The two-child policy – which limits benefits payments to the first two children born to the poorest households – would, proponents argued, cut the welfare bill and bring “feckless” parents to heel by – as one minister put it – teaching them “the reality that children cost money.”

New research, however, indicates the behavioural change aspect of the policy has dismally failed. Since its introduction exactly five years ago today, the fertility rate for third and subsequent children born to poorer families has barely fallen. Instead, the main impact of the policy has been to become the biggest single driver of child poverty.

Over 50% of children in families with more than two children will be in poverty by 2027. Removing the policy would immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty. 

“In the absence of a behavioural fertility response to the policy, the main function of the two-child limit is to deprive families living on a low income of approximately £3,000 a year. This will inevitably lead to dramatic increases in child poverty among larger families,” said Prof Jonathan Portes.

 1.4 million children in more than 400,000 families in the UK are affected by the two-child policy. April’s below-inflation benefits rise means affected families with three children face a £983 a month shortfall in benefits, with larger families facing an even bigger hole in their income.

Sara Ogilvie of Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) said: “The two-child limit is a brutal policy that punishes children simply for having brothers and sisters. It forces families to survive on less than they need, and with soaring living costs the hardship and hunger these families face will only intensify.”

Two-child policy hasn’t made UK families smaller, only poorer, finds report | Children | The Guardian

Workers have no country and patriotism is a delusion and nationalism is a snare. Working people have no country of their own. Their land is the property of a master class and the worker rarely owns enough for his or her coffin. What matters is the name of the country of your birth, if you are a slave in that country? Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill another father, mother, brother, or sister.

When hands clasp across national boundaries in solidarity the workers will know that borders and nations have no meaning or significance for them. These two, nationalism and international socialism (and there can be no socialism that is not international) are opposite as the poles, as antagonistic as fire and water. When patriotism and socialism enter the worker’s mind, patriotism will be quenched or socialism will evaporate. The socialist patriot is an impossibility. If any is loyal to those in the class that exploits, he or she is a traitor to our own class. Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion? Workers have a world to win, not nations to fight for.

Patriotism groups men and women according to their land of origin, as decided by the vicissitudes of history; within every country, thanks to the patriotic link, rich and poor unite against the foreigner. Socialism, in contrast, groups all people, poor against rich, class against class, without taking into account the differences of race and language, and over and above the frontiers determined by the fortunes and misfortunes of history.

The Socialist Party are anti-patriots but let it be clearly understood that that love of one’s native village or familiarity with a town is not the type of patriotism to be condemned. What we denounce are jingoism and nationalism, that is not natural sentiments, but prejudices very firmly implanted into the heads of people. We, who hate the existing nation-states, retain a soft little spot for where we were born and raised. Neither have we ever maintained that there are not, throughout the existing nations, some noticeable differences of character and temperament such as have been caused by history and culture. Countries have had their raison d’être at a time and the best proof of it is that they were born and that they have endured; we even think that their existence, at certain periods and in certain circumstances, may even have contributed to the general improvement of our species. True patriotism seeks the welfare of each in the happiness of all. One time in the past the term patriot meant to be opposed to the governing class of your country in the interests of the people of your country. Patriotism consisted in opposing the powers that were against the interests of the people. Patriotism has now lost that meaning in small communities where once the cohesive principle of all for each and each for all had significance. When workers are primarily concerned with the direction of their own affairs, managing their own work-place and running their own communities and neighbourhoods, independent for practical purposes, distant territorial claims for allegiance will not easily find a “patriotic” echo

 Patriotism assumes that our planet is divided into little regions, each one surrounded by a wall and an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born inside these walls consider themselves better than those living outside. Such a belief poison the minds of the children and if need be the sacrifice of children in wars. The Socialist Party finds nothing reasonable to inspire any of our fellow-workers in the thought that they are slaves of one governmental system run by their masters rather than another and a rival one. Hence our adoption of the slogan “Proletarians of all lands unite.”

Let us do away with nationalism, patriotism and national chauvinism altogether and substitute in its place the “ internationalism” of the class-conscious worker. It is not a question of fighting for the political independence of one nation, but for a new society for all lands – for the socialist commonwealth.

Our companion party, the World Socialist Party of the United States, has posted a report on its website from the International Workers Association that it thinks worthy of a wider audience. 

This report first appeared on April 1 in the English-language section of the website of the International Workers’ Association.

