MR Queen's latest letter (Citizen June 4 ) undermines its owns arguments.

It declares that we live in a "thriving economy" and yet in the same issue of the Citizen we discover the abysmal rates of pay that predominate in Lancaster. If the economy is thriving, and no-one round here is being rewarded much for their toil, where is all the wealth going? The only rational conclusion is that the wages system supports a gang of employers living off the wealth and work of others. It then tries to refute my 'absurd' desire for social justice by recounting all the evils and iniquities that I resent in the wages system - and in fact drive my desire for social justice. As I pointed out in my previous letter the minimum wage is a palliative to relieve some of the misery in the wages system - but that whole system should be abolished.

Finally he declares that the only way forward is to reduce government interference in the economy. I wonder if that also means rescinding government controls on the freedom of unions from the most restrictive laws in Europe. Or is it the usual right wing double standards of wanting laws revoked, but only where they hinder the hypocrite employers.

But still Mr Queen is mistaken in what my desires entail. We can never have social justice until the means of producing, distributing and enjoying wealth are socialised and correspondingly the wages system abolished. I cannot believe in operating a cruel hoax to employees because I want to see an end to a system where there are employers and employees as we know them at all. Mr Queen has done nothing in his letters but show the evils of the wages system, it's up to all of the rest of us to act on that evidence.

Bill Martin

South Road

Lancaster

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.