A Word on the American Election Campaign

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.