known as the jailhouse queens. Thisgroup actively carries on a female-likeexistence and is cherished by the preda-tors.

Finally, the third group is known as thepunks or fuck boys. These are the younger,weaker inmates who have been “turnedout” by the stronger inmates. They arenormally assaulted days after they arrive,and these attacks will continue until theyeither get protection, are locked up inprotective custody, or turn queen them-selves. AIDS/HIV is six times the nationalaverage in prisons, since rapists do notwear condoms. The 2001 Human RightsWatch report “No Escape: Male Rape inU.S. Prisons” describes a nauseating cata-logue of beatings, rapes, and murders in-flicted on new prisoners by other inmates.This same report describes understand-ably extremely high rates of clinical de-pression, anxiety disorders (for example,Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), suicidaland homicidal tendencies found amongprisoners who may not have been thusafflicted when they were first incarcer-ated.5

Prisons clearly fail to keep the popula-tion safe from itself. They play a consid-erable role in causing people who weresane before to develop antisocial person-alities, and in adding to the population’smental illness. They deprive children oftheir parents and communities of theirmembers’ economic and other personalcontributions, while sadistically punish-ing individuals on the surreal assumptionthat the prisoners “freely” chose theircrime in a morally equal and objectiveuniverse, rather than acted within a seri-ously circumscribed universe of poverty,trauma, violence and alienation — one

rife in antisocial and manipulative modelsof behavior.

In The Psychopathic Mind: Origins,Dynamics, and Treatment (1995), Dr. J.Reid Meloy wrote of several of the mostcommon environmental variables com-mon to sociopaths (who account for someof the violent crimes and almost all of themurders). These individuals, who havelost or have never developed a sense ofempathy or concern for the rights or feel-ings of others, often identify with an ag-gressive role model in their own lives, suchas an abusive parent. They attack theweaker, more vulnerable self by project-ing it onto others. As multiple murdererDennis Nilsen put it, “I was killing myselfonly, but it was always the bystander whodied.”

According to Dr. Meloy, such antiso-cial personalities can be explained in vari-ous ways: frequently they have lost a par-ent (about 60 percent), have been de-prived of love or nurturing (detached,absent parents), received inconsistent dis-cipline (where the father for examplemight have been stern and the motheroverly permissive, causing the child togrow up manipulating the mother andhating authority); or they may have hadhypocritical parents who privately be-littled the child while publicly presentingan image of the “happy family.”

Leadership, sociopathy, successIt has often been observed that psycho-

paths make successful businessmen orworld leaders. What else are capitalists orleaders but individuals who must excel inthe ability of requiring the submissionand exploitation of other human beings?Of course, not all psychopaths are moti-vated to kill. But when it is easy to devalueothers, and you have had a lifetime ofperceived injustices and rejection, murdermight seem like a natural choice. Psychia-try and prisons are in any case not de-signed to attack the real cause of theantisocial development of such individu-als: a world that is itself antisocial, cruel,heartless, violent, stressful, controllingand competitive, and that stifles andthwarts the nature of parenting and the

5 Scott L. Anderson, “Rape in Prison,”www.loompanics.com.

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optimal conditions for the developmentof prosocial children. Prisons reflect theclass nature of society like few other insti-tutions. Far from addressing the nature ofclass society, they exist only to segregatethe worst offenders against its norms intoa sort of industrial apartheid.

Capitalism fails miserably to meet ouremotional needs, let alone our physicalones. How to humanize an intrinsicallyexploitative society in which five percentexist to exploit the other 95 percent? Howto make people feel safe when millionsaround the world die every year of starva-tion and wars, when the majority is pow-erless and propertyless and must sell itselfto the class that owns the means of pro-ducing wealth? Is it so surprising thatwhen people live without the means tosecure the comforts of life for themselvesand their families, they will violate theinterpersonal boundaries of others with-out caring?

Crime is not a moral conceptBut instead of confining our thoughts

and energies to dealing with the problemsof capitalism, socialists attempt to see thewhole picture. We refuse to reduce muchof what passes as “crime” merely to themoral stature of those arrested — we insistrather upon examining the social contextthose human beings inhabit and eliminat-ing the source of the inequalities inherentin the capitalist economy. As revolution-aries we are tired of “politics as usual,”which does nothing to address society’scollective misery. We are sick of hearingabout futile remedies such as prison re-form, when it is the society based onexploitation that must be replaced by onein which we who are now merely theworking majority own and control themeans of producing wealth as the wholecommunity.

Create a more socially responsible andcaring society in which people feel in-volved, and they will behave more so-cially. Allow humans free access to theircollectively produced wealth, eliminatethe buying and selling factor, and not onlywill they cease to have a market to selldangerous drugs in — the disappearance

of price tags will cease to make earning aliving necessary to begin with. Provideconditions for parenting that emphasizecollective support and nurturance, thatput children first, and children will notgrow up so twisted, defiant, angry, de-pressed, alienated or dangerous.