The current Russian-Ukrainian military conflict has led to a wild explosion of the most disgusting, cavernous nationalism on both sides of the front line. In Russia, they are calling to ‘crush’ the enemy, in Ukraine – to fight for the ‘fatherland’ to the last man. In both states, propaganda seeks to dehumanize the enemy as much as possible, and, unfortunately, many ordinary people fall into the trap set by those in power. Even many who claim to be ‘leftists or ‘anarchists’, intoxicated with patriotic poison, eagerly rush to support the bloodbath.

Unfortunately, this always happens in the wars waged by states. Suffice it to recall the hysteria that gripped the countries of Europe on the eve and during the first weeks of the World War One… 

All the more attention and respect are due to those people in Russia and Ukraine who resist the destruction and bloodshed. Here is a brief survey of the main kinds of anti-war protests over the month since Russian troops invaded Ukraine. 

Russia

In Russia, mass demonstrations against the war began on the very first day and did not stop for 2–3 weeks. At first, they generally took place daily and throughout the country. All were illegal and brutally dispersed. In addition to street meetings and processions, other methods have been used – hanging posters, drawing graffiti, posting leaflets and stickers, and distributing anti-war literature. In some places Molotov cocktails have been thrown through the windows of police stations and military registration and enlistment offices… 

Most protests have been spontaneous. In some instances the bourgeois liberal opposition called for protests. So did feminist organizations on March 8. Unfortunately, not all of the protesters can be considered truly anti-war, that is, truly opposed to all belligerents. Especially among the liberal protesters there are many supporters of Ukraine; even NATO sympathizers have been spotted. 

The exact number of protesters is unknown, but the number of cities in which demonstrations took place and the number of people detained during the protests indicate their scale. In total, street actions have taken place in more than 100 cities and towns. According to human rights activists, by March 13 alone the police had arrested about 15,000 people at these protests. A few are released simply ‘with a warning’; thousands of others have been fined or charged with administrative offenses. By March 25 in St. Petersburg alone the courts had heard 3,710 cases: 861 people were fined, 2,456 were charged with administrative offenses, and 123 were sentenced to forced labor.

Some protesters face criminal charges. The new laws against ‘spreading false information’ and ‘discrediting the army’ carry prison sentences of up to 15 years. In the month since the outbreak of hostilities, 46 people in Russia have been indicted on criminal charges. Nine of them are in custody and three are under house arrest. At least five of the accused are outside Russia. In total, cases were initiated in 22 regions of Russia: Adygea, Tatarstan, Karelia, Moscow City, Ingushetia, St. Petersburg, Kemerovo, Tomsk, Tyumen, Belgorod, Vladimir, Moscow, Tula, Sverdlovsk, Pskov, Samara, Rostov, and Novosibirsk regions, Crimea, and the Primorsky, Krasnodar, and Trans-Baikal Territories. Criminal cases are being investigated under 14 Articles of the Criminal Code — 10 under the new Article 207.3 on ‘public dissemination of false information about actions of the armed forces’, 9 (including at least 3 street artists) — under Article 214 (Part 2) on ‘vandalism motivated by hatred’, 9 — under Article 318 (Part 1) on violence against a representative of the authorities, 2 — on charges of ‘justifying terrorism’. In addition, cases of hooliganism, insulting a representative of the authorities, calling for extremist activities, inciting hostility or riots, storing ammunition, and even desecration of the bodies of the dead and their burial places are under investigation.

Ukraine

In Ukraine, anti-war protests are no less difficult than in Russia. In addition to repression by the authorities, who have begun to ban and arrest political opponents and adopt terrorist laws (including punishments from 15 years in prison to life imprisonment for ‘collaboration with the aggressor’, ‘looting’, and ‘high treason’), wartime conditions themselves prevent protests. How can people attend street actions under a hail of Russian missiles and shells? However, even here it is possible, based on fragmentary information, to present at least a general picture. 

One of the most common actions objectively directed against the consequences of a military conflict is so-called ‘looting’, numerous cases of which are reported from many cities of Ukraine. Of course, a variety of incidents are included in this category — from banditry, murder, and robbery of civilians to real social protest, when residents left without food and other essential goods simply expropriate them from stores. Such ‘popular expropriations’ and ‘hunger riots’ were noted both in cities controlled by the Ukrainian authorities and in those occupied by Russian troops. 

Residents have attempted peacefully to stop the entry of Russian military equipment into urban areas in order to avoid destruction. Thus in Koryukovka (Chernihiv region) on February 27 local residents came out to meet Russian tanks, stopped the column, and entered into negotiations with the troops. As a result, they agreed not to enter the city.

