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Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down
by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust back to the 'lower depths' of utter
destitution, savagery and degeneration, the proletariat can become, and
inevitably will become, an invincible force only when its ideological unification by
the principles of Marxism is consolidated by the material unity of an organization
which will weld millions of toilers into an army of the working class." Nether the
imperialist governrments or any other capitalist force will be able to withstand the
victory of this army.
============= V.I. Lenin
Hi there,
The Working Class: A Planetary class imprisoned and divided within the
capitalist nation-state system.
The planetary scope of the working class arises from its inter-connection by the
world-wide capitalist division of labour, by its common conditions of life, and by the
accelerating process of globalized production enabled by a set of inter-related
advances in IT; manufacturing and distribution processes., communications
technologies; transportation methods; and related sectors. Through its collective
labour, the planetary working class creates all of the wealth of society. But like
the slaves of old it has no real power over its work process, over its conditions of
life, or over how the wealth it produces is used. Only social or public ownership
of the worlds production systems under the control of workers themselves can
reverse this condition.
The working class is not limited to industrial workers but includes all those who
have nothing to sell but their labour power. It includes theemployed, the
unemployed, and the partially employed of all countries. It is a multi-racial,
multi-ethnic, male-female, multi-generational, white-collar-blue collar class
composed of the immense majority in countries where capitalism has become
fully dominant.
The planetary working class, the immense majority of human beings, is facing a
three-fold planetary emergency emerging from the working of the world capitalist
system: The ever-growing aggressive wars waged by the capitali imperialist
powers and their proxies; the ever-growing impoverishment, instability, and social
misery imposed on working people by the world capitalist system and its
developing economic crisis;; and the ever-growing destruction of natural
eco-systems which sustain life on the planet. All three of these emergencies
are rooted in the world capitalist system; the division of the world into rival
capitalist nation-states, each one dominated by its own capitalist oligarches; and
by the financial and military forces which are now dominant in the capitalist world
system.
Imperialism has been part of capitalism from the beginning. Colonial wars of
conquest, occupation, and the looting, exploitation, and enslavement of other
peoples, beginning in the 16th. century, was crucial in generating the wealth
which fueled the take-off of mercantilism in Europe and the subsequent industrial
revolution. In the twentieth century two late-developing capitalist powers,
Germany and Jan, sought to compete for raw materials, cheap labour, and
territory with established imperialist powers like Great Britain and the U.S. The
result was two world wars which slaughtered a total of 70 million people
In our time Imperialism revolves primarily around the interests of finance capital,
military-industrial capital, and to some extent the energy industry which are the
dominant forms of capital in the major imperialist powers of the U.S. and the EU.
The quest of these powers for global power has in recent years killed millions of
our fellow workers, and turned millions more into refugees, particularly but not
only in the Islamic world. Millions have died due to direct warfare and the
imperialist use of terrorists in countries such as the Ukraine, Afghanistan, Libya,
and Syria The imperialist powers reckless quest for global dominance is
bringing them ever-nearer to direct conflict against the nuclear-armed powers of
Russia d China, with the very real danger of triggering a nuclear holocaust. The
Brezenski and Wolfowitz doctrines, available from Wikipedia, are the real basis of
US... foreign policy, calling as they do for permanent U.S. hegemony over the
planet and the conquest and control of Eurasia, on which China and Russia
occupy key positions.
In recent years the words 'freedom, democracy, and human rights' have been
hijacked by the imperialist powers. Those words are used to hide their real
intentions to gain control of labour, resources, markets, and geo-strategic
advantage by the conquest of any country which manifests even partial
independence.. Each intervention in other peoples' countries begins with claims
that these noble values are being somehow 'brought' to the country involved but
ends invariably in disaster for the target populations. Here is the real recent
record of imperialist interventions in other peoples' countries on behalf of 'freedom,
democracy, and human rights': Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and
Syria - a trail of death, destruction, destabilization, and destroyed societies. And
massive numbers of refugees fleeing for their lives.
Socialists and working people should give no support for *any* foreign military
operations or protowars carried out by the imperialist centers for any reason or
under any pretext. All such operations should be vehemently opposed for the
murderous campaigns for global control which in reality they are. Bizarre
claims that bombing other peoples' countries, or sponsoring neo-fascist or jihadist
'rebels' to overthrow governments in places like the Ukraine or Libya or Syria, is
somehow a defense of 'human rights' or 'democracy' should be met with the
contempt that they deserve.
Historically, the organizations had a role in securing limited gains for working
people within the a national and capitalist framework. But the impact of
globalization has rendered long-term pro-working class reforms on a national
basis impossible. Capital naturally seeks the lowest labour costs, and the fewest
government restrictions, on its exploitation of workers. In a globalized world, if
costs are higher in one country than in another, capital simply moves on.
Under these conditions, the previously reformist parties and trade unions have
abandoned their previously reformist role. These organizations are unable to
challenge the basic premises of capitalism due to their ideological acceptance of
capitalism and their middle and upper class leaderships. Under the impact of
globalization, these organizations have retooled the word 'reform' as a signal
for anti-working class measures aimed at disabling the working class and
transferring massive amounts of wealth from working people to the top layers of
the social order; and to the banks, financial institutions, and military-industrial
systems that those top layers control.
Progressive sounding rhetoric - 'change you can count on' from. the U.S political
elites or 'Chinese Dream' in China or empty 'anti-austerity' rhetoric from the
Sizra party in Greece - is all that these organizations can now contribute, while
they back away from any attempt to defend or advanced the interests of ordinary
people, and embrace their impoverishment and removal of their basic democratic
rights.
Worst of all, these organizations now almost universally support, or at best accept,
the imperialist wars and protowars waged by their local capitalist nation state
governments which are killing, injuring, and destroying the lives of millions of
workers and ordinary people worldwide.
It has long been an axiom of real revolutionary socialist organizing that working
class people must build international organizations around their own interests and
their own membership, completely apart from other organizations and social
classes, such as the small business or big business classes, whose fundamental
interests do not align with those of workers, and whose leadership can disorient or
drastically mislead working class movements. It is now, however, more
imperative than ever to break completely with such forces. These organizations,
and the governments they belong to, and the corporate mass media which
supports them, are now the betrayers of the European people, the American
people and the people of the world. They represent not the planetary working
class, the immense majority of humanity, nor the working classes of their own
countries, but the interests of finance capita, the military-industrial-security state;
and the tiny sector of the population which stands atop these systems. There is
also a thin slice of the upper middle class which buttresses these groups, and
benefits or hopes to benefit from their system.
6. The working peoples struggle can succeed only if it is equipped with an
explicitly international and socialist program entailing the wresting of
political power from the ruling elites and its vesting in democratic
Stewardship organs of the working class. Immediate measures of the new
working class governments will necessarily differ in terms of local conditions. In
developed capitalist countries the program of the workers government would
generally include:
1. The immediate formation of a steward's government of, by, and for the working
people as part of the movement to a World federation of workers state and
workers stewardship of the planet.
3. Immediate measures to ensure full and meaningful employment for all workers,
and immediate measures to ensure adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical
care, and access to education for all members of society.
6. A stewards socialist government of, by, and for the working class would lay
down the foundation to begin resolving all of our social, economic, and ecological
problems, while moving towards conditions supporting the total physical, mental,
emotional, spiritual, and social development of each human being.