A world without prisons does not meanoverlooking disturbances caused byviolent acting out among itscitizens: it does meanfinding more hu-mane ways tomanage it. Somepeople, at times,may indeed needto be restrained,children pro-tected or threatsaverted. A demo-cratic society will be ableto find ways to meet this needfor safety without exploiting or degradingthe perpetrators. The entire research ofclinical, social and developmental psy-chologists into the variables that underpinantisocial acts and into ways of helpingpeople overcome their hostile propensi-ties is at present ignored, when so many ofthe crimes are systemically caused and areso prevalent. Since most crimes are crimesof property, and class society sets its rulesand norms to benefit the ruling minority,it is impossible to be sure at present whata society of common ownership mightdeem to be affronts to people or to thewhole community. The existence of classsociety provides not just the greatest con-founding variable for psychologists study-ing human behavior today, but one that isat present completely intractable. Howcan they test their hypotheses about hu-man behavior or measure the efficacy oftheir recommendations for treatment, aslong as the relations of owner and non-owner persist outside (and within) labora-tory conditions?

again feel more a part of the social fabric,and less opponents of it. The “loneragainst society” paradigm of the criminalwill likely be a thing of the past. The veryidea of locking up offenders is a powerfulmetaphor for the antisocial community’slack of accountability for its own prob-lems, its myopia, its own sociopathy, so to

speak. Workers both inside and out-side prison must work to

bring the administra-tion of society into

the democratichands of thewhole humancommunity.

Only in such asocialist world

will power residewith the entire com-

munity, which willthink twice about how it

treats its sons and daughters, its broth-ers and sisters, its fathers and mothers.Socialism will be a society without locksand keys, marked by its openness and itsability to find solutions rather than brushproblems under the carpet. Without aruling class and its economic and politicalinterests to protect, there will no longer bea need for its state, its armies, or its pris-ons.

Freedom will ring in the air for allhuman beings, and a feeling of truly beinga part of a large human family will risefrom the ashes of this presently divisiveand competitive society. In such an emo-tional climate, we believe, humans willrush to participate voluntarily in increas-ing the pool of wealth and the freedom toenjoy it, and the ensuing social ethic willlikely be one of people working togetherrather than being pitted against eachother. Trust will replace suspicion. Free-dom will replace oppression. And “peni-tentiaries” will remain only as potent sym-bols of the larger prisons in which eachday we used to lock away not only ourchildren, but our future, our ability tocare and our imaginations.

— Dr. Who

Socialism will be asociety without locks and keys,marked by its openness and itsability to find solutions ratherthan brush problems under

the carpet.

A note to our readers“The Thirteenth Amendment” and “Aday in the life” are printed with theauthor’s permission.

The irresponsibility of profitPrisoners, like workers everywhere, have

a vested interest in establishing a society inwhich human needs come first. In a soci-ety of unfettered democratic participa-tion, marked by the ability to freely pro-duce and access wealth, humans can once

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PPaassss tthhiiss ccooppyy oonn ttoo aa ffrriieenndd!!

What are my days like?It is now 4:30 AM. I have had breakfast: two tiny

biscuits, one fried egg and something they call “grits”but that more closely resemble india rubber. I ate thebiscuits and the egg, and drank another cup of coffee.When I finish this writing, I intend to stamp this letterand finagle a way to stick it through the narrow crackin my “bean chute,” which is the colloquial name forthe “food slot,” a rectangular slot about 14 inches wideand five inches tall with a locking door that stays shut.This door is opened three times a day to give me mytray, then three more times to remove my plate. BeforeI may receive my food, I must sit on my bunk as faraway as possible from the slot. They will then open theslot, place the tray on it, and scoot back. Then I mayrise and claim my food. I move away from the door, andthe slot is closed. Rather like you might imagine a lionbeing fed. This is why it takes an awfully long time tofeed chow. Since I’m inevitably the last to eat, being inthe very back corner of the wing, meals are always cold.If they are greasy, as is often the case, the grease willhave condensed to a waxy film over everything, whichisn’t especially palatable unless you’re fond of cold hoglard, and I confess I am not. That covers chow andanswers the question of whether or not I am allowed toeat in a “common room.” No!

At about two o’clock in the afternoon, they come byto pass out “necessities,” at which time I strip naked,hand in my old undershorts and receive a new pair, sanselastic; ditto socks. Often the officer is a female; nomatter. I receive one towel. Immediately after theshowers, they retrieve that towel lest I use it to hangmyself. Sheets are changed weekly if they have any(which is a 50/50 chance), and if not, then the nextweek. These are the rituals of “necessities.”

Three days a week — Monday, Wednesday, andFriday — we have “recreation.” The procedure worksthis way: at about 5:30 AM someone will sneak throughand take what is called the “VR list.” VR stands for“verbal refusal,” although it’s not quite verbal inpractice. The more of us the guards can “VR“ the fewerthey actually have to take out (which is the closestthing they do to work). Assuming, then, that you areawake, with your light on, freshly shaven, and standingin your door when they sneak through, you will beeligible for “rec“ that day. In this sense, my cell is anadvantage, as someone will sing out, “VR List!” “VRList!” when they spot the guard with the list. Then yougo back to whatever you were doing, and sometime inthe next few hours, perhaps in minutes or not untilafternoon, depending on where they start, “rec“ will berun.