On March 26, the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Slavutych held talks with Russian troops that had entered the city and agreed with them on demilitarization. He assured them that there were no soldiers and weapons in the city and persuaded the soldiers to leave. The Russian military ‘will not search houses’ but people must voluntarily hand over non-hunting weapons. Local Ukrainian authorities remain in Slavutych and will receive humanitarian aid from the Russian side.

There is also evidence of residents –- in Kharkov, for instance — demanding that the Ukrainian military not place military equipment in the areas where they live. 

Disobedience and desertion

Many rumors are circulating about disobedience to orders and desertion on both sides. Unfortunately, there is no way to verify them. The media mention low morale and little desire to fight in the Russian military units sent to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian side claim that about 200 Russian marines from the 155th Brigade refused to take part in military operations. It has also been reported that military personnel of the 810th Marine Brigade, stationed in the Crimea, refused to take part in a landing in the Odessa area. 

There are other fragmentary reports that do not allow us to judge the scale of these phenomena. The mother of a soldier assigned to a unit in the Leningrad region said that her son, like many others who were drafted into the army, was forced to sign a contract with the army. In January the unit was sent to Kursk, then to Belgorod, and then they began to be sent to fight in Ukraine. ‘According to the woman, the soldiers are taken to Ukraine to fight, but some of them refuse and are threatened with charges of desertion.’

A contract soldier from Ufa, Albert Sakhibgareyev, said that his brigade, while on exercises in the Belgorod region at the end of February, received machine guns and an order to fire from artillery mounts ‘where they were ordered.’ The soldiers began to doubt that they were in training when return shots flew in their direction. After that, Sakhibgareyev looked at the news on his mobile phone and found out that Russia had sent troops to Ukraine. A week later, he was beaten by an ensign, left the unit and returned home to Ufa. For desertion, he could face up to 7 years in prison.

Twelve troops of the Russian Guard from the Krasnodar Territory OMON [special police], together with their commander Farid Chitayev, refused to enter the Crimea. They explained that they refused to execute an illegal order. None of them had been informed about the tasks of the ‘special operation’ or agreed to participate in it. They were dismissed from service. 

Several troops from the Izhevsk OMON, after the destruction of their platoon together with its heavy equipment, left the territory of Ukraine and submitted their resignations. 

At the end of March, the former President of South Ossetia acknowledged that some of the soldiers recruited in this republic to take part in hostilities in Ukraine had returned home from the front without permission… 

Nor is everyone in Ukraine eager to ‘defend the fatherland.’ This is evidenced by posters seen in the early days of the conflict in Odessa. On these posters the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine sternly asks: ‘You do not want to fight? That means you don’t love your country.’ The very appearance of such posters testifies to the fact that there are quite a few such reluctant fighters. 

The Ukrainian authorities have announced mobilization and do not let men aged 18 to 60 leave the country. Nevertheless, as comrades from Ukraine report, in reality large-scale mobilization is not occurring — in contrast to 2014–2015, when mass raids on those liable for military service in Ukraine were commonplace. During the first week of hostilities they tried to hand out subpoenas at checkpoints, but this was later declared illegal.

However, many men, just to be on the safe side, try to cross the borders into neighboring countries illegally. A BBC Ukrainian correspondent in early March said that at the Mogilev-Podolsky checkpoint on the border with Moldova ‘in every second car, if not in every car, there were men of military age trying to go abroad, but they were turned around… As the border guard told me, some cars simply turned around, in some the women got behind the wheel, and the men left.’ 

According to a deputy of the city council of Mukachevo in Transcarpathia, every day hundreds of men, in defiance of martial law, pay to cross the border with the EU countries. In Transcarpathia this shadow business has already reached an industrial scale. The cost of a certificate and transfer to Poland goes as high as 2,000 euros. In the Odessa region the cost was $1,500 per person. Edition LIGA.net, which has studied the ‘market’, cites sums dozens of times larger. According to the Ukrainian Border Service, over 1,000 men of military age were caught on the border during 21 days of the conflict. Those fleeing the war go to Poland, Romania, Moldova, and – in fewer numbers — Hungary.

Of course, not all the men seeking to leave the country illegally should be considered people who simply do not want to fight. There are many rich people among them, since finding such money to pay for crossing the border is not an easy task. Some may have to sell everything they possess, but the rich do not care. They start and provoke wars and then safely hide abroad, leaving ordinary people to die and kill for them. This is also true of that part of the Russian ‘elite’ which has emigrated.

