The N. D. P. is the Canadian Socialist Party

A congress of Socialists

The question has been posed to us by some of our readers as to what kind of a party exactly is it that was established at Ottawa during the last days of July and the first days of August with so much fanfare and publicity on the part of the Canadian press.

The answer:

"The authentic Socialist party of Canada".

The foundation of this party had been under way, in fact, for over a year. Pending the official adoption of a name, this group went under the tag of the "New Party".

The word "new" always attracts a certain amount of attention, especially from those who are not at all satisfied with existing conditions. So it was that the party made it a point to conserve the adjective, "new", when the congress officially adopted the title, "The New Democratic Party" (N.D.P.).

This point is somewhat significant. It would almost seem that party did not look forward to more than a few years of existence as the N.D.P., for certainly at the end of such a period the party could hardly be called, "new".

In any event, there is little "new" about this party apart from the alliance it has formed with certain groups of unions, the election of a new leader and the adoption of a new name. It is still the same Socialist party which Canada has known for the past thirty years. The recent congress simply gathered together the delegates of the old C.C.F., the Social Democrat Party of Thérèse Casgrain and Michel Chartrand, of Quebec, the unions and representatives of the Socialists of the intellectual milieu.

During the course of the debate which led up to the choosing of a new name, a number of voices were raised warning against the use of the word "Socialist". It was felt that this term had a certain stigma attached to it, that many voters would be repelled from a party bearing the name "Socialist".

And yet, the adjective, "Socialist", is probably the one which come closest, in fact, is the exact word which describes the true nature of the new party. For the party is a Socialist party. It is the Socialist Party of Canada.

The newly elected chief of this group is Tommy Douglas who has been premier of Saskatchewan since the Socialists of the C.C.F. took power in that province. He is not at all put out at being called a Socialist. He was scarcely elected when he joyously took up the challenge of Prime Minister Diefenbaker who foresees the next election as a contest between the supporters of free enterprise and the partisans of Socialism. It is Tommy Douglas' aim to get the Socialist group into power.

It is worthy of note, also, that the organizers of the congress invited two European Socialist leaders to speak at the congress: Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the English Labour Party, and André Philip who has been described as, "that celebrated French Socialist and leader of the European Left wing."

Another significant point; during the debate on the question of the new group's policy with regard to NATO, the former leader of the C.C.F., Coldwell, who was present, remarked that he had just returned from an international congress of Socialists which had been held in Yugoslavia. So it was very definitely a SOCIALIST party which held congress in Ottawa in mid-summer.

Planning

At this gathering, the Socialists unanimously applauded and supported two principal points of their program: planning and universal employment.

If the party takes over power in Ottawa, there will be a great program of planning by the federal government.

Planning of what?

It cannot be merely the planning of public party works or the planning of the disposal of public taxes. There would be nothing new in this. This is an integral part of any government work. We see it each year in the section of the budget which sets down the planned expenditures. Any party which came to power would have to do that.

But "planning" means something quite different for the Socialists: it means the complete and thorough planning of the entire economy of the country.

Who would carry out such planning? The Socialist party, once it had come to power.

Now, whatsoever issues forth from the government is, of necessity, obligatory. Once planning had been set on foot, it would have to be carried through to the finish. To this end the government would have to make itself obeyed. Under a government which has dedicated itself to a planned economy, whether the means of production had been nationalized or not, the nation's producers would have to bow to the dictates of the government and its commissions. As they do in time of war. As they do at all times in Russia and other Socialist countries.

The Socialist party of Canada has no difficulty recruiting members from the ranks of the workers' unions. This is not surprising for the workers are already accustomed to submission to planning. Industry, which has grown into a gigantic entity, more and more centralized, has made of workers the simple executors of a series of actions which are determined and decided upon by a small minority. Their work is planned by others. They take no decision; industry has already "socialized" them. For such workers, State Socialism means nothing more than a change of boss.

Farmers, on the other hand, are less impressed by this call to support the "new" party. Possibly this is because the farmer, has not as yet totally lost the sense of personal responsibility. The farmer has always been a man given to private enterprise and it is difficult for him to lose the sense of individualism in his work.

The man who runs a farm knows by experience what planning means. Each year he must, himself, make many plans for the proper exploitation of his farm. And these plans he, himself, must put into execution for he is the one who disposes of his fields, of his animals and of his farm equipment.

So, when the farmer hears talk about planning by a Socialist government, he might with good reason ask just what dispositions the government would make to realize a program of planning. The government does not own farms. Thus is must either take over the farms of the country or issue to the farmer orders which the farmer will have to obey just as the farmer's horse must obey the farmer's orders. And the same holds true of industry.

