Break the Chains!

In 1920 919,000 American voters wanted Eugene Debs, who ran on a socialist ticket five times, to be president of the United States and the platform on which he ran demanded the ownership of the means of production be transferred from private to public control. Debs demanded the supreme power of the workers ‘as the one class that can and will bring permanent peace to the world.’ He declared that then ‘we shall transfer the title deeds of the railroads, the telegraph lines, the mines, mills and great industries to the people in their collective capacity; we shall take possession of all these social utilities in the name of the people. We shall then have industrial democracy. We shall be a free nation whose government is of and by and for the people.’ Debsian socialism struck a chord in the hearts of the people. Debs preached the Golden Rule, the basic law of social life – ‘Each for all, and all for each.’

If Debs was to rise from the grave would he feel pleased at the progress of his cause. Capital is still in the private hands of the ruling class. There is not yet socialism. He would see clearly that America, despite its great technological advances is spending more money on war and business subsidies than it spends on education, health and general social uplift. Debs would recognize as Noam Chomsky has, that Bernie Sanders is much like Teddy Roosevelt who sought to break the power and reform the trusts of in his own time. For Debs palliatives were not the solution. The only possible way to save the present-day world was to cut to the root of the problem and establish an industrial democracy. Half-measures as proposed by Sanders cannot meet the challenge. Tinkering with monetary and fiscal policy has proven bankrupt. Welfare policies will do little to correct the deep-seated structures of regional and social inequality. Legislative reforms, aimed at the most blatant abuses of corporate power, will falter, for the corporations will hold the government to ransom through their control of desperately needed investment. So much so that a reform-minded Sanders government will buckle under this pressure, and will pass legislation, cutting social services and suppressing the basic rights of workers. It is not speculation but a conclusion reached by reading actual history. Capitalism has failed, and so have efforts to reform it. Why return to old policies that have proved wanting and believe they will now work. For socialists such as Debs, the needs of people, not profit, are the driving force of society. The system cannot function if common working men and women were to take matters in their own hands!

It must be apparent to every person that there exists a class war being waged by the capitalist classes to secure a greater share in the exploitation of labor. Aside from the false promises put forward by the capitalist class, put forward to mislead the workers, we must ever be on our guard against the crafty apologists of wrong, posing as the friends of labor. Class struggle mean no compromise and an unrelenting struggle against capitalism

The World Socialist Movement declares emphatically that it will work uncompromisingly for social revolution to establish industrial democracy by the mass action of the working class. It also declares that the international unity of the workers is imperative and, therefore, works to bring about that unity, regardless of all barriers, territorial or racial. Capitalism is world-wide. It pays little attention to national boundary lines. Capitalists often try to cover up their crimes with a cloak of patriotism, but the only patriotism they know is that of the dollar. Capital seeks the most profitable investment. If an American capitalist can invest more profitably by out-sourcing he will do so. Workers also must not confine themselves to geographical divisions or national boundary lines, but must follow the globalization of industry. The workers of all countries co-operate to carry on industry regardless of national boundary lines, and they must organize in the same way to confront the transnational corporations. The modern wage worker has neither property nor country. Ties of birth and sentiment which connect him with any particular country are slight and unimportant. It makes little difference to him what country he exists in. When the workers are educated to the real nature of the profit system they lose all respect for the masters and their property. They see the capitalists in their true colors as thieves and parasites, and their "sacred" property as plunder. They see state, church, press and university as tools of the exploiters and they look on these institutions with contempt. They understand the identity of interests of all wage workers and realize the truth of the I. W. W. slogan: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

What we want is not workers’ participation in their own exploitation, but social control over production, so that communities can impose their own priorities, their priorities for what to produce and how to produce - production for need, not for profit.