's election comes at a time of growing pessimism, not just about the current situation, but about the future itself. People need to believe that things can get better. This explains the revival in interest in the ideas of socialism. From McCain, Obama, Pain and Biden, to "Joe the plumber" and the Wall Street Journal, the words "socialism" and references to Marx are in the mainstream on a level not seen in this country since the collapse of the USSR. In Germany, where the crisis is also hitting workers hard, Marx's Capital is back on the best seller's list. The question on many people's minds is the following: Was Marx right?
Despite the decades of prejudices that have been built up against the ideas of Marxism and socialism, people are increasingly open to these ideas, since they can see in practice that capitalism isn't working. Remember, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were promised a "Pax Americana" of peace, full employment and a tomorrow brighter than today. What have we gotten instead? War, terrorism, cuts in social programs, millions of jobs lost and more spending on the military than ever.
|Anti-Bailout Rally, Wall Street, 25th September 2008
Millions of Americans say they uninterested in politics or economics - they're apparently apathetic and would rather watch Monday Night Football or Dancing with the Stars. But even if you are not interested in politics and economics, politics and economics are interested in you. On the basis of their own experience, increasing numbers of formerly apparently apathetic Americans are waking up to an active interest in politics and economics. Within the limits of the two party system, millions of Americans are in a confused way looking for a solution to their problems. Obama had record numbers of volunteers organizing in communities across the nation. For the first time, they felt they had a reason to get involved in politics. In the future, the skills they learned will be put to good use - but not for the Democrats or Republicans. The foundations for a future mass party of labor are already being laid.
For decades, we have been brainwashed. We've been told that the free market reigns supreme, that socialism and Marxism don't work, that capitalism is the best possible system, that there is no alternative. And if a lie repeated often enough, people tend to believe it. But nonetheless, these ideas persist and continue to spark people's imagination.
So what is socialism, anyway? By socialism we mean the genuine nationalization - the expropriation of the top 500 banks and corporations - to be run under democratic workers' control, in the interest of the whole of society. It's really not that complicated. We believe the working class majority should have democratic control over the means of production, distribution and exchange, in harmony with the environment. In other words, we need a rational and democratic plan of production that is geared toward meeting human needs, not private profits.
But you cannot plan what you do not control, and you cannot control what you do not own. This is why the state should need to take over the key levers of the economy. Now, this is where many people, Americans in particular, get nervous. They don't trust the government we live under, and are therefore justifiably suspicious of anything having to do with increased state control. So the real question is: who controls the state? In our opinion, we need a workers' state, a state that represents the vast majority of society, the working class, as opposed to the state we live under today, which is a state designed to defend the interests of a tiny minority, the capitalist class.
Many people say that Americans are too conservative for a socialist revolution to take place here. But things can change very quickly. Just think of all the big events that have taken place in the last few years. The collapse of Enron. September 11. The 2000 and 2004 electoral frauds. Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The collapse of the entire financial services sector in the richest country on earth. The election