As of March 28, over 340 people in Ukraine have been charged with criminal offenses that ‘reduce the defense capability of Ukraine under martial law’. About 100 of them are charged with high treason or collaboration. Over 1,700 male citizens of Ukraine of draft age have been identified who tried to cross the border of the country illegally. This was announced by the Communications Adviser of the State Bureau of Investigation Tatyana Sapyan. In the last 24 hours alone, channels for transporting people across the border have been exposed in the Vinnitsa, Chernivtsi, Odessa, and Lviv areas.  

In an attempt to suppress desertion, the authorities submitted Bill No. 7171 to the Verkhovna Rada [Supreme Council]. It threatens men of military age who illegally leave Ukraine under martial law with up to 10 years’ imprisonment. 

Finally, residents of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic report forced mobilization there. Men are seized right on the streets, given weapons, and sent to the front with no training. Those who can try to hide at home and not go out. That is another way to resist the war!

Source:  https://aitrus.info/node/5941

Note.  I have improved the translation here and there and omitted links, superfluous detail, and a couple of passages that express attitudes not fully shared by the World Socialist Movement. Stefan

War resistance in Russia and Ukraine | World Socialist Party of the US (wspus.org)

Marx and Engels, in the “Communist Manifesto,” appealed to the workers of all lands to unite for the overthrow of capitalism and the inauguration of Socialism, the workers of the world still stand divided by national frontiers. Sadly, socialism has not yet been achieved and the capitalist class are still strongly entrenched in possession of property and power.

What significance has the “fatherland” or the “motherland” for the wage-slave whose only guarantee of livelihood rests on the ability to sell one’s labour-power? None! save that it receives from political superstitions inculcated and carefully nurtured by agents of the dominant class. The class-conscious worker sees that “nationalism” is a snare in the path towards emancipation. Not only does it serve to cloud the class issue within the nation, but it also hinders the workers of the world from recognising and acting up to their unity of interest. War cannot be humanised. Its brutalities will cease only when capitalism, which is the cause of wars, has been brought to an end. That demands action by the international working class, the first step towards which is that the workers in each country should accept the existence of the class struggle as the basis of their organisation and line up in opposition to their own ruling class and its government. 

When the ruling class talk of war it is more than ever necessary for the workers in this country to remember that the workers in other countries have as little direct responsibility for their callous ruling class and bloody-minded military castes as we have for ours. The best help that the workers anywhere can give to their foreign comrades is to redouble their efforts to strengthen the socialist movement in their own country and hasten the day when the workers will control the affairs of society.  

The Socialist Party intends to build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited.

The Socialist Party, while extending the hand of fraternity to the workers of all lands, must on principle refuse to ally itself with the parties of capitalism.

With another war we say now as we did in the past:

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism.”

True to our international socialist principles we seek contact with socialist workers in other countries who take their stand on the same principles, with a view to set on foot, at last, a genuine socialist International free from the national prejudices and compromise policies that up to the present have hindered the march of the workers’ movement.

The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control. Proponents of patriotism seek to ensure the loyalty of its subjects by inculcating into them, from the cradle to the grave, the idea that they are members of a “nation” with a common interest against those of other “nations”. Socialists reject this mistaken and dangerous idea, regarding themselves not as British, Russian, Ukrainian, American or whatever but as members of the human race, as citizens of the world.

The world capitalist class are continually competing against each other. They also compete for strategic areas in order to protect the markets, trade routes, raw material sources and investment fields they have got or want. The various armed states into which the world is divided are used by rival groups of capitalists to protect and further their interests in these clashes. They represent, in other words, not the interest of the majority of their subjects, but that of the dominant section of the capitalist class established within their borders.

In these clashes of interest between the various national capitalist groups success greatly depends on the military might of the states involved. States, and the capitalists they represent, do not deliberately seek war; for them, this is often the last resort, when negotiations failed. But all states are obliged to maintain as powerful an army as they can afford, not necessarily to be used on every occasion, but to threaten and to be taken into account in the negotiations and manoeuvrings that continually arise from the underlying clashes of economic interest that are built into capitalism.

Capitalism, in other words, is a permanent powder-keg or rather, these days, a permanently-primed nuclear bomb. Its very structure as a competitive profit-seeking system generates preparations for war (and the waste this involves), the threat of war (which is ever-present) and actual wars (which are always going on somewhere in the world).

