Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Slavery Past and Present

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Slavery Past and Present

Click here to access a YouTube video showing an excerpt from a talk delivered by Prof. Richard D. Wolff who explains Marxist concepts like surplus value ("value added"), revolution, fake democracy, class structure, strikes (as a weapon used by workers against employers) in terms that most ordinary people can understand. (This video was sent to me by an activist.)

However, the implication he leaves us with is that the establishment of worker coops, which he promotes within capitalism, is a method to change the system of capitalism into something that is egalitarian. This is utter nonsense. If this were true, the capitalist ruling class would never permit the establishment of such coops. Thus, he avoids offending the ruling class and any adverse repercussions to his teaching career by advocating something that is no threat to the system. Likewise, by permitting such talk to exist in their universities, the ruling capitalist class can still lay claim that it promotes free discussion of ideas in their educational institutions. The fact that such discussion of socialist concepts is so rare in our universities rejects this view.

This what Yugoslavia had before the US Empire destroyed the country in 1999 and restored capitalist control of that country. The working class under the anti-fascist leadership of Tito established worker coops at the end of WWII when it wasn't possible for the Western capitalist nations to stop this social experiment. The point is: that the establishment of worker coops cannot be a revolutionary method to overturn capitalism. It can only be a basis for a socialist type of society following the overthrow of capitalism.