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~ REVIEWS

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Rejection of socialism mars After Bennett

By BEN SWANKEY

AFTER BENNETT. A New Politics
For British Columbia. Edited by
Warren Magnusson, Charles Doyle,
R.B.J. Walker, John De Marco. Pub-
lished by New Star Books, 432 pages,
paperback, $5.95.

Here we have a collection of essays
by 25 people, all of them on the theme
of the future of B.C. and presenting a
variety of solutions. The essays cover a
wide range of subjects including the
economy, agriculture, education, health
care, the women’s movement, the poor,
Indian land claims, the mass media and
the role of unions. The contributors do
not fit into any one political category,
although most of them would, I am
sure, consider themselves as belonging
to the political left. Their viewpoints
range from socialist to openly class col-
laborationist to hostility to trade
unions. Most of the contributors are
academics, with over half of them from
B.C.’s three universities.

The central theme of the book, and
this is stressed by the editors in both the
introduction and conclusion, is the
need to replace the concepts of social-
ism, public ownership and centralized
state with new policies based on decen-
tralization and local community eco-
nomic development. Expressions of
anti-Sovietism are combined with disil-
lusionment with the NDP.

Mel Watkins advocates that “‘politi- .
cal economy of B.C. should be restruc-
tured towards the region” although he
admits this “is no panacea in the con-
| text of the present economic crisis.”

Michael M’Gonigle in his essay on
the Stein River Valley directs his anger
not only against the forestry giants but
~ also the left, the socialists and unions.
Philip Resnick calls on the left to
rethink the concept that socialism
means “increase in public ownership
| and unrelenting expansion of social
__ Services.” He labels the Soviet Union as
a “Bolshevik dictatorship” adding that
“socialists everywhere have been tainted
with the excesses of Leninism.” His
“alternative model of socialism” is
“transferring some of the power exer-
cised by government departments or
Crown corporations into the hands of
citizens” at the community level organ-
ized into neighborhood assemblies. He
also expresses support for “work shar-
ing and part-time employment.”

Warren Magnusson wants the left to
“recapture the anti-statist and anti-
_ centralist sensibility of early socialism.”
He believes that the central problem in
Canada “is not the maldistribution of
_ Wealth and income but the maldistribu-
__ tion of power,” and his solution entails

“decentralizing the enterprises and sub-
Jecting them to employee, consumer
and communal control.”

John Richards contends that nation-
_ alizing the corporate sector is “worse
_ than the disease of corporate sector.’
$9 His conception of industrial democracy
1S labor representation on corporate

ards of directors to “improve Pro-
ductivity in the provincial economy.”
He likes “Quality of Work Life
_ Schemes. 3.5

In many respects the most revealing
S€ctions of this book are the introduc-
_ tion and conclusion, written by the edi-
f= tOrs,

The introduction charges that “Rea-
8an’s view of the world is no more
Tealistic than Gorbachev's.” Rejecting
Political action to change governments,
it states that “politicians and goVv-
€mments — of the right or the left —

cannot make a better world for us.”
The Achilles heel of socialism, it claims,
“has been the state, for socialists on
both sides of the great divide in Europe
have tried to use the state to achieve
their ideas. “Statist” solutions, they
declare, “seem to create as many prob-
lems as they solve.” :

In the conclusion the editors accuse
the NDP of attempting to appear “‘as
an honest or authentic Liberal Party.”
They note that “social democratic
governments have rarely been able to
challenge the power of corporate capi-
tal (but) have usually acted to maintain
and reproduce the existing order.”
They also criticize the NDP for treating
the “state as the instrument that prom-
ised effective control over capitalism”
and stress the need for “‘democratiza-
tion and decentralization as the princi-
ples that must guide any real alternative
for the future of B.C.”

Not all the contributors pursue this
line.

Michael A. Lebowitz in his exposure
of right wing economics recognizes that
“the obstacle we face to a rational
society is capitalism.”

John Calvert in a stinging reply to the
get-into-bed-with-the-boss approach of
John Richards exposes the harmful
effects of Quality of Work Life pro-
grams and putting workers on boards
of directors. The solution, he says, is for
the labor movement “‘to push for a very
different alternative: legislative changes
which would make unionization a basic
right of industrial citizenship of all
workers” and expansion of the scope of
collective bargaining to include “basic
corporate decisions such as investment,
employment policy and the introduc-
tion of technological change.”

John W. Warnock’s in-depth essay on
the crisis in B.C. agriculture contains a
wealth of information, as well as a posi-
tive assessment of the advances in agri-
culture in the Soviet Union, Poland and
Yugoslavia. In advancing a series of
major reforms, he notes that they
involved ‘“‘a challenge to the power,
freedom and action of monopoly capi-
talism.”

Dan Gottesman makes a strong case
for Indian land claims and Indian self
government.

Elaine Bernard calls on unions to
provide “an alternative vision of how
society can produce goods and servi-
ces” and to “establish itself as a source
of change in society.”

John DeMarco and Donna Heughan
in their essay on community health care

#®R.BJ. Walker

AFTER BENNETT

A new politics for British Columbia

A sequel to the bestseller The New Reality

# Warren Magnusson

A New Star Book
$595

# Charles Doyle
s John DeMarco

media in promoting anti-Sovietism and
the Cold War and its unrelenting attack
on unions and labor. Then in a conclu-
sion that defies all the facts of life, they
find the media not guilty of bias, con-
spiracy or manipulation in reinforcing
“establishment viewpoints as a result of
the power and deliberate intentions of
the owners and advertisers.”

Files Books

demand that “collective funding (of
health care) must be matched by collec-
tive control.”

Christine St. Peter sees feminism as
“the most radical and hopeful vision of
social justice currently available.”

Gordon A. Bailey in his essay “‘Poli-
ticizing Education” exposes the content
of public education today which is
designed to produce the “consciousness,
appropriate to capitalism and calls for
4 new curriculum that explores “the realie
ties of work and the economic relation
of society.”

Robert Hackett, Richard Pinet and
Myles Ruggles recognize that the media
is there to make money, serve its adver-
tisers and promote consumerism. But
they completely ignore the role of the

The question that remains to be
answered is why some of these former
socialists and self-proclaimed members
of the left have now abandoned social-
ism and see local community develop-
ment as the path ahead for social
charge. In my view there are several
pertinent reasons:

@ They have lost faith in socialism.
They have joined the Cold War war-

 riors in their anti-Sovietism and in their

rejection of socialism in the only place it
does exist —in countries like the
Soviet Union and Cuba. They have
become disillusioned with socialism as
practised by the social democrats and
the NDP.

@ They have capitulated to the pres-
sure and propaganda of the neo-

Conservatives and the New Right
against “big government,” public
ownership and an expanding public
sector, and feel it is now hopeless to win
majority public support for progressive
social policies.

_ © Their criticism of the state as such
is further example of their capitulation
to the pressure of the right. The state is
as good or bad as the economic and
political system it defends and protects;
it is neither good nor bad in the
abstract.

—_ They show no faith or understand-
ing of the decisive role of the working
class as the most progressive force in
our society and the only force that can
lead the struggle for fundamental social
change.

The struggle for socialism is a long
and difficult one that demands sacrifice
and entails casualties. The struggle for
local community development is only
one aspect of this many sided struggle,
not a substitute for the struggle on a
provincial and national scale.

This book has essays that expose and
condemn corporate control of our life
and this is positive. The contributors
also advance many progressive reforms
that deserve support. But the main
thrust of the book is misleading and
diverts attention from the main strug-
gles that need to be waged to overcome
the rule of corporate capital and estab-*
lish control of the people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 17, 1986 e 27