Socialism will see the abolition of frontiers and the dismantling of the various armed states into which the world is now divided. As classes will have been abolished, people really will become citizens of a united world of a class-free, money-free, state-free and leader-free world community

Marx and Engels, in the “Communist Manifesto,” appealed to the workers of all lands to unite for the overthrow of capitalism and the inauguration of Socialism, the workers of the world still stand divided by national frontiers. Sadly, socialism has not yet been achieved and the capitalist class are still strongly entrenched in possession of property and power.

What significance has the “fatherland” or the “motherland” for the wage-slave whose only guarantee of livelihood rests on the ability to sell one’s labour-power? None! save that it receives from political superstitions inculcated and carefully nurtured by agents of the dominant class. The class-conscious worker sees that “nationalism” is a snare in the path towards emancipation. Not only does it serve to cloud the class issue within the nation, but it also hinders the workers of the world from recognising and acting up to their unity of interest. War cannot be humanised. Its brutalities will cease only when capitalism, which is the cause of wars, has been brought to an end. That demands action by the international working class, the first step towards which is that the workers in each country should accept the existence of the class struggle as the basis of their organisation and line up in opposition to their own ruling class and its government. 

When the ruling class talk of war it is more than ever necessary for the workers in this country to remember that the workers in other countries have as little direct responsibility for their callous ruling class and bloody-minded military castes as we have for ours. The best help that the workers anywhere can give to their foreign comrades is to redouble their efforts to strengthen the socialist movement in their own country and hasten the day when the workers will control the affairs of society.  

The Socialist Party intends to build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited.

The Socialist Party, while extending the hand of fraternity to the workers of all lands, must on principle refuse to ally itself with the parties of capitalism.

With another war we say now as we did in the past:

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism.”

True to our international socialist principles we seek contact with socialist workers in other countries who take their stand on the same principles, with a view to set on foot, at last, a genuine socialist International free from the national prejudices and compromise policies that up to the present have hindered the march of the workers’ movement.

The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control. Proponents of patriotism seek to ensure the loyalty of its subjects by inculcating into them, from the cradle to the grave, the idea that they are members of a “nation” with a common interest against those of other “nations”. Socialists reject this mistaken and dangerous idea, regarding themselves not as British, Russian, Ukrainian, American or whatever but as members of the human race, as citizens of the world.

The world capitalist class are continually competing against each other. They also compete for strategic areas in order to protect the markets, trade routes, raw material sources and investment fields they have got or want. The various armed states into which the world is divided are used by rival groups of capitalists to protect and further their interests in these clashes. They represent, in other words, not the interest of the majority of their subjects, but that of the dominant section of the capitalist class established within their borders.

In these clashes of interest between the various national capitalist groups success greatly depends on the military might of the states involved. States, and the capitalists they represent, do not deliberately seek war; for them, this is often the last resort, when negotiations failed. But all states are obliged to maintain as powerful an army as they can afford, not necessarily to be used on every occasion, but to threaten and to be taken into account in the negotiations and manoeuvrings that continually arise from the underlying clashes of economic interest that are built into capitalism.

Capitalism, in other words, is a permanent powder-keg or rather, these days, a permanently-primed nuclear bomb. Its very structure as a competitive profit-seeking system generates preparations for war (and the waste this involves), the threat of war (which is ever-present) and actual wars (which are always going on somewhere in the world).

Socialism will see the abolition of frontiers and the dismantling of the various armed states into which the world is now divided. As classes will have been abolished, people really will become citizens of a united world of a class-free, money-free, state-free and leader-free world community

Corporate profits soared to a record high in 2021

Data from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that pre-tax profits over the whole year increased by 25 percent, reaching $2.8 trillion. 

The annualized rate of profit from the fourth quarter was even higher, at $2.94 trillion.

Meanwhile, hourly wages for U.S. workers increased by about 4.7 percent last year, which is equivalent to a pay cut of about 2.4 percent.

“Clearly, mega-corporations could easily absorb the higher costs of goods and services right now,” wrote Robert Reich, former labor secretary and economics professor at University of California, Berkeley. “They’re not raising prices because they have to. They’re doing it because – with so few competitors – they can. The problem, at its core, is corporate greed.”

Tyson’s CEO told shareholders that the company it’s only raising prices on meat products in order to cover inflation costs for the company. However, it posted profits of $1 billion in the first quarter of 2022, a 48 percent raise over the same period last year.

