Northern Ireland: Wage Labor Basis of Sectarian Divide here ♦ Abolishing Money can Wage Slavery will Strike a Blow against Sexism here ♦ Dreams to Liberate Through Communism here ♦
Northern Ireland: Wage Labour System Is Basis of Sectarian Divide
After reading the letter on Ireland in the last edition of Red Flag, I realized that those comrades, including myself, who composed that letter had not explicitly analyzed the essence of the sectarian divisions in the north of Ireland.
We described the division between Catholic and Protestant workers as if it was a purely political tool by the ruling class to keep workers divided. We need a deeper materialist analysis of why this political division emerged.
The basis of the sectarian divide is the system of wage labour. Northern Ireland always had lower wages then Britain, as with most colonies. It also suffered greater economic depression than Britain. Working-class people of a Protestant background received priority in the jobs market, especially positions with higher pay or a contract. They also were first in the queue for housing, due to their full-time employment.
Where capitalism can’t provide wages as high as in nearby Britain and can’t provide employment to large sections of the population, it must find a justification.
Discrimination based on religious and cultural background gave Protestant wage workers a sense of gratitude to be in a job at all, to earn a wage and keep a roof over their heads. The risk of losing these if the “other” were allowed to compete equally for work and possible lower wages is why they continued to believe the reactionary sectarian ideology. W.E.B. Du Bois analysed this phenomenon with the white workers adopting the racism of the American ruling class against the Black workers.
Irish Protestant workers were lower-paid and poorer than British workers, yet they could look down on unemployed or precarious Irish Catholic workers and see the potential life that could befall them. So instead of unity they competed for jobs and higher wages by persecuting and excluding Catholic workers.
The wage system and wage market of work always forces workers to compete. In some capitalist societies this manifests itself in sectarian divisions such as religion, or in “race”. This is the material basis of such a sectarian divide as in Northern Ireland.
—Comrade in London
Abolishing Money and Wage Slavery Can Quickly Strike Strong Blow Against Sexism
Often when I explain how wonderful communism would be, I am met with a lack of enthusiasm if not skepticism or even sarcasm. Many friends like the idea of communism but think it’s pie-in-the-sky because it will be many years before communism is mature enough to make a difference. I try to counter their pessimism by explaining how much can be done almost right away.
Of course, we all live in a society drenched in sexism. We all (men, women too, communists or non-communists) have internalized sexist prejudices, attitudes, and habits. It will be generations before they completely disappear. But that doesn’t mean waiting for years to make a difference.
Once money is gone food, housing, medical care, and more will be distributed free according to need. And experience shows that this can be done quickly. In the Seattle and Winnipeg general strikes and the UK miners’ strike workers organized free distribution in a few days!
Once it’s organized, we will make sure that it’s fair – no one gets the short end of the stick, or consistently gets less, as many women (and others) do now. Poverty will be abolished almost overnight. Single mothers and their children will not go hungry.
Abolishing wage slavery will abolish any economic dependence of women on their partners. They may need their higher-paid partners for emotional reasons (and vice versa of course) which is fine. Or they may not, in which case they can break up with them without fearing the drastic economic consequences of surviving on just one miserable woman worker’s salary. Millions are forced to do that, but the prospect is a strong disincentive to leaving, even leaving abusers. The Bolsheviks, right after the Russian revolution, made divorce easy – but undermined this progress by retaining wages and, inevitably, sexist wage differentials.
There’s plenty of other things we can do soon after the revolution. Like ending advertising – mainly sexist trash. Collectivizing childcare. Ending ‘domestic abuse’ (family violence).
What happened to women in the Soviet Union? Briefly, socialism and the wage system blocked progress towards communism. This progress slowed in the 1920s when they abandoned, for example, community kitchens. Then in the early 1930s there was a sharp turn to the right. Abortion was made illegal (and homosexuality). They tightened the divorce laws, shamelessly used women as a reserve army of cheap labor, and even gender-segregated education! There is no progress without communist leadership and socialism killed that.
—Comrade in Canada
Dreams to Liberate Through Communist Society
Fighting and tireless women who struggle every day, without rest, working hard to provide daily bread for their children, their family. Women who throughout history have been pillars of strength who have shown that they are fighters without giving up. That’s the way of the communist workers of our ICWP.
In the maquilas we can see mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, women heroes in the fight against a capitalist system that has long taken advantage of their suffering by enslaving and subjecting them to hard work without compensation, oppressing them more and more.
Now is the time for the leadership of women who are supported by our ICWP party, all united as class sisters fighting for our communist society against this oppressive capitalist system’s gender attacks that increase daily, where opportunities do not exist, where we are discriminated against, thousands of harassed women, creating instability and inequality.
That is why now more than ever is the time for the masses to rise up for our ideology in our struggle. We want a common good and we can only achieve our dreams through communism.
Long live the communist women!
—Young comrade in El Salvador
Read our Pamphlet: “The Communist Fight Against Sexism” here
Front page of this issue