A DAY IN THE LIFE When that time comes, the slot will be opened. To

be eligible to go, you must be standing naked at thedoor with your clothes and shoes in your hand. Youhand each article of clothing to the guard, who inspectsit for weapons or contraband. He hands it back and youdon your shorts and shoes. Then you kneel backwardsto the door, placing your arms (behind your back)through the slot. This is tricky and takes some gettingused to. Your hands are manacled. Once the handcuffsare secured, you can pull your arms in and the guardwill give the signal to open the door. They escort youout to a yard that is a large concrete pad with indi-vidual barred and fenced cages with locking doors. Eachcage has a pull-up bar, a basketball hoop and onebasketball that may have air in it if you’re lucky. Youmay not touch the fence for any reason.

Once you are placed in your own individual “recyard,” you stick your arms out through the slot (just arectangular opening in the fence here, no locking door)and they remove the handcuffs. Your hour started whenyou left the cell. In about 45 minutes they are back toget you, and in front of all the other yards, you againstrip naked, holding your shoes and clothes in hand.But no one else notices because they are doing thesame thing, too. Again the guard inspects each articleand allows you to put on shorts and shoes. You arecuffed, the door is opened, you are taken to your cell.The door is closed. The cuffs are removed, the slot isclosed, and that is it. You have been recreated.

This is your only out-of-cell activity. It occupies threeof the 168 hours in the week, and the rest of the timeyou are confined to the cell.

Of course, there is the occasional excitement whensomeone climbs into another’s yard and kills or injuresthem, or the guards slam someone and beat him up, orgas someone for slights real or imagined. It can getmuch worse, but this is the best case scenario.

Then there is the glory of cell searches. Every 72hours without fail, each cell on the unit must bethoroughly searched for weapons and contraband. Thisentails the usual stripping and cuffing. You are thenheld outside while one or two guards enter your celland throw things around willy nilly, stick their fingersin your food, shake out your sheets, clothes, etc. andgenerally make a mess for you to put back in order.This takes place every day sometimes if things are“tense.”

What are my days like? They “drift to dust, likedried leaves dropped from dead limbs.” An image thatis very fitting to the wasted time here.

— Ken Lynch

world socialist review/10 INTERNET http://www.worldsocialism.org/usa

For most of human history peoplelived in a condition of what historians in our age have described,

with all of the arrogance and condescen-sion of civilized snobbery, as “primitivebackwardness.”

For something like 40,000 years of theearliest evolution of human society ourancestors were “primitives.” And what didit mean to suffer this terrible primitive fateof not being born into civilized times suchas ours? It meant that they lived coopera-tively; what they had they used in com-mon; what they gathered from naturethey shared on the basis of free access;what rules for living they governed them-selves by were not alien “laws” made bysuperior beings called legislators and en-forced by feared bodies of bullies devotedto the organized judgment and repressionof others.

Primitive rules and customs reflectedthe consciousness of the community.Where people made such rules for them-selves there was no call for primitive judgesto dress in bizarre costumes and pontifi-cate in pompous tones about laws by thefew in order to regulate the conduct of themany. As for violence, the only weapons

known to the earliest humans were thoserequired for the conquest of the naturalenvironment in the perpetual struggle forsurvival and comfort.

Now we are no longer primitive. Withthe help of large supplies of gunpowderand sustained intakes of religious opiatesthe mass of humanity has “been civilized.”Reagan and Gorbachev, with their fingersupon buttons that could annihilate theplanet at a push, are civilized. The one infive scientists throughout the modernworld whose wisdom has been bought bythe military establishments are civilized.

The Police Chief of Manchester, Mr.Anderton, who a few years ago instructedhis officers to enter the clubs of GreaterManchester with a view to arresting peoplecommitting the crime of “licentious danc-ing,” is civilized.

The prison officers who beat up inmatesin their cells and those who have mur-dered prisoners while in police or prisoncustody are civilized. The men who standguard, like well-trained Nazis, on the un-tried inmates of the British-controlledconcentration camp at Long Kesh are allbeing very civilized. The police who haveemployed the most brutal force against

striking workers — not only in Polandand South Africa, but in Britain also —they will always tell you how civilized theyare. We are all civilized now.

It is part of the myopic complacency ofthose who imagine that the way we livenow is the only way we could live to assertthat we must have police and prisons andarmies. It is natural that they should exist.And if you question what is natural youare a utopian. And if you are utopian thenyou are indulging in a futile battle againstimmutable reality. I hope that my oppo-nent will not commit the crass error ofthinking that history is immutable andthat institutions which some think areneutral will in fact last forever.

The tyranny of propertyI am an opponent of civilization. I favor

an uncivilized alternative to the detestable“law and order” of the present social sys-tem. When they asked Gandhi what hethought of Western Civilization he re-plied that it would be a good idea if theyever tried it. Civilization is that period ofhistory in which the tyranny of propertyhas prevailed. To be civilized is to submitoneself to a structure of power based uponthe ownership and control of property bya minority. Civilized morality is an ethicof reverence for those who possess. Civi-lized law and order prevail as long asproperty is safe.

