We recognise that both the Democratic Party and the Republican
Party are controlled by moneyed interests. And as much as Bernie Sanders has
identified with socialism, we know that the Democratic Party represents
corporate interests. So no matter what the candidates say or do, they are still
being controlled by the two-party system which is disempowering. When talk
about what democracy is, it means being rule by the people and we need to break
away from this notion that the only way of being democratic is engaging in
electoral politics. We’re not telling people not to vote, we’re simply do not
endorsing any presidential candidate because none represent the interests of
the majority – the working class. Instead, we want to put our time and energy
is in the development of people to act in their own interests and on their own
behalf. And so, we are pushing for the real revolution which won’t come solely
at the ballot box. The revolution will be on the ground, when the people rise
up and demand something better, something more imaginative and something more
visionary.
Capitalism is tremendously wasteful and destructive of men,
goods, power and land. You have to have unions to protect your interest against
the boss; and a boss-controlled company union won’t do. You also have to vote
as you strike; a political party that represents the boss won’t do. But if all
the ideas you get in your head are boss ideas you will be at his mercy anyway.
All workers are exploited to one degree or another. It is clear that historically
bosses never thought that workers would work without discipline and control.
The working class is crucial to the socialist revolution for essentially two
reasons. One is that the process of production, the production and
transportation of food, clothing, shelter, etc., is fundamental to any society
and the section of society which can gain control of that process can gain
control of the society as a whole. The second reason for the centrality of the
working class is that the socialist revolution must involve the transformation
of work and the workplace or it is not a social revolution at all. The working
class is inherently revolutionary. It is a matter of developing in practice the
capacity to create a new society. Socialism is not a happy Utopia, which we
OUGHT to establish but a future system which we inevitably MUST attain.
Class struggle can have only one result: socialist
revolution that will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of
oppression that inevitably accompany it. There are many people in the
working-class movement who say that they are for socialism and claim to be in
favour of the emancipation of workers. However, we mustn’t be taken in: many of
these “socialists” are in fact reformists who have abandoned the principles of socialism.
Since human communities have become class-divided through
the acquisition of wealth by a minority of people who constitute themselves as
the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will
remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished from
the surface of the globe. Reduced to its essential elements, socialism can be
put in the following terms: the contradiction between labour and capital is the
fundamental. All contradictions, all forms of exploitation and oppression can
only be resolved by socialist revolution, by the overthrow of capitalist rule
and the establishment of social democracy for the whole people.
The material and technical resources for socialism,
unquestionably exist today. No competent inquirer doubts that insofar as it
depends upon natural resources and the productive plant, everybody could have a
comfortable and attractive home, abundant food, decent clothing, opportunity
for recreation and education, security against accident, sickness, and old age;
and the sense of independence and self-respect that goes with these things. Not
just for a favoured few, but for the all the population. With socialism there can be abundance,
security, an equal voice in the administration of society and the opportunity
for self-expression and self-development. What we actually have, however, is
widespread poverty and lack of power. This appalling contrast between what
might be and what is arises from the nature of the economic system – capitalism
– under which we operate. It is impossible for this antiquated system of
private ownership and profit to function, to supply the needs of the population
today and the system acts as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase
goes, we have “want in the midst of plenty:” The removal of this brake of
private ownership which shuts down factories, wastes raw materials and
stifles the scientist and technician,
and putting in its place the social, that is, rational, use of resources and
the productive plant, will mean an immediate and substantial improvement in the
standard of living of the people. That improvement can be continuous. The
spectre of insecurity will be removed. The undemocratic economic domination of
the few over the many will be at an end. No one can predict the cultural
advances which may follow this release of the human spirit. In the period of
its ascendency and expansion capitalism could accumulate profits and also raise
the standard of living of the masses. In the present period it can no longer do
this. Profits can be made only by fiercer exploitation, cutting down the living
standards of the workers and taking away even such concessions as were
previously made. Capitalism today means the collapse of civilisation. The one
road to security, to peace, to freedom, to cultural advancement is the road of
the socialist revolution. This is your choice – capitalism which means
barbarism and chaos or a World Socialism which means a higher level of
civilisation and culture. For a social order in which human dignity can be
maintained and not constantly trampled upon, in which the creative energies of
mankind can express themselves and not be endlessly perverted, is possible only
if capitalism is destroyed, and this deliverance can come only as the result of
victory of the workers in a revolutionary struggle.
Sanders may have the rhetoric of inequality down pat, but he
is running as a Democrat – as a member of a political party that is owned and
controlled by a relatively small number of millionaires and billionaires. Should
he become president, he would also become part of what he has otherwise derided
as ‘the establishment’ and which kneels before the Wall St Corporations.
Sanders and Clinton are two wings of the same bird of prey. This is the simple
harsh reality. It is something that Sanders’ purported hero Eugene Debs
understood very well.
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