WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23247, 20 July 1937, Page 17

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —The letter of “ Junius N.Z.” docs nothing to diminish the force of my contention that the evils which he attributes to Socialism, where they are real evils, may be more appropriately attributed to capitalism. I can assure “Junius N.Z.” that 1 am in no need of his exhortations to pay my rent. I do pay it. But that does not alter the fact that renting a house is not owning it, and as for “ not being forced to enter into this obligation,” I can only reply that a man has to live somewhere. And my point is that under capitalism a large proportion pf the population have nowhere to live in but other people’s houses. “Junius N.Z.” also says that “the maximum wage for the minimum of effort ”is the slogan of Socialism. That is another thing that may obviously be said more appropriately of capitalism, where profit-making is the motive of business enterprise. “Junius N.Z.” failed to see this because he unconsciously thought of the profit-maker as a being above the wage-earner, not subject to the moral code which he tries to impose on the wage-earner. Thus, despite his enthusiasm for “the brotherhood of man,” your contributor has taken sides in the class war. And so must we all. We must all fight either with the wage-earners for a society of wage-earners or with the profit-seekers for a society of profitseekers. —I am, etc., Independent Labour.