Capitalism: the enemy of the people

The Four Pillars of Capitalism

People are hungry in their hearts for new ideas. They know our present path can’t last. It’s produced a world of want, while a tiny handful have the vast majority of the cash, resources, and our politician’s ears.  A failed past, is offered as the way forward  with too few to remind us we’ve already been there.  Issues and fights we long ago believed we had won have returned with a vengence. Workers are once more struggling to maintain a “livable” wage against company policies of pay-cuts. We fought for pensions now we fight to protect them being increasingy  taken away.  Again, the struggle is for a eight hours day - eight hours work for the unemployed, the part-time temps and casual workers on zero-hour contracts and a eight hours for obliged  to perform unpaid overtime to keep their jobs. The struggle has returned for decent affordable housing for those foreclosed on and unable to pay the rising rents due to the housing crisis. The struggle for workers health and safety is now global when sweatshops supplying High St stores kill workers with fires and collapsing building.  It’s a world-wide race to the bottom regarding hours, wages and safety. The bosses have never done the proper thing on their own without pressure from workers.

The companies and government fought, but haven’t destroyed the unions. For all their flaws  and mistakes workers built  a sustainable movement in unions and  all our lives are worse without effective union struggles. Strikes and picket lines, wildcat walk-outs and factory occupations have been our weapons of choice.

Workers are lectured by activists (particularly Trotskyists) who can’t define or agree on where they want to lead us. To be a socialist is to recognise the urgent need to begin the process of creating a new system, a system that promotes unity and collective action while maintaining individuality and independence; a system that challenges us to think for ourselves and about others; a system that understands the connection between humanity and the eco-system. Workers  must have the power to democratically direct their social labour time. The old merry-go-round offers less and less and revolution becomes more and more obviously the solution.

The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. Capitalism is the predatory pursuit of profit and requires humans to dominate humans and humans to dominate Nature. Capitalism is an economic system based on perpetual growth and the relentless exploitation of natural resources. It requires constant consumption. To be capitalist is to ignore reality. By definition, capitalism is unsustainable, cannot be reformed.

Capitalism play lip-service to the theory the competitive individuals of free market theory. Olipolies dominate markets. They patent products, technologies, and processes. They buy up the most profitable sources of supply, control marketing networks, and spend millions on advertising to tie consumers to existing brands. Whenever possible, they introduce technologies that reduce employment. They outsource  work. The fewer people employed, the less paid for labor, the more profits for shareholders, the more money for executive bonuses.

As capital’s share of total income rises, the share going to labor and the needy falls. As most markets decline, capitalists turn to speculation, betting on price changes in real estate, futures or derivatives. Casino capitalism adds nothing to real means of livelihood; winners merely gain at the expense of losers. Financial bubbles are followed by crashes. As more businesses fail, capitalists hold on to what they can by demanding that debtors be punished for the sins of creditors. Austerity leads to further declines in working-class income and markets.

Some capitalists promote war because they believe that military action can give them access to new resources and markets. Others profit from the purchase of drones, missiles, airplanes, fuel, and the provisioning of armed forces. Governments favor capitalists and act as the agencies of militarism.

Because existing profits depend on cheap energy, capitalists refuse to believe that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change. Capitalists have convinced themselves that global temperatures will not rise; ice caps will not melt; oceans will not become more acidic; extreme weather events will not become more frequent.  Capitalism increases investments in tar sands and fracking, while cutting investments in solar, wind, tidal, and bio-thermal energy.

To be a capitalist is to prize shareholders over sharing.
To be a capitalist is to value commodities over communities.
To be a capitalist is to look towards the next fiscal quarter.
To be a capitalist is to pretend humans can "control" nature.