Smash the IMF and World Bank!
We need our own party
The complete capitalist transformation of former workers' parties has created a new political atmosphere. Working class people and youth do not have a political voice. We need to re-build the workers' movement along socialist lines. The CWI calls for the establishment of new workers' parties. With a bold anti-capitalist, anti-neo liberal appeal and a socialist programme these parties could attract youth, women, and those who face discrimination and oppression. Such parties are likely to have many trends of opinion within them. The CWI will campaign for these new workers' parties to be inclusive, democratic and open, allowing all tendencies to organise and put forward their ideas. The CWI would form a revolutionary socialist section within these parties. We are struggling to build the forces of genuine, revolutionary socialism by winning new members to the CWI.
It was members of the CWI in Britain (Militant/Socialist Party) that organised a mass non-payment campaign of 14 million against the poll tax in the late 1980s. This mass movement - a citizens' revolt - not only beat the poll tax but also forced Thatcher (one of the most vicious capitalist warriors at the time) to resign in 1991.
Members of the CWI were instrumental in setting up Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE). This was the first and still the only genuine all-European campaign against racism and fascism. The YRE organised a 40,000 strong all-European march against racism in Brussels in 1992. Since then the YRE, has played a key role in many countries combating the menace of racism and the extreme right, and against the scrapping of the right of Asylum. The CWI has a proven track record of fighting in elections and has won local government seats in a number of countries. In Ireland, our organisation, the Socialist Party, has a member of parliament, Joe Higgins, representing workers and youth in the Dublin West constituency. Tommy Sheridan, who represents the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in the new Scottish Parliament, is a member of the CWI. All CWI public representatives only take the average wage of ordinary workers, donating the rest of their income back to the struggle to change society. However, where the leaders of new Left and anti-capitalist parties have moved to the right and do not put forward a fighting socialist programme they have tended to face a fall in electoral support and sometimes even splits. These are the sort of problems that have affected, for example, the United Left (IU) in Spain.
An anti-corporate mood in the US
Growing hatred and disgust towards the capitalist politicians and big business will find expression on the Left and individuals can even step into the vacuum. For example, US presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, who is backed by the Green Party, is the first viable, progressive, anti-corporate, third-party challenger in over 50 years. He could receive millions of votes, in some cities reaching 5-15% of the total votes. Tens of thousands of environmentalists, young people and union activists will be mobilised in the campaig
The CWI section in the US, Socialist Alternative , is campaigning for people to vote for Ralph Nader and the Green Party as the most effective way to show the growing movement against the Democrats, Republicans and the corporations. These elections can be used as a tool for building a movement against capitalism.
Unfortunately, Nader and the Green Party do not have a class approach to politics. Instead, they believe that they can reform capitalism through a series of legislative fixes, without realising that the problems facing the majority of people are rooted in the very structure of the system. While the Green Party has a vision of a different, more just and ecologically sustainable society, it has no concept of how to get there and does not understand the role of the working class in changing society. Despite these limitations, a successful Nader campaign will accelerate the trend of disintegration of the US big business two party system of the Democrats and Republicans.
The extreme right
Without a strong socialist alternative there is the danger that right wing demagogues and the far right can make gains electorally. We have seen this recently in Austria, where Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party has been included in a coalition government. This sparked off magnificent mass demonstrations of mainly youth, which continue today. The Austrian section of the CWI has played a key role in these 'Resistance' mobilisations. It is necessary to mobilise against the far right and also to put forward an alternative programme of full employment and affordable and decent housing in order to prevent the far right from gaining a base in deprived areas.
The Socialist Alternative
The only lasting alternative to the IMF and World Bank is to build a society where this system of big business competing for profit cannot control our lives. These big multinationals are accountable only to their shareholders, whose sole interest is to maximise profits. They are beyond the democratic control of the people. Essentially they are an un-elected dictatorship who have more control over our lives than our elected government. Maximising profits means taking away power and resources from everyone else, whether they be workers, small businessmen, small farmers, students, the poor or the elderl
The only way to control these companies is through public ownership and workers' control and management. 500 huge multinationals dominate the world economy. Their power even dwarfs some medium size countries. The only way to get control of the economy and to build a genuine democratic political process is by putting the top 500 companies and banks that dominate the economy under democratic public ownership. Only in this way can this cancer at the heart of our society be removed.
