Conditions will be basically altered; along certain lines,
such as the distribution of coal and oil for lighting, heating and
transportation, is it not possible that in the future neither of these
planetary resources will be required? These are two instances of the
fundamental changes which the use of atomic energy may make in future civilized
living.
Two major problems will grow out of this discovery—one
immediate in nature and the other to be later developed. The first is that those
whose large financial interests are bound up in products which the new type of
energy will inevitably supersede will fight to the last ditch to prevent these
new sources of wealth from benefiting others. Secondly, there will be the
steadily growing problem of the release of man power from the gruelling labour
and the long hours today required in order to provide a living wage and the
necessities of life. One is the problem of capital and the other is the problem
of labour; one is the problem of established control of the purely selfish
interests which have for so long controlled the life of humanity and the other
is the problem of leisure and its constructive use. One problem concerns
civilization and its correct functioning in the new age and the other concerns
culture and the employment of time along creative lines.
It is not useful here to prophesy the uses to which the most
potent energy hitherto released for man's helping can or will be put. Its first
constructive use was to end the war. Its future constructive use lies in the
hands of science and should be controlled by the men of goodwill to be found in
all nations. This energy must be safeguarded from monied interests; it must be
turned definitely into the usages of peace and employed to implement a new and
happier world. An entirely new field of investigation opens today before
science and one which they have long wished to penetrate. In the hands of
science, this new potency is far safer than in the hands of capital or of those
who would exploit this discovery for the increase of their dividends. In the
hands of the great democracies and of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian races,
this discovery is safer than in other hands. It cannot however be kept in these
hands indefinitely. Other nations and races are discovering this "secret
of release" and the future security of humanity is, therefore, dependent
upon two things:
1.
The steady and planned education of the people
of every nation in right human relations and the cultivation of the spirit of
goodwill. This will lead to a complete revolution of the present political
regimes, which are largely nationalistic in their planning and selfish in their
purposes. True democracy, at present only a dream, will be founded on education
for goodwill.
2.
The education of the children of the future in
the fact of human unity and the use of the world's resources for the good of
all.
Certain nations, because of their international character
and the multiplicity of races which compose them, are normally more inclusive
in their thinking and planning than are the others. They are more prone to
think in terms of humanity as a whole than are the others. Such nations are the
United States, the British Commonwealth of Nations and the united Soviet
Socialist Republics. Many nations and races constitute these three Great
Powers—the central triangle at the heart of the coming new world. Hence their
opportunity to guide mankind at this time and their innate responsibility to
act as world leaders. Other races have no such inherent capacity. They are not,
for instance, successful colonists and are more nationalistic and exploiting in
their approach to "subject races". For the three Great Powers, the
fusion of the many elements composing their nationals into a united whole has
been a necessary conditioning impulse. The basic intention of the United States
is the well-being of all within its national jurisdiction and the "pursuit
of happiness" is a familiar citation of this intent; the fundamental
principle governing British rule is justice for all; the underlying motive of
the U.S.S.R. is right living conditions, opportunity for all and the general
levelling of all separative classes into one thriving group of human beings.
All these objectives are good and their application to the life of humanity
will guarantee a happier and more peaceful world.
In every country without exception there are the good and
the bad elements; there are progressive and reactionary groups. There are cruel
and ambitious men in Russia who would gladly exploit the world for the gain of
Russia and who would seek to impose the will of the proletariat upon all
classes and castes throughout the civilized world; there are thinking men in
Russia and men of vision who are opposing them. There are reactionary and
class-conscious people in the British Empire who fear the growing power of the
masses and who hang on desperately to their inherited prestige and standing;
they would hold back the British people from progress and would like to see the
restoration of the old hierarchical, paternalistic and feudal system; the mass
of the people, speaking through the voice of labour, will have none of it. In
the United States there is isolation, the persecution of such minorities as the
Negro race and an ignorant and arrogant nationalism, voiced by some Senators
and Representatives with their racial hatreds, their separative attitudes and
their unsound political methods.
