SOCIALISM AND MARXISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26229, 13 August 1946, Page 2

SOCIALISM AND MARXISM

Sir.—lt has to be said that " the evils which beset the world to-day are social, not political.” It is the ever-increasing intensity of the evils, or contradictions inherent in, and therefore inseparable from, the capitalist mode of production and exchange which has, or is fast driving every nation or country into a state of revolutionry ferment, and this in turn presupposes the existence of a universal want which is prevented by an outworn system from satisfying itself. I would state here that the only key to the understanding of capitalism, its genesis and ultimate dissolution, is to be found through a prior understanding of “ scientific Socialism.” Such necessary study on our part serves to show that any plan or agreement which has for its objective the preservation and perpetuation of the present social relationship, wherein the many are completely divorced from their means of subsistence, is foredoomed to failure. Such existing social relationships, as Marx says, have no natural basis, neither is its social basis one that is common to all historical periods. Capitalism, however necessary it may be said to have been in the course of the evolution of the development of human society has today. through its mode of production and exchange, become, as is to be seen by its dire and tragic effects on the lives of its victims, anti-social, therefore unscientific and immoral.—l am. etc., Greg. August 11.