State planning thus means either the nationalization of all means of production, thus bringing all production under the immediate direction of government bureaucracy; or the transformation of all private producers into the mere executives of government planning, making them employees of the State who would do exactly as the State bureaucracy told them. This might mean little to the simple worker, who is already habituated to such dragooning. But for the farmer and the private business man it will be something which they will look upon with a jaundiced eye.

True enough, the congress spoke of something they called "decentralized planning". But these two words are contradictory terms. The congress fell into this contradiction, evidently, in its efforts to avoid offending all those who still cling tenaciously to the idea of individual liberty and responsibility. This is characteristic of all Socialist scheming throughout the world; go as fast as you can in the process of socialisation, but don't go against the prevailing spirit of the electorate. The Socialists do not hesitate to put on the brakes if they feel themselves running into some determined opposition from the people. We even find them at times talking about something called "Christian Socialism"; they will go so far as to delete from their programs those planks which might not be favorably received by the public. Thus it was that a certain sociologist remarked that it was very difficult to give an exact definition of Socialism which would be applicable everywhere; there are at least forty different formulae of Socialism. It may be true that there exist forty types of Socialism. But they differ only in degree. All lead to the same end complete domination by the State.

Another question: How will the Socialist government finance its planned economy?

The Socialists hold private enterprise responsible for all the economic ills which beset us today. But they have never attacked the financial system.

So it is not at all out of the question that for the financing of their vast projects they will have recourse to those means traditionally used by existing governments; income tax, or borrowing (which is nothing more than deferred taxation). And yet, is it not a fact that we are already taxed to the limit indeed, beyond the limit! - in order that the limited plans of existing governments might be realized. State planning by the Socialists would bleed the citizens white — which is one of the quickest and best means (and Marx acknowledged it) of forcing entire peoples to pass under the yoke of State slavery. When we have nothing left we have nowhere else to turn except to the State. And the State will hear us under its terms and conditions.

Universal employment

The other great promise of the Socialists is that of universal employment. This promise has a wonderful ring in the ears of ten of thousands of Canadians who have suffered, or are actually suffering, the evils and hardships of unemployment.

Let us turn to a little analysis. What exactly is so wonderful about "employment"? Employment means, to be in the service of another. The employee must agree to submit to the orders and commands of the employer every hour of the day, or night, that he is working for the company or individual who employs him. He can make no decision of his own.

If employment is of itself such an agreable thing, why is it that workers are continually demanding shorter weeks five days only with shorter days not more than eight hours? They are even talking of the 35 hour week. If employment is somethnig so ardently to be desired, then why not lengthen the work week to 60 or 70 hours?

The fact is, the worker is not interested in employment for itself. What he wants so much is the salary or the wages which he will derive from employment. That is why the unions, while demanding shorter hours, cry for higher wages.

The policy of universal employment, of work for everyone, which has haunted every government since the end of the second world war, is one which might be very difficult to realize except through the institution of a vast program of works undertaken by the State. Certainly, production of the goods needed to meet the demands of the normal family even the production of luxuries and excess goods can never result in full employment for everyone who is capable of working. For one thing, it would be a complete contradiction of the era of progress in which we live, a progress which is making giant strides in the field of industry and commerce. It is impossible to follow at one and the same time a policy of progress which displaces manpower by machines and automation, and a policy which calls for the employment of all workers.

In a world where production is going ahead by leaps and bounds while requiring less and less the intervention of human hands, what is needed is not universal employment but a universal revenue. In order to achieve this it is necessary to throw out the old rule that revenue can proceed from employment alone. It must be linked with production, whether or not such production is the result of employment or not.

If, for example, production remains at its same level even when only half the number of individuals are needed to keep it there, the total amount of revenue needed to pay for it must still remain the same even if the number of persons employed has dropped by half. Half this total amount of revenue may be distributed in recompense for employment; the other half must be distributed gratuitously to the entire community as a recompense of progress. For progress, after all, is a common good.

Again, if, thanks to the advance in scientific techniques, production doubles in volume and in price without any increase in personnel, then the total revenue ought to be doubled, but without increasing the revenue of the personnel who furnish no effort in the doubling of the production; such a doubling of revenue, then, would be in the form of a dividend distributed to everyone in the community.

These adjustments of total purchasing power with total production would be done on a national level with respect to the total production offered to the population of the country.

But now we are no longer talking of Socialism. We are speaking about Social Credit. The Canadian Socialist party is satisfied to stick with the old, worn-out formula of employment being the sole means for the distribution.

If there must be work then let there be free work, free activity, instead of employment. It is in free activity that a man can best express his personality. But here again we get into the field of Social Credit and not of Socialism. For only the Crediter can speak of freeing man more and more from the necessity of employment without plunging him into poverty and want. And such freeing can be achieved in the measure that progress in science and techniques makes it possible to maintain and increase the flow of production without any need to increase the necessity of working hands.

