A job may be dirty, but that doesn't make it unworthy

But in our paper, with its masthead demand "for peace and socialism," it omits a lot.

Both skilled and unskilled labour, under capitalism, are treated with contempt, as almost every item in our paper shows us. It is only the degree that varies.

Within a socialist society we will still need "hewers of wood and drawers of water," workers to clean the public lavatories and remove the refuse etc.

The task in a more humane society is to demonstrate the dignity within labour, and concurrently to provide alleviation from the worst aspects of that very necessary work.

Within at least one developing socialist society, schoolchildren learn both practical labour and mental skills, by dividing up the school work.

I have seen in one such community a coach driver talking without a trace of discomfort, superiority or inferiority with the director of a very large medical school.

The "products" of that school are now diffusing out into areas where they are needed, not to where they are best-paid. Certainly they are not hazarded by the alienation that was rife during the pre-revolutionary period in that country.

However utopian it may seem at present, we should be preparing right now for a society of more equality and balance.

Roger Fletcher
Chesham