Corporate Profits Reached Record High of Nearly $3 Trillion in 2021 (truthout.org)

 From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The government’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance (UKEF), has provided  £5.24bn in a combination of loans and guarantees in the past three years to overseas energy and infrastructure projects linked to labour abuses and environmental damage.

Since 2019, UKEF has allocated money to projects with the potential to cause “significant adverse environmental and/or social impacts” in countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Oil refineries, power stations, and a large-scale liquified natural gas (LGN) project are among the high-risk “Category A projects”, to receive funding recently.

Despite recommendations to mitigate labour abuses, six migrant workers employed on Middle Eastern projects backed by UKEF have revealed low pay, safety hazards, excessive working hours, and the denial of freedom of movement as persistent issues.

“UKEF financing is very specific and usually funds very big, very damaging infrastructure projects,” said Daniel Willis, policy and campaigns manager at campaign group Global Justice Now. “Human rights considerations are an afterthought, and due diligence seems to be approached as if it is just a box to tick.”

A review of an oil refinery upgrade programme in Kuwait shows that UKEF knew of worker issues before it provided a $179m (£135m) support package in 2019. Employees and contractors were commonly working more than the maximum overtime hours allowed by legislation, and 87% of workers surveyed had not received an employment contract. 

About 90% of workers at Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) had also been charged illicit recruitment fees to secure their jobs. Some were living in sub-standard accommodation with no air-conditioning, despite summer temperatures reaching 54C in Kuwait, the review said.

Gulam Siddique who recently worked as an inspector at KNPC’s refineries, told the Guardian lower-skilled labourers were not treated well. “They are treated as slaves, working 12 hours a day in direct sunlight,” said Siddique. “There are health risks for those guys, from the gases released at the plant.”

Several of the UK-backed projects are based in Middle Eastern countries, where the labourers’ freedom of movement is controlled under the kafala sponsorship system, which has been deemed abusive and exploitative by Human Rights Watch.

Britain hands billions to projects linked to labour abuse and climate damage | Global development | The Guardian

 World Socialist Movement online meetings

If Russia wants to occupy and run Britain, they may have it as far as the Socialist Party is concerned. Britain doesn’t belong to the British worker. Why should our fellow workers worry about preserving what belongs to others? If the others want it, let them fight for it.

The only thing that matters is the development of a consciousness of working-class solidarity, born of an appreciation of the common cause of working-class misery and its common remedy. Socialism is the answer to every question of working-class import, and— Socialism knows no frontier. It matters nothing that Britain may be peopled by Russians, or by any other nationality on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing cooperative commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common causes against the common or capitalist exploiter.  If an invasion is coming, let it come.

This impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of all mankind. But it has lent itself to exploitation. With the development of class rule, it was made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “country” is that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people themselves. 

 Patriotism is usually defined as being devoted to the land of our fathers. But which is the land of our fathers? Our fathers came from many different parts of the world. The political division of the world in which we live in an artificial entity. The land has been wrested from other peoples. The nation they call “ours” is the result of conquest over original inhabitants, and over ourselves, by successive ruling classes. Unlike the free tribespeople, we are hirelings; we possess no country. Nationality covers no real entity other than that of common oppression, a unified government. It does not comprise any unity of race, for in no nation is there one pure race, or anything like it. It does not cover a unity of language, for scarcely a nation exists in which several distinct languages are not indigenous. Nor is it any fixed territory, for this changes from decade to decade, while the inhabitants of the transferred territory have to transfer their allegiance, their patriotism, to the new nation.

 Only the whole world can now be rightly called the land of our fathers. Only in the service of the people of the whole world, and not against those of any part of it, can social cooperation find its highest and complete expression. Marx did not call upon the workers of Germany alone to unite. He appealed to the toilers of the whole world to join hands; to a whole world of labour whose, the only loss could be its national-coloured chains.

The only universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists for us today is, then, that of subjection to a single government. Patriotism in the worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a politically unified ruling class. Yet it is this artificial entity that we are called upon to honour before life itself. This badge of political servitude is called an object worthy of supreme sacrifice. The workers are expected to abandon all vital interests and sacrifice all they hold dear for the preservation of an artificial nationality. The workers are duped by the ruling class into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of a politico-economic yoke of a particular form and colour. Many on the left wing have fallen headlong into this trap.

Patriotism and nationalism are artificial restrictions of humanity’s sympathy and mutual aid; obstacles to the expansion of the human mind; impediments to the needful and helpful development of human unity and cooperation; as shackles that chain men and women to slavery; as incentives that set each against the other.