Socialism and Communism

At this congress of the Socialist party, the speakers and the leader of French Socialism himself strove to present Socialism and a planned economy as the best weapon against Communism. A planned economy, said Philip, would do away with unemployment which leads to a hungry people disposed to give ear to the promises of Communism. He imagines that there is no other way of banishing privation from society! That a man has no right to the goods packed in stores and warehouses unless he is ranked among the employed!

Apart from this, it is quite false to say that a planned economy is the best arm against Communism. Nowhere else in the world is the planned economy pushed as it is in Russia and Red China. Can we possibly state that it is a weapon against Communism in these countries? There is no unemployment in Russia and China. Is there, for this reason, no Communism in these countries?

No doubt a distinction, theoretically at least, can be made between Communism and Socialism. Communism is an atheistic thing does not believe in creation or the immortality of the soul; everything derives from matter in movement; it teaches the theory of dialectic materialism. Socialism does not go quite so far. Socialist parties which have come to power as in Sweden or in England under Atlee, and elsewhere, have not persecuted religion as have Communist governments. Furthermore, Communism, once in power, admits of no opposition, even in the parliamentary sense. We have yet to see Socialist governments go that far.

But as far as planned economies go, both seek to bring the individual completely under Statism. They do not recognize the primacy of the individual, a wholly Christian concept. The individual for them is nothing more than an instrument for the execution of plans; and the individual's worth is judged according to the measure in which he is able to fulfill this role.

Here in the province of Quebec it has been noticeable that those individuals who strive to be in the forefront of those forming public opinion inevitably wind up in the ranks of the laicists and Socialists. Put laicism and Socialism together and the result is Communism.

Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, wrote that Communism is something essentially perverse and that there is a fundamental and radical opposition between Communism and Christianity. And this is strikingly evident from the picture of religious persecution in Communist countries.

In order to woo the vote of the electorate, Socialist parties frequently soft-pedal the most radically Socialistic points of their program. The Canadian Socialist party did just this in softening the propositions of the Regina manifesto of 1932 which gave birth to the Socialist party in Canada. But this is a purely opportunistic manouver and in no way alters the final aim of the Socialists.

Moreover, there has not always been unanimity inside the party over such a tactic. The party has its extreme left wing which reproaches the moderates with offering the people nothing more than is offered by the Liberal party. To keep its ranks intact and prevent its members from going over to the Liberals, the party knows how to push the proper buttons at the right time. Pope Pius XII put the faithful on guard against the dangers which come from an economy planned and run by the State in the name of the citizens.

"These plans reduce the liberties of the individual, trouble the serenity of work, violate the rights of families, deform patriotism and destroy the precious religious heritage."

Conclusion

Are we then to oppose Socialist parties with another party bearing the name, Social Credit?

Not at all. The fact that the Socialists are obliged to soften their program in order not to shock the ideals and principles still prevalent in the people, indicates quite clearly what must be done to bar the road to Socialism as well as Communism.

We must work on the minds and souls of men. We must demonstrate the value of a fraternal society; we must persuade the people to accept it. We must demonstrate that system which will lead to a better world in which the goods of the earth will be equitably distributed to all men; where money will cease to be the master of men and will become a simple servant to express, on the one hand, the needs of individuals by their choice of goods, and, on the other, to facilitate the mobilization of the productive means to meet these needs.

It is not through the division of the people into political parties, nor through the agitation set up by ambitious politicians that the concept of a fraternal society will be realized. It will be realized gradually through the devoted work of apostles in politics and economics who, denying themselves all superfluities in material goods and turning their backs on honor and power, seek only to advance the cause of their fellowmen through the work of education. Someone has very well written that, "A change in public opinion is always the first condition to a change in institutions."

The building of a better world must be based on Christ or it will come to nought. Those who think that a better world can be achieved through simply monetary reform, or through a larger distribution of money, have a very shrunken and narrow view of man and of that society in which man can best pursue his true destiny.

The movement set on foot and guided by the movement of the Union of Electors has always upheld and preached those propositions of Social Credit which hold for an equitable distribution of modern production. However, profiting from acquired experience, even from errors which it has made in a quarter of a century of work always with the purest intentions - cleansing itself of those elements which harbored political ambition, learning always from facts and circumstances and guided by such, the movement, always recognizing the hand of Divine Providence, has so developed that its horizons have widened far beyond simple economic and monetary reform to the point where it seeks the establishment of a world better in every sense for all men. And the building of such a world implies far more than financial reform.

What our movement seeks might best be expressed in the words of the great Pontiff, Pius XII in his historic message of February 11, 1952:

"The world must be rebuilt from its very foundations. From a savage world we must turn it into a humane world; from human we must transform it into the divine, which means that it must be modeled after the heart of God."