What are property relationships? Theyare essentially relationships of exclusion.The pen is mine — therefore it is notyours. You take this pen and I will call thepolice. It is no use pleading with them thatthe words of a brilliant new poem havejust come into your head and you feelinspired to write them down at once. Youmay be a second Shelley — I may beilliterate; but if I possess twenty pens andyou own none the police will not decidewhom to arrest on the basis of a poetrycompetition.

This factory is mine; therefore I own allthat is produced in it. It does not matterthat I may never visit my factory and

The securityscam

The following article is the supporting argument moved by an SPGB speaker, Dr. StephenColeman, in a 1986 debate over whether “society would be more secure without police, pris-ons or armies.” Though now slightly dated, it remains a rousing summary of the socialist posi-tion on crime and punishment.

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would not be able to operate the machinesif I did — I take what they producers inthe factory make and if they take any theyare criminals who must be reported to thepolice and dealt with.

The same applies to dwellings; if I owna house you can only enter by paying memoney or else you are a trespasser. Theconflict between property and need waswell illustrated in 1971 when some squat-ters occupied some empty houses ownedby the London Borough of Southwarkand the Council (which was Labour Partycontrolled) took the homeless people tocourt. Now, in addition to their misfor-tune of being homeless they also had thebad luck to have their case judged by LordDenning — a man who always strikes oneas the unintelligent man’s idea of what itis to be wise — and in his summing up onthe case Denning said,If [being] homeless were once admitted as adefense to trespass, no one’s house could besafe. Necessity would open a door that noman could shut … The plea would be anexcuse for all sorts of wrong-doing. So thecourts must, for the sake of law and order,take a firm stand. They must refuse to admitthe plea of necessity to the hungry and thehomeless; and trust that their distress will berelieved by the charitable and the good.

So it is that, whilst according toUNESCO there are 40,000 childrendying of starvation each day, armed policein India stand in defense of grain ware-houses that are “private property.”

Armies perform the same function.(The speaker then quoted from two mili-tary sources in order to demonstrate thatmilitarism is but an extension of com-merce). Naïve people say that armies existto make us secure.

Do any of you present wake up eachmorning and think of the Cruise Missilesat Greenham Common military base? TheExocet missiles that tore the skins offyoung men in the South Atlantic? Theplastic bullets now being used by the stateterrorists in Belfast, Ireland, and soon tobe used by the police here and the de-ranged officers being trained in the psy-chopathic arts at Sandhurst? And thenthink to yourselves, “My word, I do feelsafe! What a dangerous world this wouldbe without the skilled killers and sophis-ticated murder weaponry in order to makeus secure!” That is what the opponent of

Almost 10 percent of all prison-ers in the United States are nowserving life-terms, according to areport released by the SentencingProject, a prison research andadvocacy group. This represents an83 percent increase since 1992.Almost 20 percent of prisoners inNew York and California are servinglife-sentences; 23,523 inmates inU.S. prisons who are mentally illare doing life. Prisons are inthemselves breeders of crime. Therecidivism rate for released lifers is20 percent, with 67 percent re-arrested within three years. Thereport indicated that inmates whowere once serving 25 years to lifesentences now serve longer por-tions of all sentences, many untilthey die in prison. A life sentencein Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine,Pennsylvania and South Dakotanow means life without parole.

These figures did not result fromhigher crime rates but from the“get tough on crime” philosophyrampant in the 90s — this, in spiteof the fact that “crime” ratesactually fell 35 percent from 1992to 2002.

One of the difficulties facingreleased prisoners (which helps toexplain their recidivism) is thatmany have nowhere to go uponbeing released, no money and noskills to help them find employ-ment. Many prisons provide noeducation or opportunities forlearning practical skills and noguidance for re-entering society.Compounding this, many jobs andprofessions are closed to them

The Morality of Amerika is Business:A Review of U.S. Prison Statistics1

because of their prison back-grounds. Delaware deliberatelyexcludes ex-prisoners from almostevery occupation that requires astate license, such as dentistry,engineering, real estate and anumber of others. Indeed, formerinmates are barred from more than35 jobs and professions, leavingthem little opportunity to make aliving and so stay out of prison.

A study by the Urban Institutehas determined that some countiesin the U.S. now have more than 30percent of their residents incarcer-ated; almost a third of all countieshave at least one prison. Thecounty with the largest number ofprisoner-residents was ConchoCounty in Texas, with a populationof 4,000, of whom 33 percent werebehind bars.

A strong reason for the growthof the prison industry is theeconomic boom it has produced. In1923 there were 61 prisons in thiscountry. The Institute study,entitled “The New Landscape ofImprisonment: Mapping America’sPrison Expansion,” reveals thatprisons grew from 592 in 1974 to1,023 in 2000. During that time,the number of inmates rose from315,974 to 1.3 million.Texas built120 prisons during the period —about six a year. Florida came insecond with 84, California thirdwith 83 and New York fourth with65. Fueling this accumulation is thesupport furnished by constructionworkers and guards hungry for thejobs thus provided.

