Sobers played international cricket for the West Indies from 1954-1974Leading figures in West Indies cricket are in disagreement as to the reasons for the team's poor World Cup showing.
Barring a run of unlikely results the hosts will make an early exit.
Veteran broadcaster Tony Cozier blamed skipper Brian Lara and said: "The buck stops with the captain, who has failed as skipper for the third time."
But Windies legend Sir Garfield Sobers said: "Sometimes people don't look at facts, over the last few years the West Indies board has had huge problems."
The Windies won all three games in their preliminary group but have since been well beaten by Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa in the Super 8s.
"There is no way Lara can stay on, what sort of message would that send out?" Cozier told BBC Sport. "Someone has to be held culpable for this."
Cozier added: "This was a home event for us and we've failed badly in it. Bold measures need to be taken."
There is indecision and incompetence throughout
Tony Cozier
Sobers, one of the greatest West Indian players of all time, who scored 7,999 Test runs and took 235 wickets, said there were fundamental reasons for the decline that had nothing to do with Lara.
"One, the board didn't have enough money to have enough camps," he said.
"Two, there were always problems with not being able to field a strong West Indies team, there were strikes and there were all kinds of problems.
"To build a house, if you don't have a solid foundation and you build a house, you are going to have problems later on."
Cozier, who has been commentating on West Indies matches for almost 50 years, says the damage was done going into the tournament and it has been exacerbated by a lack of discipline since the competition started.
"There has been a lack of intensity and poor preparation. The fitness coach gave up on the team in frustration in Pakistan and they haven't replaced him.
Who is to blame?
"The contractual dispute with the players was only solved when the tournament started - there was a very real threat of the team going on strike.
"We don't have a fielding coach, so it's no wonder they have struggled so badly and we have received authoritative reports that players have been out at night.
"There is indecision and incompetence throughout and you can't just blame one or two individuals."
Cozier says action needs to be taken quickly, with the team due to depart for England soon after the World Cup finishes.
They play four Tests, two Twenty20 internationals and three ODIs and Cozier says the timing is far from ideal.
Meanwhile, West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive Ken Gordon has pledged that changes will be made.
"You better believe that they have started already," Gordon said.
However, he took aim at the Caribbean media and former players who he accused of destabilising West Indies hopes by constant criticism and demands for the resignation of Lara as skipper.
"It is unfair to be criticising the team and its captain in the middle of a series like this," added Gordon.
"Let's face it, Lara was put there by the management, and I would be prepared to take whatever responsibility for it when the time comes.
"We all know that on its best day this team can beat anybody, but the reality is that the team is not enjoying its best days.
"We continue to send extraordinarily talented youngsters out there almost as sacrificial lambs."
The West Indies have two more matches to play - against Bangladesh on 19 April and England on 21 April, both in Barbados.
West Indies coach Bennett King has urged his players to "knuckle down" and make the most of a second chance given to them by Bangladesh.
The World Cup hosts looked to be heading out of the tournament after three defeats at the Super 8 stage.
But Bangladesh's win over South Africa has re-opened the race for the fourth semi-final spot.
"We've got another opportunity - and we've just got to put our best foot forward this time," said King.
"The players to a man recognise they have a lot of responsibility, especially in the engine room up in the top four.
"They haven't clicked, and when sides are doing well you'll usually find one of the top four scoring a hundred.
"There's no secret to it - we've just got to knuckle down and put our heads down and apply ourselves better, make the right decisions."
West Indies will still probably need to win their remaining Super 8 games against South Africa, Bangladesh and England to have a chance of making the last four.
But King is hoping a week off following their 113-run defeat by Sri Lanka has enabled the players to re-focus.
"Having a break from the whole tournament and going back to people who love them and care for them is quite important - trying to break that cycle we seemed to be in," he said.
"The three back-to-back matches obviously took their toll physically, but I'm very happy with the unity in this group. They're getting on well and they're trying hard.
"They are always fairly quiet. But internally, we have our characters - and the mood around the camp has been excellent all the way through."
West Indies captain Brian Lara said his side had been well beaten by Australia and they could have had no complaints.
Lara top-scored with 77 and Denesh Ramdin hit 52 but the hosts were all out for 219 to lose by 103 runs.
The loss of the early wickets left the hosts facing a near-impossible task and Lara lamented the batting performance in the opening 10 overs.
"The most important thing about chasing 300-plus is that one of the top three or four batters has to bat through," he said.
