As capitalist ‘run-offs’ ensue, need for labor party exacerbates
In order for working people to gain the ability to fight back against inflation and war, we’ll need to form a political party that is of by and for labor — employed, unemployed, disabled and elderly.
There is no end in sight for the “transient” inflation wreaking havoc on the lives of working people here in the Rio Grande Valley, across the U.S., Mexico and around the globe.
A crisis exacerbated by a lack in production of essential goods is further intensified by wars of plunder, in all corners of the capitalist world. Both Democratic and Republican parties, who’ll be hosting runoff elections this upcoming Tuesday May 24, have no answers for the problems we face as a class, as they only represent the interests of the capitalist classes here, south of the border, and everywhere else. Although both possess factions that appear “worker-friendly,” there’s never been a mass, nationwide political party in the history of this country that’s been solely composed of workers. This unfulfilled historical task of our class is at once the most urgent and timely.
The brutal intensity of how fast the current crisis has deteriorated has had different effects on the various classes in society. The capitalists, and their upper managers, are raking in record profits, as they’re able to price-gauge, and keep staffing low, in the name of either fighting the pandemic or recovering from it. The lower-middle managerial classes, many of whom were laid off or ruined by the last crisis — most with little to no class consciousness, and insecurity about their future, coupled with nostalgia for the pre-pandemic past — are beginning to feel the effects. They live in utopian worlds, wherein “educated” reformers will lead “the country,” or “the community,” or “the state” towards prosperity, by enlightening capitalists into being more woke, or “nuanced,” while paying lip service to the proletariat with a few radical-sounding slogans.
But those who sell their labor to an employer in order to survive, ie productive workers, as well as small-business owners and small farmers, know damn well that this system has run its course and has to go. The working class is the only revolutionary and progressive force in society capable of advancing humanity in a positive direction, a socialist direction.
Under capitalism, private owners dictate control over production — ie factories, big farms, marine life, big oil, restaurants, schools, call centers, etc. The big bosses — a combination of multinational capitalists — determine how many workers will get hired and how little they’ll get paid. In places where there are unions, bosses have been forced (through intense and bitter class-struggle) to negotiate, although they’ll always be poking away at union gains, as well as do all they can, over time, to be rid of the unions altogether — a worker’s only defense and respite under capitalism.
If the capitalists’ control of production is ever threatened, they have the entirety of the police and military apparatuses at their disposal. The political apparatuses used to activate the repressive ones are controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties, and the occasional third party official that slips through; no reformer, or reform, can change this, as history’s repeatedly proven.
Without the capitalists’ money — all of which is merely expropriated wealth extracted from the value our labor produces — the politicians, who audition to be servants for the capitalists during the “primaries”, would be nothing. Politicians for the twin capitalist parties — who tend to be middle class professionals “moving up” in their careers — try to bridge the gap between the exploiters and exploited by advancing the myth that “we’re all in this together,” a myth exploded and widely discredited during the pandemic, and in every war. They haplessly try convincing us, and themselves, that an “enlightened” form of capitalism is possible, one in which worker and shareholder peacefully “coexist.”
These people desperately cling to this childish dream because they fear the inevitable coming to power of a mighty working class movement, one that’ll put an end to class privilege — their lifeblood. Despite any promises made on the campaign trail, the decisions of Democratic and Republican officials once in office will, in the end, always align with the interests of the bosses, on whom they rely for money and status. Thus, it is objectively impossible for the working class to have any meaningful voice inside a capitalist party.
Capitalism hasn’t always existed; it’s only been around a few hundred years. In the long trajectory of (organic and social) human evolution, we’ve developed and innovated different and new forms of production and ways of organizing society. Few societies have been able to fully take the next leap forward, from our current and preponderant stage of capitalism, to socialism.
But from the experience of those who’ve done it, as in the Russian and Cuban revolutions, we’ve learned that a necessary and unavoidable step towards making a working class revolution is the formation of a labor party. One that will champion workers’ control of production and safety, and fight towards fully achieving these aims, which ultimately means realizing and defending a workers and farmers government — our only viable hope for eradicating inflation, war and nuclear weapons.