1 Culled from a New York Times article by Fox Butterfield, 12 May 2004.

this motion must argue: that withoutarmies we would be less secure.

The case I am putting rests upon thecontention that police forces and prisonsand armies are essentially in existence tosecure the tyranny of property. The onlyserious alternative to that tyranny is so-cialism, by which I mean a social systembased upon the common ownership, asopposed to private or state ownership, of

social resources. The only way we willobtain a genuinely secure society to live inwill be by transforming social relation-ships from those based on property andexclusion to those based upon commonownership and free access to the goodsand services of the earth.

In a society of common ownership there

Continued on next page

— MC

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will, by definition, be no owners and non-owners, no bosses and bossed. There willbe no hereditary entitlement to parasiticalidleness and affluence. There will be nobabies born to suffer the miserable inher-itance of deprivation.

People cannot steal what they own incommon. That disposes of 90 per cent of“crimes” committed today. Home Officestatistics confirm the fact that if you emp-tied the prisons of those convicted forcrimes against property you would virtu-ally empty the prisons.

And what would armies, dedicated tothe cause of mass destruction, have to doin a community of common ownership?There will be no more murderous trade

wars for them to perform in. No empires.No anachronistic nationalist disputesabout which gang of thieves controlswhich territory. How could such a systemof society ever consider wasting its ener-gies and resources upon the perverse ven-ture of an organized institution for killingpeople: an army? The insane violencewhich civilized fools call “healthy compe-tition” which would have no reason tooccur in a society of common ownership.

Needed: An iron fistIt will be conceded by many people that

it would be very pleasant if we could allshare the planet as sisters and brothers andthat, indeed, most crimes and wars areproperty-related. But there is “somethingthere” — something in “human nature,”that vague term which no scientist has yetseriously defined or located — and this“something” leads us to require all of theseforces of coercion to protect us from our-selves.

I reject emphatically the suggestion thatthere is “something natural” in humanbeings which needs to be repressed andrestrained; I reject it because I regard it asbeing but a watered down version of thestale old religious dogma that we’re all evilsinners at heart.

To those who speak of motiveless, inex-plicable anti-social behavior I respond thatif we look hard enough at what societydoes to brutalize and desensitize and de-grade human personalities you will findthe motives. If you want to comprehendsoccer violence, then talk to those whoglorify nationalism in the classroom andurge children to take pride in imperialviolence and plunder. If you want to com-prehend the mind of the rapist, then talkto the editor of The Sun [a British tabloidwith nudity]. If you want to comprehendsenseless, gratuitous violence against de-fenseless victims, then study the bombingof Dresden when men were commandedto fly above their defenseless victims andto assault, molest and murder not just oneinnocent old lady or powerless little childbut many thousands of them.

Before arriving at unhistorical conclu-sions about “human nature” one shouldremember that for most of human historythere were no wars or muggings or banks

The Thirteenth Amendment

— Ken Lynch

Continued from page 11 to be broken into by armed men becausethere was no cause for these things.

I predict that my opponent will tell methat even if he accepts all that I have saidit is politically pragmatic for us to work toreform the system we have now.

After all, people feel that they needpolice and prisons and armies — they maynot be justified in doing so, but that is howthey have been conditioned to feel. I donot dispute that this is how most peoplefeel.

But it is also the case that most peoplewould feel safer if hanging was re-intro-duced. Most people feel that not only dothey need the protection of an army, butthey favor some kind of what is laughablycalled nuclear defense.

But if those feelings are false — if myopponent cannot with sincerity and logicsupport those feelings — then he has anobligation to say to people, “Well, thatmay be what you feel, but you are wrong.And this is why you are wrong.” If onedoes not challenge such feelings, they whatis to stop other pragmatists from riding topower on all kinds of other irrationalfeelings and prejudices?

The motion in this debate concerns afundamental matter of our political cul-ture: What is power to be? Is it somethingabove us, threatening us, bullying us —the Harvey Proctor conception of author-ity that humiliates the powerless and givesa deranged illusion of strength to thedominator? Or is power something thatwe shall enjoy as of right because we areconscious and creative human beings withimmense capacities for development?When you perceive power in the lattersense (the socialist sense) you do not re-quire uniformed thugs to protect human-ity from its own potential.

Society will be more secure when weestablish a system which does not requirepolice, prisons, and armies — it will bemore secure because once we have re-moved the power over us there is almostno limit to what we can do with powerbetween us. Ø

A coffle of state slaves shufflesSlowly into the radiant raysOf dawn’s early light,Spartacus nowhere in sight.Fight scarred all, and boneWeary from strife and stress,Destined to toil under the sun tillTwilight’s last gleaming brings rest.The tools are issued;One hoe per man, eachEach dull of blade, eachSplinter hafted, eachFour pounds of sweat-stained purpose.Each, in proper hands,Four pounds of peril.Let there be no peril today, we pray;No quick and vicious fights — sweat stinging,Fists flying, we cull living from dying;No riots fought for fast forgot reasons —Swinging steel scintillating in sunlight,Blood gouting from the too-slow heads,Brown, black, white —Our blood ruby red and thick with life, noRespecter of race, creed or origin.Let there be no peril today, we pray;No dry crackling reports of leaden soldiersSpeaking the old tongue of Authority,Chasing whisps of smoke from forge fashioned barrels;The guns, like totems, guardgripped fast byBossfists in confederate grey cloths —Their fire fells friends, frees foes.Let there be no peril today, we pray;Today only — hard work, for no pay.