"To lose three wickets in under 10 overs I think that was a major setback and the major factor in the game.
"Myself and Ramnaresh Sarwan had to try to consolidate and rebuild the innings and in doing that of, course, we chewed up a lot of balls."
Lara, who batted at number five said he was not about to alter his batting line-up.
"I still have a lot of confidence in the guys up there, Chanderpaul got a hundred in our last game, Chris Gayle is an outstanding batsman," Lara said.
"Sarwan has been our top player in one-day games in the last couple of years and Marlon Samuels has been coming to the fore.
"One game is not going to change things but of course we are going to discuss it. I still have confidence in the top four to do the job that is required, though."
"They outplayed us over the two days. They deserve congratulations for a very good performance," he added.
It was a delayed, stop-start affair that was reduced to 21 overs-a-side but will go down as one of the biggest moments in Bangladesh's sporting history, a sweet seven-wicket triumph that surged them into the second stage of the World Cup. What a special gift for the nation on a very special day! Bangladesh made history by qualifying for the Super Eight stage of the Cricket World Cup with the event coinciding with the 36th anniversary of Independence Day celebrations.
Their comfortable victory meant that India were well and truly ousted from the 
competition, leaving Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to carry forward the Asian hopes from here on.
It was a wet, gloomy affair at the Queen's Park Oval but one that ended in a wave of Bangladeshi elation. They kepBermuda down to 94, largely owing to Mashrafe Mortaza and Abdur Razzak, and then got home by seven wickets in conditions where the ball was moving around prodigiously. Chasing a meagre 96, Bangladesh were shaky at 37 for 3 but Mohammad Ashraful and Saqibul Hasan stitched together a 59-run stand to seal the issue.
The feel-good bubble had to burst sometime, and Ireland will be relieved that it came in this match, with qualification for the Super Eights already guaranteed. They will take solace from the fact that they were shown up by a magnificent innings from Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and remain quietly confident that an upset or two remain possible even in the august company they'll find themselves in when they journey to Guyana.
Guyana of course is home to Chanderpaul, and there would have been more than a few celebrations in Unity village as he overcame his sluggish start to the competition with an innings of style and substance. Four fours in one over rather messed up Boyd Rankin's figures, and Andr� Botha's Scrooge-like spell against Pakistan was relegated to the recesses of the memory with two magnificent hits down the ground. The pick of the bunch was probably the six against Kyle McCallan though, traipsing down to the pitch of the ball and walloping it against the spin over the legside.
The emphatic nature of the victory also sets West Indies up nicely for a tilt at Australia in their opening game of the Super Eights. The return of Ian Bradshaw was clearly a positive, and the new-ball bowling of Daren Powell continues to be hugely impressive. If Jerome Taylor, who took a hat-trick against Australia in the Champions Trophy last October, can rediscover that sort of form, the West Indian attack won't cede ground to anyone. On the surfaces that they know so well, the offspin of Chris Gayle and the medium pace of Dwayne Bravo will be factors as well.
For Brian Lara, things are going as well as they could be. "We're building to a point where we want to get on to the bigger games, like Australia and South Africa. The majority of the batsmen have had a hit and that's good for us. We just need to up the ante a little bit."
The prospect of facing Australia in their opening Super Eights game didn't faze Lara. "We've done well against them in the recent past," he said. "And in the last couple of global tournaments since the 2003 World Cup, we've won one and finished runner-up in the other. We want to keep growing as a team."
He admitted that he would have preferred to see Pakistan go through from the group. "We thought they might be able to take points off some of the other teams in the Super Eights," he said candidly. "But Pakistan panicked, while Ireland held their own throughout. These things can happen."
So, on a day when India joined Pakistan on the tournament scrap heap, the hosts moved serenely on. They're not quite the finished article, but the atmosphere at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua should certainly inspire them on Tuesday. And if they can overcome Australia, the whispers of a return to the glory days will certainly grow a little louder. After such a miserable week for cricket, it was certainly heart-warming to see so many thousands heading home with a smile on their faces.
"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." -Albert Einstein
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has -- as is well known -- been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.
Second, socialism is directed toward a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and -- if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous -- are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half-unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.
For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"
I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?
It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society -- in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence -- that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word "society."
It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished -- just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human beings which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.
Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.
If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time -- which, looking back, seems so idyllic -- is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor -- not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production -- that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods -- may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.
