There can be no peace, no security, no freedom under capitalism. So long as capitalism continue to exist, hunger and war are inevitable. They are unavoidable in our society. Continue capitalism and we face the certain prospect of new wars and more food insecurity. World hunger is not due to the lack of technology to produce more food, but due to the capitalist system and multinational companies that control food supplies. The causes of hunger have little to do with a shortage of food. the real question is not whether starvation can be prevented, but whether it will be.
Build socialism to give us undreamed of wonders to enrich our life. Socialism, and only socialism, will create a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without master and servile nations and, hence, a world without war and commercial competition. A world administration will not be a government of a dominant economic class but democratic decision making bodies with the primary duty to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, joblessness, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people. Its preoccupation in socialism will be to assist and improve continually the living standards of the people, to extend their leisure time and thus make it possible to heighten the cultural level of the whole world. That is why socialism will guarantee peace, security and freedom and prevent the destruction of mankind. Socialism will end the root evil of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery and land, which produce the necessities of life.
With socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the earth.
In abolishing classes in society, socialism will replace the form and type of governments which exist today. Governments will become administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class. In abolishing classes, elite government and war, socialism will at the same time destroy all forms of dictatorship, political as well as economic. World socialism will be the freest, most democratic society ever known, truly representing the majority of the population and subject to its recall. Socialism will assess the industrial potential of the world, determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating abundance, increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment.
Socialism will not concern itself with profits and war, but with providing decent housing for all the people. Socialism will provide education for all the people. Socialism will eliminate illiteracy, which is one of the hallmarks of capitalism, and cease to regard schools and colleges primarily as institutions to produce skilled labour to help operate the profit economy.
Socialism will create a system of health preservation and insurance in which the needs of the people and the improvement of the human race would be the paramount consideration. Above all, socialism will provide jobs for all. But this will be work without exploitation. For the aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labour, but the utilisation of machinery, technology, science and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress.
The modern world contains all the pre-conditions necessary for socialism. All about us we observe enormous industrial complexes containing machinery which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvellous technology which has not only made it more possible for humanity to control his natural and social environment to create a fruitful life of abundance, but has made it imperative. Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the material means to help better mankind. Only socialism can place science where it properly belongs: in the service of the people. We are at a crossroads and can travel the road of capitalism, towards more chaos, war, poverty and barbarism, or we can take the socialist path toward true freedom, peace and security, the road toward a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.
One recent campaign entitled Pork Lovers Europe, which secured €1.4m for marketing, including a “road-show” with a pink bus painted to look like a pig, noted “that the consumption of pork meat in Europe has decreased in recent years”.
In India on Friday, strikers turned their focus on government plans to deforest swathes of the Aravallis mountain range, which is a conservation area that provides freshwater and oxygen for Delhi and other cities. Some carried banners in English reading: “I love Aravallis”, “Our green lungs” and “Protectors are turning destroyers”.
Indeed the change the Socialist Party seeks is huge.
Does it make sense to risk destroying civilisation for the sake of profit? Capitalism imposes ecological devastation on the planet. Capitalism is the problem that socialism can solve. Socialists aims to produce and distribute resources by and in the interests of the whole community. In a money-free society production can be planned properly and the world’s resources conserved instead of being wasted or damaged for the sake of making a quick profit. The risk to the world posed by the threat of dangerous industrial processes and indiscriminate waste of resources has never been greater in spite of all the efforts of reformists and ecological pressure groups. Only the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism can halt the destruction. We must replace capitalism before it destroys the earth.
Against continued capitalist chaos, the Socialist Party fights for a new social system based upon the overthrow of the exploiters. Against nationalist hatreds and hostilities, the Socialist Party proclaims and practices proletarian solidarity, the unity of the workers of all lands against their capitalist exploiters. Against endless wars of conquest, the Socialist Party strives to eliminate war through a socialism.
The capitalist are trying to throw the burden of this world crisis on the working people. When capitalist production does not bring sufficient profit, the capitalist uses every means to guard himself against loss. He throws the workers pitilessly out into the street. He raises the cost of living. He beats down salaries, and for this purpose he creates lock outs and mobilises strike-breakers.
The capitalist seeks to increase the hours of work or the efficiency of labour, in case wages remain the same. Protection for the workers is made impossible. The most indispensable articles are raised in price, the production of goods which do not bring big profits is stopped. We see this best in the failure to relieve the shortage in dwellings. Housing accommodations for the lower classes are neglected. Hospitals and nurseries are closed. Invalids, pensioners, and cripples are abandoned. Through the most subtle systems of taxation a considerable part of the workman’s income is stolen. In order to carry this out more easily the capitalist buys the periodicals, the newspapers, controls literary production and employs thousands of agitators to influence the workers in a manner favourable to his own interests. The capitalist strives to demoralize and to destroy the workers’ organisations, especially the labour unions. With a subtle system of swindle and lies capitalism tries to eliminate these organisations from the struggle against it. When it does not succeed in this, it tries to destroy them by means of force.