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THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVIEW

journal of the world socialist movement in the united states

The Companion Parties of Socialism hold that:

THE WORLD SOCIALIST PARTYOF THE UNITED STATES

the world socialist movement

• Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of themeans of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist ormaster class, and consequent enslavement of the working class, by whoselabor alone wealth is produced.

• In society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifestingitself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce,and those who produce but do not possess.

• This antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of theworking class from the domination of the master class, by the conversioninto the common property of society of the means of production anddistribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

• As in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class toachieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involvethe emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

• This emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.• As the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the

nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class ofthe wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organizeconsciously and politically for the conquest of the powers ofgovernment, in order that this machinery, including these forces, maybe converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent ofemancipation and overthrow of plutocratic privilege.

• As political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as theinterest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interest ofall sections of the master class, the party seeking working classemancipation must be hostile to every other party.

THE COMPANION PARTIES OF SOCIALISM, THEREFORE, enter the field of politicalaction determined to stand against all other political parties,whether alleged labor or avowedly capitalist, and call upon allmembers of the working class of these countries to support theseprinciples to the end that a termination may be brought to thesystem which deprives them of the fruits of their labor, and thatpoverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, andslavery to freedom.

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St., Banjul • GHANA Marxist Study Group, c/o Adonga Avugma, Box

305, Cape Coast • KENYA Patrick Ndege, Box 56428, Nairobi •

NAMIBIA Anthony Amugongo, Box 1502, Oshakati • SIERRA LEONE

33 Adama St., Freetown • SWAZILAND Mandla Ntshakala, Box 981,

Manzini • SWEDEN Dag Nilsson, Bergsbrunna villaväg 3B, S-752 56

Uppsala • UGANDA Socialist Club, Box 217, Kabale • ZAMBIA Kephas

Mulenga, Box 280 168, Chimwemwe, Kitwe

CALIFORNIA Harriett Machado, 233 Mar Vista Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106

[626-584-5390; Matthew Emmons, Box 262232, San Diego, CA 92196-

2232 [worldsocialismsandiego@hotmail.com] • ILLINOIS (NORTH) World

Socialism Chicago, Box 578670, Chicago, IL 60657-8670

[worldsocialismchicago@hotmail.com (Daniel)]; (SOUTH) dgnslayer

@gallatinriver.net • MICHIGAN Mardon Cooper, 377 Cherry Rd., Troy,

MI 48083 [Whittawon@aol.com] • NEW ENGLAND Karla Ellenbogen &

Ron Elbert, 23 Pleasant Ave., Somerville, MA 02143 [wspboston@mind-

spring.com]; wbrucher@hotmail.com • NEW YORK wspnewyork@ya-

hoo.com • OHIO Tony Pink, Box 6934, Toledo, OH 43612

[argentum@accesstoledo.com] • PENNSYLVANIA Thomas Jackson, 521

Greystone Rd., Merion Station, PA 19066 [thos.hj@verizon.net].

The establishment of a system of society basedon the common ownership and democraticcontrol of the means and instruments forproducing and distributing wealth by and in theinterest of society as a whole.

declaration of principles

objectTHE FOLLOWING COMPANION PARTIES ADHERE TO THE

SAME OBJECT AND DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES:

WSM_Forum-subscribe@yahoogroups.com world socialist review/15

We are committed to one overriding goal:the abolition of capitalism and the establish-ment of a truly democratic, socialist form ofsociety. Accordingly, membership in the WorldSocialist Party requires a general under-standing of the basic principles ofscientific socialism and agree-ment with the Declarationof Principles. It is our viewthat a worldwide systemof production for the sat-i s fact ion of humanneeds, individual andsocial, rather than forprivate profit requires amajority that is socialist inattitude and commitment. Eventssince the beginning of the World SocialistMovement have demonstrated the validity ofthis judgment.

Since our fundamental goal is quite firmlydefined as the attainment of socialism it isimportant that members understand andaccept our principles. To dilute the principleswith reformist tendencies or advocacy of the

undemocratic idea of “leadership,”for example, would be to sub-

vert the Party’s reason forbeing.

That said, we recog-nize there is room fordifferences of opinionin a socialist party. In

contrast to principles,relatively few in number,

there are a multiplicity ofmatters upon which socialists

may have all kinds of conflictingviews. If you agree with the following state-ments, you are a socialist and you belong withus.

A r eA r e

YOU aYOU a

socialist?socialist?

