WHAT IS SOCIALISM? T once asked what his favorite maxim

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A WORKERS’ ACTION PROGRAM TO FIGHT THE CRISIS We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and take steps to implement the following demands — 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be super2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, and reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program to employ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and renewable sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, forests, farmland, and open space.

4) Immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for the military — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war industries to making products for people’s needs and to combat global warming.

SOCIALIST ACTION • SPECIAL EDITION • OCT. 2, 2010 Editor: Michael Schreiber International Editor: Gerry Foley Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Socialist Action, P.O. BOX 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. RATES: For one year (12 issues, 1st-class mail): U.S., Canada, Mexico — $20. All other countries — $30. Money orders and checks should be in U.S. dollars.

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2 Socialist Action SPECIAL EDITION OCT. 2, 2010 he German socialist Karl Marx was was. He replied with a line by the Roman playwright Terence: “I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man, is a matter of indifference to me.”

If for the moment we ignore the use of sexist language in this ancient quotation, we get a feel for the profoundly humanitarian spirit of Marx and of socialists since his time. Socialists are very concerned about the injustice and social ills in the world today—hunger, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, disease, war, the exploitation of workers, the oppression of nations, races, women, and gays, the destruction of the environment, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Socialists, unlike many other socially concerned people, do not view these Name City Phone problems as a normal or inherent feature of the human condition. We believe that these problems have historical and social causes, and that they can be solved through conscious, organized political struggle and change.

Socialist Action argues that capitalism is ultimately the main source of these problems in the United States and the world today. Under capitalism, the chief means of production are privately owned by a super-rich minority, the capitalist class. The capitalists run production on the basis of what will bring them the biggest profit. This leads big business to exploit workers, to pay their employees as little as possible—a mere fraction of the actual value that they produce.

Capitalism’s striving to obtain maxiAddress State Zip E-mail ans, and bisexuals is largely derived from this sexist ideology since they do not conform to conventional standards of masculinity and femininity. Capitalism has led the advanced industrial nations—especially the U.S.— to dominate the world, condemning the populations of third world nations to poverty and misery. Imperialism’s wild scramble for markets and raw materials has erupted into wars that have engulfed the entire world.

Socialist Action argues that the problems of exploitation and oppression in the world today can only be solved by first replacing the capitalist system with a socialist system. The chief means of production should be taken out of the private hands of the capitalists and put under public ownership. The economy should then be run by councils of democratically elected representatives of workers and consumers at all levels of at the level of union wages and benefits.

free, universal, public health-care system.

orientation, skin color, or national origin.

mittees of workers.

• Ashland, Ore.: damonjure@ earthlink.net • Ashland, Wis.: northlandiguana@ gmail.com • Boston: bostonsocialistaction@ gmail.com (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860)478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: P.O. Box 16853 Duluth, MN 55816, [email protected], www.the-red-raven.blogspot.com • Florida: socialistaction_tampa@ hotmail.com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 8021482, [email protected] • New York City: [email protected] action by working people and the oppressed to reliance on the American two-party system, electoral campaigns, and behind-the scenes lobbying of capitalist politicians.

We point out that the Democratic and Republican parties can be forced by mass action to implement progressive policies and reforms, at least up to certain limits. But fundamental and lasting change, and socialism, can only be achieved by revolutionary action of the workers and their allies, with the objective of replacing the capitalist state and capitalist political parties entirely. If you want to fight for a society and a world free of all forms of exploitation, oppression, and social injustice, join Socialist Action! n For more information on what socialists stand for, see the Socialism 101 section at www.socialistaction.org. For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, [email protected], (510) 268-9429 Socialist Action newspaper editorial offices: [email protected] Website: www.socialistaction.org • Philadelphia: [email protected] • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Providence: [email protected], (401) 419-1706 • San Francisco Bay Area:

P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, Ca 94510 (415) 255-1080, sfsocialistaction@ gmail.com • Superior. Wis.: wainosunrise@ yahoo.com • WASHINGTON, DC: [email protected] (202) 286-5493 National Office 526 Roxton Road, Toronto, Ont. M6G 3R4, (416) 535-8779 www.socialistaction-canada. blogspot.com

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... ‘One Nation’

(continued from page 1: “Labor-NAACP march on Washington: ‘One nation’ is not ‘working together’”) ton because “Ohio is a swing state and door-to-door organizing is what is required.” Several New York state labor councils are doing the same. Labor officials in the San Francisco Bay Area cancelled a planned Oct. 2 Oakland demonstration in favor of a joint effort of all Bay Area Central Labor Councils to canvas for the Democrats.

