We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based on economic equality, will be possible.

 

The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability, and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists, and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed.

 

When private profits is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man’s normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and the principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.

 

The new social order at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation.

 

Nor shall we interfere with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every citizen.

 

Regina Manifesto

 

These words ring as a call to arms, as loudly today as they did in the Thirties. They are the opening paragraphs of a remarkable document, 5,000 words or so in length, that laid out the groundwork for what should have been a just, egalitarian, and sustainable society.

 

Although not specifically written by them, the Regina Manifesto became the platform document of a new political party. It was July 1933, it was Saskatchewan, it was the Dust Bowl (the ‘dirty thirties’), and the world was reeling from the Great Depression. The League for Social Reconstruction produced the Manifesto, and the newly formed Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a democratic socialist party founded the previous year by farmers, workers, and socialist groups, adopted the Manifesto word for word.

 

On June 15, 1944, the CCF formed the first socialistic government in North America. That party, and its successor the New Democratic Party (NDP), has held power in Saskatchewan during 47 of the next 76 years.

 

But how well the CCF/NDP have lived up to the original statement of intent can only really be characterized as a litany of disappointment. There is nothing out of the ordinary about political parties that fail to deliver the goods; but this was a particularly devastating failure – because they had it right. The mandate the CCF set for itself was the proper course for a democratic government, and its success could have shown the way to others. Following the lead they promised to establish, the world’s present economic mess would never have occurred. And a great many other evil and sick events of the past 60 or so years never would have reared their ugly heads. That the present NDP is now further to the right than the conservatives would have been in 1933, is one of the saddest notes in Canadian history.

 

But this is not a story about Canada. It’s about …

 

How a decent society functions

The Regina Manifesto was purely and simply a socialist text. The crafters of the document may have recognized that humanity is not sufficiently evolved to adopt Communism, so this was intended to represent a softer approach while attempting to achieve what would be essentially the same end results. The Manifesto laid out fourteen specific tenets which it wished to achieve, and looking back from today it is amazing how many actually were (at least in Canada). But it was in the large strokes that they missed the canvas.

 

There were some points that were specific to Canada, or to the Great Depression, but on balance most of the demands of the Manifesto are as valid as ever. What it sought, in summary, was:

 

Planning

The establishment of a planned and socialized economic order to achieve the most equitable distribution of national income. This was to be reached by a plan:

 

…for the production, distribution and exchange of all goods and services necessary to the efficient functioning of the economy; to co-ordinate the activities of the socialized industries; to provide for a satisfactory balance between the producing and consuming power; and to carry on continuous research into all branches of the national economy …

 

And it was seen that this was the proper business of government, not private industry.

 

Socialization of Finance

All financial machinery should be socialized – banking, currency, credit, insurance. Planning alone is not sufficient if the public authorities do not have the ability to effectively control currency, credit, and prices. Those tools in private hands can, and will, be used to thwart the public good.

 

Social Ownership

That means public ownership of transportation, communications, electrical power. And it means development of the nation’s natural resources. It is only by public ownership of these goods that society can avoid the wasteful competition from over-development and over-capitalization which inevitably arise under unfettered capitalism. This means no private ownership of things like petroleum, forestry, mines.

 

Agriculture 

Security of tenure for farmers, insurance against unavoidable crop failure, encouragement of consumer and producer co-operatives, restoration of an equitable relationship between agricultural costs and prices.

 

External Trade

Nationalized marketing of goods and services abroad. That doesn’t mean you can’t manufacture a widget and sell it abroad on your own – it means that the country’s national and natural resources will be marketed externally with a view to ensuring good foreign relations, equitable trade, and elimination of exploitation of both the primary producer and the ultimate consumer.

 

Co-operatives

A promotion of both producer and consumer co-operatives, assisted by enabling legislation and adequate publicly owned credit facilities.

 

Labour Code

A labour code that provides for: freedom of association; insurance covering illness, accident, old age, unemployment; sufficient leisure time and wages; gender and minority protections against discrimination. And, most important, the absolute right to organize into trade unions.

 

Socialized Health Services

Publicly organized health, hospital, dental and medical services – the costs borne by taxation.

