The low road and the high road

"Ye'll tak' the low road and I'll tak the high road

And I'll be at Socialism afore ye"

The working class built this world, the farms and factories and all this wealth with its muscles and its minds. It will be with that brawn and brains we will break the chains of servitude and create another  new world.

There are two roads we can follow.

One is the low road, and we often hear said about our political position: “Well, that’s too hard to deal with and let’s just deal with the easy problems, just with the day-to-day issue. Let’s just talk to the workers about things they can agree with us and understand, not about revolution, socialism and communism because that turns them off.” Others will add, “This system’s too big, it’s too big what we’re going up against, I got enough problems in my factory, in my community. I got enough problems, so don’t talk to me about that socialist stuff.”

The high road calls upon us to talk about these things that people don’t want to hear or feel unclear upon. The things that say are too complicated and they don’t understand. It is about demanding they take a really hard look at what’s happening in the world and comprehend what is going on. It is not about keeping stuff to ourselves but going to our fellow workers to arm them with that understanding, so that when the time comes we all can make the revolution, together.  It is only by showing how capitalism runs against the interests of working people, of how capitalism must be fought by the working class and once people are equipped with an understanding of capitalism as the enemy – then we can advance along the road to socialism.

The boss class will always try to tell us we’re wrong to fight because if their profits go down we the workers will suffer. They’re wrong – our only choice is to fight harder. We’ll build our own, our new, brighter future. A future where we, the workers, will run the factories and offices, produce for our needs and not for the profits of the bosses. Only by completely getting rid of this system of wage slavery and its law of profits and the system in which the capitalists own and control everything, including us and our labour can we move towards socialism.

We cannot advance along the road to socialism by one step forward, two step back. Although we must fight for concessions to keep from being shoved down, we must realise that the capitalists are forced to give us concessions only because we force them to, as we did to win the eight-hour day and other benefits. They give us these concessions with an eye-dropper they’re taking them back by bulldozer load. This is the history of our struggle: after all, didn’t we fight for the eight-hour day, for the right to strike, for workers’ rights and isn’t it true that we’re fighting for these things all over again? There’s no way by one step at a time can we win. It’s only by getting rid of the whole source of these problems, the system of capitalism, that we can build a new society run by and for the people. If stay on the high road in the face of the continuing attacks because of the crisis, in the face of  wars around the world , we the working class will be able to make revolution. The future is the crucial issue. We cannot abandon our goal for some promise of more scraps (crap) from the bosses banqueting table.