Trade unionism is the institution bywhich wage and salary workers attempt byvarious means to sell their working abili-ties, their mental and physical energies, atthe best possible price and to improvetheir working conditions. Workers withoutsuch organizations have no reliable economicweapons with which to resist the attempts ofemployers to beat down their standards. But

The socialist point of view rests solidlyon the materialist conception of history, away of looking at things that focuses on howhuman communities meet their actual survivalneeds by producing what they need to live (theireconomic systems, in other words). Out of thisprocess the human brain weaves its ideas, whicheventually exert their own influence on the cycle,causing it to become more and more complex associety evolves.

This approach, known as historical material-ism, is a scientific method for helping us under-stand how and why capitalism does what it does.Armed with this understanding, socialists realizethat capitalism can never deliver the goods forthe vast majority of people. Other approaches,lacking this focus and overlooking the basis ofcapitalist society, can easily miss this point, sothat their advocates get bogged down in vainefforts to make capitalism work for the majority.

To establish socialism, the working classthroughout the must gain control of thepowers of government through their po-litical organizations. It is by virtue of itscontrol of state power that the capitalist class isable to perpetuate its system. State powermeans control of the main avenues of “educa-tion” and propaganda, either directly or indi-rectly. It also means control of the armedforces that frequently and efficiently crushworking-class attempts at violent oppositionto the effects of capitalism. Moreover, thepolice and the armed forces are often used tocombat workers during strikes and industrialdisputes with employers. In a modern, highlydeveloped capitalist society the only way tooust the capitalist class from ownership andcontrol of the means of production is to firststrip it of its control over the state. Once thishas been accomplished, the state will be con-verted from a coercive government over peopleto an administration over things and commu-nity affairs. The World Socialist Party, there-fore, advocates the ballot as the means ofabolishing capitalism and establishing social-ism. Socialism can only be established demo-cratically; means cannot be separated fromends.

The present, capitalist, society, even with“repair” and reform, cannot function inthe interests of the working class, whomake up the majority of the population inmost of the world today. Indeed, by its verynature, capitalism requires continual reform.But reforms cannot alter the basic exploitativerelationship of wage-labor and capital, or pro-duction for profit. Whatever the reformers’intentions, reforms function only to makecapitalism run more smoothly and to makepresent-day society more palatable to the work-

Socialists hold that materialist explana-tions of human society and the rest ofnature supersede supernatural ones. A re-ligious perspective won't necessarily prevent any-one from striving to abolish capitalism and itsevils, and the ethical elements of religious teach-ings may even be what first make many peopleaware of the injustices of a class-divided society.But they don't in themselves lead to an under-standing of the causes of such injustices. (Moreoften than not, religious institutions themselvesjustify and commit them.) The world socialistperspective is in any case essentially post-reli-gious, because the case for socialism hinges onthe scientific use of evidence. Socialists thereforelook on supernatural explanations as obsolete. ø

The World Socialist Party rejects thetheory of leadership. Neither “great” indi-viduals nor self-appointed “vanguards” canbring the world one day closer to socialism.The emancipation of the working class mustbe the work of the working class itself. Educa-tors to explain socialism, yes! Administrationto carry out the will of the majority of themembership, yes! But leaders or “vanguards,”never!

The World Socialist Party does not sup-port, directly or indirectly, any politicalparty other than our companion parties inthe World Socialist Movement. We canonly oppose those parties that one way oranother support the present system. Our mainpurpose is to make socialists, not to advocatethe use of the ballot for anything short ofsocialism.

The form of society once in effect in theSoviet Union, and still more or less ineffect in China and Cuba now, was not andis not socialism or communism. It was adictatorial, bureaucratic form of state capital-ism. In those countries, as in the United States,goods and services were and are producedprimarily for profit and not primarily for use.Nationalization and government “ownership”of industry in no way alters the basic relation-ship of wage labor and capital. The bureau-cratic class that controls this form of the stateremains a parasitical, surplus-value-eating class.

ing class by holding out false hopes of a funda-mental change or radical improvement. In thelong run, reforms benefit the owning, capital-ist, class rather than the class that produces thewealth. The World Socialist Party does notadvocate reforms of capitalism — only social-ism.

unions necessarily work within the frameworkof capitalism and are useful, therefore, only toa limited extent. They cannot alter the funda-mental relationship between wage-labor andcapital. They can only react to capital’s fiat,particularly in the case of long-term issues likeautomation or unemployment. Every wage orsalary increase, in fact, only spurs employersand investors to accelerate the replacement ofhumans by machines in the workplace. Ifanything, instead of foolishly selling them-selves short by demanding “a fair day’s wagesfor a fair day’s work,” workers would do farbetter to follow Marx’s advice and simplyabolish employment altogether.

world socialist review/16 INTERNET http://www.worldsocialism.org/usa

LeonarLeonard d PPeellttiieer r aannd d tthheeprimaprimal l neneededs s oof f CapitaCapitall**

In a remote section of South Dakotajust north of Nebraska lies an Indianreservation known as Pine Ridge. At one

time largely agricultural, it became hugelyattractive to the U.S. government when it wasdiscovered that beneath the Indian lands layone of the largest uranium reserves in theUnited States. All through the years, treatieswith the Indians had been consistently vio-lated because of the major mineral reservesbeneath the Indian territories.