 

External Relations

A foreign policy designed to obtain international economic co-operations, and to promote disarmament and world peace.

 

Taxation and Public Finance

A new taxation system that is designed to raise public revenues for the public good, and to lessen inequalities of income. This should provide funds for needed social services. And the taxation system would be based upon an ability to pay, rather than having the heaviest burden falling on the masses. Most important is that the government becomes self-financing, rather than being at the mercy of private debt which must inevitably be borne by the public.

 

 

There’s more, and if you’re curious about reading the entire Regina Manifesto, you can find it at this link.

 

So how does capitalism fit into all of this?

Well, if by ‘capitalism’ you mean the rapacious system under which the world has suffered for so many years, it doesn’t. In its purest sense, capitalism is about producing, buying, and selling and there is nothing inherently evil about that. The very word ‘capitalism’, though, has come to mean something very nasty, so the process of buying and selling has to be understood in context. In fact, the word ‘capitalism’ has become so tainted that any positive economic sense is completely lost. For instance, in George Bush’s USA, capitalism was free-wheeling ownership by whomever had the biggest cowboy hat. In state capitalism, there is a degree of public ownership of the means of production that ranges from a little bit right up to full state control (the Marxist variation).

 

So what the Regina Manifesto proposed was a form of state capitalism where the primary resources of the country were under public ownership. Outside of those primary industries, individuals or companies would be free to develop and sell products to their hearts’ content. Depending upon the nature of the good or service, there might be a marketing role for the state; but the business owner would be capable of a high degree of success. With that success, would naturally come higher taxes, but wealth would still be possible.

 

And since I’ve raised the spectre of taxes, let’s have some adult conversation about those. Most six-year-olds have worked out that if you go to the store to buy candy, you have to be prepared to pay for it. Political and business leaders have done their damnedest over the past, oh, 40 years or so, to avoid having to admit this. They have persisted in advocating massive tax cuts as nirvana. To them, it’s all a matter of clearing out the fat from the civil service – then all the wonderful things provided by government can be maintained.

 

The degree of delusion that supports that kind of thinking is staggering. We don’t need leaner civil services, we need professional and effective civil services. We don’t need fewer or lower taxes, we need higher taxes, better collected and better spent. All those paved roads and sidewalks, the sewer systems and clean water, the police and fire services, and so on, can’t be sustained without a solid tax base. You really do get what you pay for – just ask any six-year-old.

 

The constant drone of tax-cutting has been one of the most persistent planks in the capitalist platform. Taxes, no matter how low, eat into profit.

 

Effectively, our experiment with capitalism – where everyone has the chance to get rich – has done a swell job of ensuring that most of us get poor.

 

So back to the Regina Manifesto.

This is a plan, folks. And it’s a good one. You might think with the economic crisis that has gripped the globe during the past 20 months or so that people would be eager to end the capitalist stranglehold. But we’re nowhere near that point yet. And the reason is very simple – the Right has united successfully. The Right has done such a superb job of organizing itself that the lower end of the conservative scale doesn’t even realize its being screwed by the few elites at the top of the dung heap.

 

Meanwhile, the Left is in disarray. Democratic socialism, which is what this Manifesto touts, appears to be our best hope for a decent world. But we are not going to get there until we defeat capitalism. And that means a strong push from the Left.

 

Progressives, just as in 1933, seek a world with greater social and economic justice. But we seem to have lost sight of our goals. The Left needs to take on a heavier burden, to restart its historic status-quo challenging stance. It has to do much more to reduce the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor. The Regina Manifesto shows a way to make all this happen, without the need for violent revolution. But none of it can occur until the Left comes together as a cohesive force.

 

Because of dwindling planetary resources, we may find ourselves in a position where we have to confront a slow-growth or no-growth economy, possibly forever. We have no experience with this because our lives have been built around the constant need to grow, to buy and throw away and buy again. But we may soon have to learn how to divide up what we have in a paradigm where we can’t count on getting more. And it seems readily intuitive that the folks in Regina in 1933 had a better plan for how to do that than the capitalists could ever manage.