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Is 'human nature' up to it?

By Dave Holmes, http://jinx.sistm.unsw.edu.au/-greenlft/1997/275/275p13.htm

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, "human

nature" is often the final defensive position of apologists

for capitalism. Any sort of truly egalitarian society is impossible, it

is claimed, because people are naturally greedy and competitive.

The ambitious and aggressive will always form an elite which will

dominate society, irrespective of any economic arrangements. Thus

socialism is a utopian fantasy -- it is against "human nature".

One of the key ideological arguments of capitalism is that a greater

social good comes through the capitalist owners pursuing their

private self-interest (greed). This is an utterly ludicrous

proposition. It is similar to the ideology of the "free market": there

is no conscious planning to meet human needs, but nonetheless it is

supposedly the most "efficient" way to allocate goods and services.

For all the pious claptrap from political and business leaders about

service to the community and observance of basic rules and

decencies, it is clear that the real operating principle of capitalist

society is greed. The greed of the millionaire shareholders of the

big corporations is sacred: nothing must threaten company profits

or shake investor confidence.

The lives of thousands of Newcastle steelworkers are today being

sacrificed to corporate greed: this was perversely demonstrated

when the "market" hailed BHP's obscene decision by sharply

boosting the company's share price.

The drug trade, with its train of wrecked lives and official

corruption, is easily explained. It is simply a business which offers

an exceptionally high rate of return on capital invested. The "drug

barons" are very successful "entrepreneurs", the modern

equivalent of the slave-traders of capitalism's bloody period of

"primitive accumulation".

As Marx pointed out, the dominant ideas and values of society are

always those of the ruling class. It is not surprising that the

authentic capitalist values of getting ahead, climbing the greasy

pole and looking out for number one should be so widespread. But

while wealth and greed are paraded and exalted all around us, in

life and in advertisements and in the media, this is far from the

whole story. Society could not function if it were.

There is a world of difference between the profit-driven

"self-interest" of the capitalist ruling class and its hangers-on, and

the "self-interest" of working people struggling for jobs, housing,

child-care, education, health care and a decent environment.

Cooperation, solidarity and real concern for others -- these

qualities exist in abundance in society among ordinary people.

Every strike, for instance, is a victory over the bosses' attempts to

sow division and suspicion among their employees and pit one

worker against another. Workers often show exemplary solidarity

and make great sacrifices in their fight for better wages and

conditions and other demands.

Not all the treachery of the Laborite trade union bureaucracy can

entirely kill these impulses. They arise from the objective position

of the working class as collective operators of society's means of

production and distribution.

Another example, highly pertinent in times of drastic cuts to social

services, is the often extraordinary effort made by people --

especially women, on whom this burden largely falls -- to care for

dependent family members, frequently at tremendous personal

cost.

Such considerations are sufficient to show that there is no fixed,

static, universal human nature. Rather, "human nature" is a

dynamic category, capable of sharp changes in times of struggle

and upheaval.

It was not for nothing that Lenin referred to revolutions as

"festivals of the oppressed". In a period of sharp political tensions

and broad social struggles, whole new perspectives can open up for

wide layers of ordinary people. Those who previously existed

passively, trying merely to survive and without any real hope of

their situation improving, can be transformed by the experience of

mass struggles.

The huge French upsurge of December 1995 demonstrated this

once again: a sense of hope and solidarity gripped millions of

people; alienation and racism receded as masses of people united to

halt the reactionary government offensive. One might say that

during the strike "human nature" was transformed.

Such examples refute all cynics and superficial observers. We

should be confident that there is no obstacle inherent in the human

psyche to the struggle for socialism and a better world. And once

we have gotten rid of capitalism and established a society worthy of

human beings, a new social psychology and ethic will arise --

cooperative, collectivist and solidaristic.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.

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