The “National Interest” is the Bosses' Interest

  The country is divided into two classes, who live very differently. The working class, the vast majority, produce virtually everything but own virtually nothing. The capitalist class, a small minority, produce very little but own almost everything. Do these classes then have the sane “national interest” ?

  Obviously not. It's in the working class's interests to get as high wages as possible. It's in the bosses' interests to get as high profits as possible. Since the more of the wealth that goes to profits the less there is for wages, and vice versa, the interests of the two classes are completely opposed.

  On a wider scale, it's in the rich owners' interests to keep the present social system going, because they're doing well out of it. But for the workers this system offers us little more than boring work, inferior housing, a polluted environment, and a constant struggle to make ends meet. It's in our interests to get rid of this system and replace it with a system based on the common ownership of wealth, with production to meet the needs of the whole community.

  So on every level the two great classes in this nation (as in all nations) have totally opposing interests.

  The idea of the “National Interest” is a myth. It's designed to con workers into abandoning our own interests and falling in with the employers' interests. There is no “National, Interest”. There are only class interests.

  The government always acts in the interests of the employers. The capitalist system runs on profits and can only be run in the interests of those who make profits. This is equally true whether it' s a Labour, Tory or Liberal Government.

  What's needed is for the working class to organise to capture political power and remove the capitalists from their privileged position.

  This can only be done by a World Revolution, brought about peacefully if possible, violently if necessary, by a socialist majority in at least the industrially advanced countries.

  The only sane way to run modern society is for all the natural resources and the means of producing wealth to be democratically controlled and operated by and for the whole of the community. With the elimination of socially useless work such as banking, insurance and advertising, and the ending of other forms of waste such as planned obsolescence, and the massive direction of resources to armaments and so-called “Defence”, it would very soon be possible to go over to a system of free distribution of goods and services.

  A change to such a system is urgently needed if we are to progress beyond running fast to stand still.

  As Karl Marx put it, “The Trade Unions should abandon their conservative motto, 'A Fair Day's Wage for a Fair Day's Work”, and instead inscribe on their banners the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the Wages System”.

(from a leaflet by our old Aberdeen Group)