Fundamentally, however, these three Great Powers constitute
the hope of the world and form the basic spiritual triangle behind the plans
and the shaping of the events which will inaugurate the new world. The other
powerful nations, little as they may like to realize it, are not in so strong a
position; they have not the same idealism or the same vast national resources;
their national preoccupation limits their world vision; they are conditioned by
narrower ideologies, by a greater struggle for national existence, by their
fights for boundaries and material gains, and by a failure to offer full
cooperation with humanity as a whole. The smaller nations have not quite the
same attitude; they are relatively cleaner in their political regimes and
constitute basically the nucleus of that federated world which is inevitably
taking shape around the three Great Powers. These federations will be based
upon cultural ideals and will be formed to guarantee right human relations;
they will not eventually be founded on power politics; they will not be
combinations of nations banded together versus other combinations for selfish
ends. Boundaries and regional controls and international jealousies will not be
controlling factors.
To bring about these happier conditions, one major
adjustment must be made and one fundamental change brought about. Otherwise no
hope of peace will be found on earth. The relation between capital and labour
and between both of these groups and humanity as a whole must be worked out.
The problem is one with which we are all familiar; it is one which evokes
violent prejudices and partisanships and in the clamour of all that is being
said and in the violence of the battle it might serve a useful purpose to
approach the subject from a more universal angle and with an eye to the
emerging spiritual values.
First of all, it must be recognized that the cause of all
world unrest, of the world wars which have wrecked humanity and the widespread
misery upon our planet can largely be attributed to a selfish group with materialistic purposes who have for centuries
exploited the masses and used the labour of mankind for their selfish ends.
From the feudal barons of Europe and Great Britain in the Middle Ages through
the powerful business groups of the Victorian era to the handful of
capitalists—national and international—who today control the world's resources,
the capitalistic system has emerged and has wrecked the world. This group of
capitalists has cornered and exploited the world's resources and the staples
required for civilized living; they have been able to do this because they have
owned and controlled the world's wealth through their interlocking directorates
and have retained it in their own hands. They have made possible the vast
differences existing between the very rich and the very poor; they love money
and the power which money gives; they have stood behind governments and politicians;
they have controlled the electorate; they have made possible the narrow
nationalistic aims of selfish politics; they have financed the world businesses
and controlled oil, coal, power, light and transportation; they control
publicly or sub rosa the world's banking accounts.
The responsibility for the widespread misery to be found
today in every country in the world lies predominantly at the door of certain
major interrelated groups of business-men, bankers, executives of international
cartels, monopolies, trusts and organizations and directors of huge
corporations who work for corporate or personal gain. They are not interested
in benefiting the public except in so far that the public demand for better
living conditions will enable them—under the Law of Supply and Demand—to
provide the goods, the transportation, light and power which will in the long
run bring in heavier financial returns. Exploitation of man-power, the
manipulation of the major planetary resources and the promotion of war for private
or business profit are characteristic of their methods.
In every nation, such men and organizations—responsible for
the capitalistic system—are to be found. The ramifications of their businesses
and their financial grasp upon humanity were, prior to the war, active in every
land and though they went underground during the war, they still exist. They
form an international group, closely interrelated, working in complete unity of
idea and intention and knowing and understanding each other. These men belonged
to both the Allied Nations and the Axis Powers; they have worked together
before and through the entire period of the war through interlocking
directorates, under false names and through deceptive organizations, aided by
neutrals of their own way of thinking. Today, in spite of the disaster which
they have brought upon the world, they are again organized and renewing their
methods; their goals remain unchanged; their international relationships remain
unbroken; they constitute the greatest menace mankind faces today; they control
politics; they buy prominent men in every nation; they insure silence through
threat, cash and fear; they amass wealth and buy a spurious popularity through
philanthropic enterprise; their families live soft and easy lives and seldom
know the meaning of God-ordained work; they surround themselves with beauty,
luxury and possessions and shut their eyes to the poverty, stark unhappiness,
lack of warmth and decent clothing, the starvation and the ugliness of the
lives of the millions by whom they are surrounded; they contribute to charities
and church agencies as a salve to their consciences or to avoid income taxes;
they provide work for countless thousands but see to it that these thousands
receive so small a wage that real comfort, leisure, culture and travel are
impossible.
The above is a terrible indictment. It can, however, be
substantiated a thousand times over; it is breeding revolution and a growing
spirit of unrest. The masses of the people in every land are aroused and awakening
and a new day is dawning. A war is starting between the selfish monied
interests and the mass of humanity who demand fair play and a right share of
the world's wealth.
There are those, however, within the
capitalistic system who are aware of the danger with which the monied interests
are faced and whose natural tendency is to think along broader and more
humanitarian lines. These men fall into two main groups:
Please read the rest at: http://edgeba.webs.com/capitalandlabour.htm
[PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY, 1947, pp. 66-84]
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