Connect the dots

The world has estimated 30 million humans still confined to modern-day slavery. Slavery still exists through laws and their practices. If you’ve seen the state of migrant workers in various Middle Eastern countries, you’d think twice before you can call their employers “humans.” Have you seen how Qatar forced all its migrant workers to surrender their passports to their employers, the migrants involved in laying the groundwork for the 2022 World Cup? Money is the name of the game, and there's nothing more profitable than owning other humans.

It’s been three years since the Syrians started leaving their country. A total of 3.1 million humans have become homeless, and they are regarded as unwelcome aliens in another country. The UN say there were roughly 10 million people worldwide who lacked a nationality and the human rights protections that go with it. If you think of Rohingyas in Myanmar, you can tell the extent to which humanity is disregarded.

Governments, claiming to be champions of human rights, are engaged in torture and arbitrary detention in Guantanamo Bay, police brutality, and creating groups such as the Islamic State. There’s not a single day that goes by without reports of loathsome human rights abuses everywhere. We’ve also seen beheadings in Mexico, and we’ve seen racism and xenophobia in Europe.

Every day, almost 25,000 people starve to death, that too after prolonged suffering. Dying of starvation is the worst kind of death in the modern age of science and food production.

People are fed up with the the rule-rigging that is favouring the wealthy few. This discontent isn’t something that “left-wing groups” are engineering. People are fed up and they are seeing the signs of betrayal, all the back-room, under-the-table deals that help the banksters, the giant corporations, the 1 percent, the polluters, the fraudsters, the tax-dodgers, the out-sourcers, the union busters, the wage-thieves, the pension-cutters and the rest of those who are rigging the system against the rest of us. We the people have had enough.

Sankhari Devi, a 54 year old widow in Rajasthan who had never received formal education, “I am not aware if Constitution exists or what is it…But all I know is just one thing that we need food, water, land and employment, to survive…those are our basic needs….who else can give us those…. Not courts, not laws, not panchayats, not police ….why should we go and ask them….These are ours…. If anyone threatens our survival we have to fight on our own….because for us this is life”. Or, in other word, “Nobody can give you freedom, nobody can give you justice. No laws or formal institutions can help you survive. You need to assert for your survival” as quoted here.  

The threat of revolution is all we have. Not so long ago we could negotiate but today, established power does not see human needs as a calculation. The capitalist system does not have capacity to turn back the clock to restore adequate pensions, decent wages, and a humane social safety net. Across the world, millions of activists campaign against climate chaos, the escalating conflicts over scarce resources, the growing impoverishment and marginalisation of the poor and the looming prospect of another global economic collapse. But despite this growing awareness of a global emergency and the need for massive combined action. Clearly not enough is being done to tackle the systemic causes of the world’s interrelated problems. What we still lack is a truly unified movement, the fusion of causes under a common banner, one that can create a consensus for transformational change. Unless individuals and organisations in different countries align their efforts in more concrete ways (a process that is already underway), it may remain impossible to overcome the vested interests and entrenched structures that maintain business-as-usual. While there is no shortage of individuals, organizations, and even nations wanting to alter the system to be more humane, there is an obvious shortage of respect for those with their hand out. On the other hand, there is no serious discussion of what wealth is, of how it is created and who owns.  The bottom line is we create it and they take it. The mess we are living through is not a matter of evil and greedy people becoming ever more callous as they grow. It is not a matter of capitalists or politicians being evil and selfish. The problem is much more serious. The problem is systemic and even if we jailed all the capitalists and the politicians today, the system would run exactly the same way tomorrow.

Reform minded movements and individuals are barely fighting to increase wages and restore working conditions. Our collective powerlessness including the powerlessness of the union movement is obvious. Aside from begging we have no strategy at all. Collective begging that consists of complaining to lawmakers, signing petitions, protesting, and various other means are utterly toothless. Reform had been granted in the past as a result of building class consciousness among citizens. In 1936 and 1937 workers in the United States began sit down strikes all over the country. The capitalist class were insecure. They were terrified of revolution. Arguments against neo-liberal policies may conclude that extremists like Thatcher or Reagan have ruined our standard of living. They assume a return to standards and regulations and general sanity will right the ship and so, it is a matter of getting the right politicians elected. Something amiss however. No matter what social democratic party or good guy politician is elected, like Obama, they always govern for the banks and the corporations and against Main Street. It isn't that the politicians are cruel or cowardly as much as politicians do not govern. They merely sit in a given seat and are told what to do. That is a more serious matter than if we were simply dealing with opportunists and self-serving fools.  These are not necessarily evil people. They are simply immersed in a system they barely understand and they are powerless.

Inequality doesn’t just happen; it results from people making decisions under a specific political and social conditions. During the past few years many economists confidently have predicted an acceleration in wage growth. But wage growth for most Americans remains only slightly above inflation. We see the reason every day in the news, as the 1% uses their power to boost their profits at their workers’ expense. The process accelerates as they grow stronger — and seize more — while we grow weaker. The 1% grows stronger and seizes resources to grow still stronger.

Political change occurs first in the minds of individuals. Conservatives convinced workers that their mechanisms of collective action —unions — were ineffective or illegitimate, and that only as individuals could they win. That’s the equivalent of convincing medieval peasants in the divine right of kings. Such doctrines render a people powerless. They’re shackles of the mind. We can continue to whine about it. Or we can organise, once again.