For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call "workers" all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production -- although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. In so far as the labor contract is "free," what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the "free labor contract" for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present-day economy does not differ much from "pure" capitalism.
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
From Monthly Review, New York, May, 1949.
[Re-printed in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein]
Transcribed by Lenny Gray
Bangladesh sealed a famous five-wicket victory against India with a thrilling performance in Port-of-Spain. Three of their teenagers passed fifty, 17-year-old Tamim Iqbal with calypso strokes in a stunning 51 off 53 balls. There were late scares but Mushfiqur Rahim, aged 18, took them to the 192 target with nine deliveries remaining. Rahul Dravid chose to bat but when he fell in the 25th over India were 72-4, and though Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh shared 85 it was insufficient. Iqbal's spirit was exemplified in the seventh over, bowled by left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan. India were convinced they had dismissed him at slip when the ball flew close to his gloves and ricocheted off his grille. 606: DEBATE Give your thoughts on the match Having engaged in some forthright discussion with the bowler, Iqbal smashed the final two balls of the over for four and embarked on a flurry of remarkable strokes. The pick of them was also against Zaheer. Having hit successive fours earlier in the over, he took a step down the pitch and piroueted into a drive, despatching the ball against the wall of the upper tier of the stand beyond wide long-on. Aftab Ahmed's shot selection was not so good, however, and his attempted pull to a full delivery that trapped him bang in front and made it 79-3 was particularly ill-advised. When it appeared the Tigers may be feeling the pressure, 19-year-old Saqibul Hasan took the runs required below 100 with a confident cut for four off Agarkar. Sachin Tendulkar is dismissed Tendulkar is gleefully pouched by keeper Mushfiqur Rahim Next, Rahim brought up the team's 100 in style with a glorious, towering straight six having advanced down the pitch to Harbhajan. Dravid turned to Sachin Tendulkar but by this stage the batsmen had put the enormity of the situation to the back of their minds and were comfortably nudging their way patiently towards victory. Not that they at any point went on the defensive. Saqibul slapped the first ball of Munaf Patel's new spell straight back past him. He reached his third ODI fifty in fabulous fashion, striding down the wicket and lofting Harbhajan over cover for six. India looked a beaten side but Virender Sehwag atoned for his lack of runs by enticing the left-hander down the pitch unnecessarily for a stumping. If Saqib's dismissal for 53 was excusable, Habibul Bashar's in almost identical fashion for one, was not. Harbhajan spilled a low chance in the deep when seven runs were needed and the ebullient Tigers were not to be denied, Rahim appropriately striking the winning runs to finish unbeaten on 56. Having won only once in 14 meetings with India, the Tigers cannot have been in overly-confident mood, particularly after failing to win a match in South Africa four years ago. But they came into the match with 17 victories from their last 20 matches, albeit against lower grade opponents. Tamim Iqbal Iqbal's scintillating strokeplay gave Bangladesh a fantastic start Their new-ball pairing of Mashrafe Mortaza and Syed Rasel immediately applied the pressure and were rewarded in the third over. Out-of-form Sehwag, with only one fifty in his last 13 innings, tried to cut a ball that seamed back from Mortaza and edged into his stumps. The first boundary came in the sixth over but in the next Robin Uthappa drove Mortaza to point. After 14 overs the first bowling change brought success, as left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak snared the prize wicket of Tendulkar. The maestro hit one sumptuous four off his toes but got an inside edge into his pad and the ball looped gently to wicketkeeper Rahim. When nagging left-arm seamer Rasel was bowled through, 25 consecutive overs of slow left-arm followed, 30 in total for the innings. Again a change resulted in immediate success, Mohammad Rafique's first ball trapping Dravid, the captain infuriated with the decision as the ball appeared to drift down the leg-side. Yuvraj flicked the only six of the innings to record the 150 in the 42nd over, but in the next he was back in the hutch after top-edging to short fine-leg. Attempting to charge Rafique, Ganguly succeeded only in flat-batting to mid-wicket. Any threat of Mahendra Dhoni blasting his team out of trouble ended three balls later when he cut to point for a duck as a total of five wickets fell for two runs in 10 balls, which left India 159-9. Last pair Zaheer and Patel hit two fours each to add 32 from 28 balls which but might have significant, but Iqbal and his young colleagues had other ideas.
Sobers played international cricket for the West Indies from 1954-1974Leading figures in West Indies cricket are in disagreement as to the reasons for the team's poor World Cup showing.
Who is to blame?