Global warming and the environmental crisis is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. The uncontrolled exploitation and gross waste of resources typical of capitalism, is the source of this disaster. Short-sighted hunt for profit, neglects and abuse of science under capitalism destroy the world’s environment at an accelerating speed. Science, technology and industry can be positive and beneficial to society, but private property and the priorities of the elite and the ruling class create great problems. Our answer is that the working people must organise to overthrow those who threaten the existence of the people of the world. Only a planned socialist economy has strength to remedy a future climate catastrophe. Planned economy makes social and sensible use of the resources. Production will be planned on the basis of what serves society, not what yields the most profit. The producers themselves, the workers, will decide what to produce and how – not “the market”.
Capitalism is a disaster for humanity. It promises poverty, hunger, disease and war. Our environment is fated to be destroyed by climate change and harming our food supplies which is already leading to mass migrations from rural areas. All this results directly capitalism itself. It comes from the system of wage labour, the need to produce for profit and the necessary accumulation of capital which demands continual market expansion and growth. It is the system of production for profit which is creating this catastrophe. The only way out for mankind is changing to a system of production for use and needs, ending the exchange economy, no more buying and selling. Money will cease to have a function. Borders and frontiers will be abolished as nations and the State itself disappear. Socialism is the total transformation in economic, social and political relations where working people take control of their own lives and begin running their own communities. Only a social revolution can create society anew to replace capitalism with a system that aims to satisfy human needs.
We must be free of the ideology of the ruling class and must have a strategy which will end exploitation and oppression. We are revolutionary socialists who believe that capitalism — as a system based on capital accumulation and profit — is inherently a system of inequality, injustice, and war. Our enemy is capitalism. Capitalism dominates our economic system. Under capitalism, a handful who own the factories, the mines, the farms, and the banks control the wealth that the majority of the people produce. Capitalism organises globally for growth and profits. Under capitalism you either eliminate the competition, or are destroyed yourself. This drive sends the corporations around the world, seeking out cheaper raw materials and corrupting local governments to insure a “friendly investment climate.” Capitalism continuously seeks cheaper labour costs. This is why we see so many factories out-sourced and moving “off-shore.” Capitalism is a system of violence. Poverty is built into its operation. The capitalist class needs to maintain its grip on the levers of power. A socialist revolution will require the unity of the working class. The capitalist class has kept the working class of divided.
The struggle for a liveable planet is now a life-and-death issue. Corporate greed has polluted our air and poisoned our water. Capitalism’s blind consumerism causes us to squander so many of the world’s resources needlessly. The environmental movement has powerful support from youth, determined not to pass on to their children a poisoned earth. This movement offers a great potential for a receptive audience to socialist ideas..
It is this system that we are fighting. We want a social system where the wealth of the World is not in the hands of a few billionaires, but is collectively controlled by the people. We seek both economic and political democracy. Human needs cannot replace profit as the motivation of society unless the people control their communities, their neighbourhoods, their workplaces. We believe that everything possible must be done to move in the direction of building a cooperative commonwealth. Socialism is not and cannot be anything other than the self-management of production, the economy, and society by the working people. For us, socialism is impossible without democracy. Both in how we organise and in what we organise for.
Campaigns that mobilise activists like foot-soldiers with generals giving them their marching orders may appear efficient in some ways. But they also duplicate the hierarchies of a capitalist, society, hierarchies that undermine people’s belief in their own abilities and their trust in others. The job of the Socialist Party is to find ways to propose social change and democratic practices, even though we may risk being marginalised. Our own movement must be infused with democratic decision and solidarity.
In order for the society working people will create to be just equitable, it must embody socialist ideals. The fundamental change is not to preserve capitalism. Do we have a blueprint for a socialist society? Can we envision what such a society looks like? If we rely on the people, if we pool our own collective experiences we can broadly outline a socialist future. Our political compass for where we are headed should always have socialism as its destination – a world free from destitution.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), has been hit with a union-busting $93.6 million dollar court-imposed fine for a secondary boycott deemed illegal under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The plaintiff, International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI), owned by the third richest man in the Philippines, billionaire Enrique Razon Jr., operates in 27 ports worldwide, mainly in poor, developing countries. On February 14 in Portland, this capital vs labor battle may be decided by a federal court judge.
Known as the slave labor act by the organized labor movement, the Taft-Hartley Act bans solidarity actions or secondary boycotts as the government’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) refers to an action not directed against the primary employer. In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act, was passed with support from both Democratic and Republican parties at the beginning of the McCarthy witch hunts. It banned all manner of class struggle: solidarity strikes, mass picketing, closed shops, including union hiring halls, and communists from holding union office.
But it was solidarity actions that built the labor movement. ILWU’s history shows that labor’s strength lies in union solidarity actions. West Coast maritime workers have long been in the forefront of U.S. labor struggles.
Razon’s modus operandi for ICTSI is raw, aggressive neo-liberal capitalism, buying up public-owned ports in developing countries, busting unions, suing competitors or government agencies and making billions in the process. If ICTSI’s owner billionaire Enrique Razon is successful in his court suit, it would be a body blow to labor’s solidarity actions.
The old IWW motto must prevail, “An injury to one is an injury to all!”
Full article at
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/12/the-survival-of-the-ilwu-at-stake/