There is no "Third Way"
Tony Blair and other social democratic leaders argue that they stand for a "Third Way" and some sort of "civic society" that is meant to soften the worst aspects of modern capitalism. This is only so much hot air from these people, given that they have completely accepted the market economy and its consequences.
There are some people who genuinely detest the effects of globalisation and believe there can a solution based on some sort of "control" of capitalism. In reality, there is no 'third way' between capitalism and the struggle for a just, classless society - socialism. Attempts to run "mixed economies" in the post-World War II period, when there was sometimes large scale state ownership of industries in the national economies, failed to transform the nature of capitalism. Despite the working class making big gains through struggle or the threat of struggle, there was no serious challenge to the rule of big business and the big banks by the post-war social democratic governments. This in the end made it impossible to maintain the social gains made. Eventually, the model was abandoned during the world economic crisis of the 1970s and neo-liberalism was adopted by the ruling classes with a vengeance.
The power of the working class
The most powerful force on the planet is the working class. Without their labour, nothing would move. It is the working class that produces the food, raw materials, steel, automobiles, and computer software. It also drives the buses, unloads the ships, tends the sick, and teaches the young. The working class is the only force in society that the capitalists cannot do without. Today, in all European countries and on a world scale the working class is numerically more powerful than ever. The formerly great mass of small farmers and shopkeepers have dwindled to a tiny proportion of society, gobbled up by big agribusiness and giant retail outlets. Into the workforce have come millions of working women who have left the isolation of their homes and emerged as a strong force to advance the interests of the working class. Thus today, the vast majority of people gain their primary means of subsistence by receiving a paycheque for a living. If you include their families (their children and retired parents), the working class is the overwhelming majority of the populatio
The working class is potentially the most decisive force on the planet. The key task for realising this strength is for workers to become conscious of their power and to get organised in workplaces, communities, and colleges. When workers become conscious of their interests as a class, they would then see that they have interests separate from big business. From such an understanding, the conclusion workers will draw is that the working class ultimately needs its own political party to be able to challenge the big business parties for power.
Karl Marx - 'The Thinker of the Millennium'
The only viable alternative to global capitalism is a global socialist system. Karl Marx, who was voted the 'Thinker of the Millennium', explained that since workers create the wealth, then the workers can run the economy without the capitalist class. He explained that the capitalist class does not contribute anything to production. The role of the capitalist is destructive, since if he cannot make a profit, he will lay off workers, close plants and destroy productive factories. These mass layoffs leave productive workers on the streets unemployed, more metal on the scrap heap, and the economy much poorer. By the working class coming to power and creating a democratic plan of production, involving all sections of society, then the economy can be taken out of the blind and destructive forces of the market place, and directed in a way that best meets the needs of the majority. In essence this is democracy being introduced into the economy. Thus, economic decisions would be made by the majority, for the majority, rather than by the minority in the interests of the minority.
The struggle for socialism
But how could such a new socialist society be created? How do we take power from the 500 top companies? The answer lies in the huge potential power of the working class. Time and again in the last 150 years, the workers' movement has challenged capitalism. Many revolutions swept through the world in the 20th Century: in the wake of the October revolution in 1917; after the ending of World War II; the mighty general strike in France 1968; in the 1970s when the working class overthrew the military dictatorships that ruled Greece, Portugal and Spain. Throughout the century, workers and the poor in the former colonial world have been involved in constant struggle for national and social liberation. The latest example is from Ecuador at the beginning of this year, when workers together with indigenous people toppled the government. For a moment the country was in the hands of the demonstrators and protestors. But they were not conscious about their own strength and were not clear how to defeat capitalism once and for all. The forces of the old order were able to step in and formed a government.
The French workers and youth showed the power that exists in united struggle when they forced the right wing government to retreat in 1995 - the first strike against globalisation, according to one newspaper. The right wing parties have still not yet recover from that defeat. That capitalism is still in power, despite upheavals, mass struggles and sacrifices, is because the lack of a clear socialist leadership that prevented these movements and struggles from taking power and successfully changing the system.