When Pine Ridge became the focus of theUnited States government, the Indian resi-dents were strongly opposed to uranium de-velopment on their turf. Bitterness grew asproblems were exacerbated with the increas-ing threat of U.S. intervention. Turning tothe American Indian Movement (AIM) forassistance led to military conflict with the FBI,which refused to listen to the complaints ofthe Indians. The struggle lasted 71 days,resulting in the deaths of two Pine Ridgenatives and the outlawing of all activities atPine Ridge.

During the following three years, now re-ferred to as the “Reign of Terror,” violentassaults continued to take place in which vastnumbers of Indians were murdered ormaimed. With the government intent ondestroying the AIM and thereby removing amajor obstacle in their plans to exploit theuranium booty, homes were burned,shootings and beatings became rampant. Somany native Americans were killed that PineRidge had the highest annual murder rate inthe U.S. Again the AIM came to their assis-tance, and among those who responded wasLeonard Peltier. The conflict led to threemurder indictments including that of LeonardPeltier, accused of shooting two FBI agents.No evidence was ever introduced to supportthe accusation. Subsequently, Peltier escapedto Canada, convinced that he would neverreceive a fair trial in the U.S. Less than a yearlater, he was apprehended.

of her incriminating statements were laterwithdrawn, and Myrtle Poor Bear confessedthat her fear of the FBI had led her to makefalse statements. With the government deter-mined to pin the guilt on Peltier and thusremove the bête noire from their uraniumquest, her confessions were thrown aside andignored.

Despite overwhelming evidence of his in-nocence, the trial was rigged against him withperjury and manufactured evidence. No wit-ness was ever found who could identifyLeonard as the man who shot and killed twoFBI agents. Hundreds of thousands of pagesof critical evidence pinpointing the unpro-voked attack on Pine Ridge were withheldfrom the trial.

The events here described and the partplayed by Peltier were detailed in a book byPeter Matthieson, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.This revealing report was kept out of print foreight years, while the FBI sued the author andpublisher for libel. Although the SupremeCourt eventually denied the suit, the stunningevidence produced by the book was unavail-able at the time of Leonard Peltier’s trial.

Today Pine Ridge has an 86 percent unem-ployment rate, the lowest life expectancy andthe highest infant mortality rate in the nation.The government’s vindictiveness toward theLakota people led to the ruin of innumerablelives. The ongoing penal servitude of LeonardPeltier at Leavenworth Prison is the directconsequence of the FBI’s unabated pressureto keep him confined.

Despite worldwide appeals from human-rights organizations, and the publicity givento the merits of his case, 500 FBI agentsmarched in Washington to oppose clemencyfor him. They continue to use their authorityto thwart all efforts to obtain his freedom, nowdenied him for 28 years.

Leonard Peltier is not in prison for themurder of two FBI agents. Of that he isdemonstrably not guilty. Leonard Peltier is inprison because he is a potential threat togovernmental forces intent on exploiting themineral resources that lie buried beneath In-dian territory. The facts of Leonard’s convic-

tion are well known. Well known also is thebitter massacre of the Indians at WoundedKnee, which left an entire community devas-tated.** Terror-stricken families and ruinedlives draw little compassion from those whosemotives are purely profit-driven. They are“collateral damage.” The drive for profit un-der capitalism overrides all human consider-ations. Like the conflict in Iraq, the huge lossof lives and the obliteration of the infrastruc-tures are a price worth paying for the controlof huge oil reserves needed for the operationof the capitalist machine.

Such reports are not unique to America. Allover the world human values are subordi-nated to the primal needs of capital.

Indeed, they scream out for a change fromthis power-driven, cash-oriented social sys-tem to one that emphasizes cooperation, andin which human values are the measure of allhuman action. They send a message to all whowill listen that the world hungers for a societythat will eliminate needless suffering and re-place it with opportunities for all humanbeings to lead fulfilling lives.

** The massacre at Wounded Knee took place onDecember 29, 1890. See, for example, http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm.The siege at Wounded Knee, referred to above,began on February 27, 1973 and lasted 71 days.

— Mardon Cooper

Leonard Peltier has provided us with words thatshould resonate with those who share this vision:

The MessageSilence, they say, is the voice of complicity.But silence is impossible.Silence screams.Silence is a message,Just as doing nothing is an act.Let who you are ring out and resonatein every word and every deed.Yes, become who you are.There’s no sidestepping your own beingor your own responsibility.What you do is who you are.You are your own comeuppance.You become your own message.You are the message.

Myrtle Poor Bear was an Indian womanwho had never met Leonard Peltier. Terrifiedunder interrogation by the FBI, she testifiedagainst him. This terror-induced accusationled to the extradition of Peltier to the U.S. All

* Sources: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee,Anthony Rayson (Prison Abolition), MattSherman (AIM) and Leonard Peltier (“PrisonWritings”).