The One Nation Working Together website contains a “Mission Statement” with a video urging people to sign on for One Nation. The video features one speaker only, past Democratic Party National Committee Chair Howard Dean, who is also the chair “emeritus” of the Democratic Party today.

The One Nation website’s “Policy Principles” include a lengthy list of social reforms long put forward by the labor bureaucracy and the Democratic Party. One statement reads, “Today, more than ever, we need to break the gridlock in Washington and we need decisive leadership and policy that will move all in Congress, especially in the Senate, forward.”

Howard Dean aside, in the abstract the long list of liberal “Policy Principles” could be generally supported by almost anyone in the radical movement. In the concrete, however, we are confronted with a mass mobilization by the labor bureaucracy and pro-capitalist liberal organizations from A to Z, for a new coalition to elect the Democrats in the midterm November elections and in the presidential elections of 2012.

There is no mention in the Policy Principles of any of the U.S. wars in the Middle East or anywhere else— not even a mention of the word “peace,” although a microscopic examination might find the concept mentioned in the abstract. A phrase mentioning the need for “peace abroad” is buried in another section of the website, likely a concession to the “peace movement.”

In fact, the Oct. 2 rally glosses over all the critical issues of the day. There is no mention of Obama’s spending more money and sending more troops to Afghanistan than George Bush; no mention of Obama’s unbroken string of promises to labor; no mention of Obama’s destruction of the UAW and its contracts that were extracted from the boss class over more than a half century of struggle.

And there is no mention of Obama’s reactionary immigrant “rights” proposals embodied in the notorious bill authored by Democratic Party Senator Charles Schumer. The Democrats state that this “tough” measure will have “securing the border” as its major priority, echoing the repressive SB1070 legislation approved by the Arizona legislature.

The “lesser-evil” electoral scam Some 40 speakers are slated to speak on the One Nation Working Together rally platform. Not one will place the responsibility for today’s economic and social crises on the capitalist party in power, the Democrats. All will focus their “fire and fury” at the “Republican obstructionists” or the right-wing proto-fascist Tea Party fanatics.

The truth, however, lies elsewhere. The Democrats are no less the party of the corporate elite than the Republicans. They have been chosen by the elite and tiny ruling class of billionaire capitalists to lead the assault on workers.

Barack Obama received more corporate funds than any other capitalist candidate in history, Republican or Democrat. He was chosen to once again play to perfection capitalism’s electoral “lesser evil” shell game, the better to foster the illusion that the Democrats were the party of “change.”

American capitalism’s electoral farce is consciously planned to perpetuate the illusion that elections are the vehicle for social change and that there are important differences in the “two-party” contest that merit public participation. In reality, the Democrats represent the interests of corporate America—full stop!

History teaches that the Democrats were originally the party of the Southern plantation slave owners, whose descendents were aided in more recent times by the Ku Klux Klan and related racist-terrorist groups like the White Citizens Councils. The Democrats lost their racist voting bloc in the South due to President Nixon’s and the Republicans’ “Southern Strategy.” But decade after decade, they have sought to regain national power by running Southern candidates only. Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton were selected for this task—that is, breaking off a few Southern states to try to win the presidency for their particular corporate sponsors.

Today, with regard to the working class, the two major capitalist parties have no differences. The corporate backers of both parties have no choice but to continue and deepen the exploitation of wage labor if they are to remain competitive on U.S. and world markets.

The capitalists now use the electoral process virtually on a year-round basis. They finance and engineer Tea Party bigots and Republican bluster to consciously make room for the Democrats on the right. The louder the Republicans and their media morons roar, the better prepared is the ground for the Democrats to take another pound of flesh from working people.

The logic of lesser-evil politics leads to a never-ending choice between evils. Of course, this is the logic of these who seek to perpetuate the system of a tiny minority ruling class prevailing over the vast majority. Workers need their own party Socialists want it the other way around. We fight for an egalitarian society where for the first time in human history the great majority rules in its own interests, through its own institutions, and for the purpose of advancing the well being of all humanity—as opposed to the profits of the few.

If there ever was a time when a break with the two-party capitalist system was needed, it is now. The formation of a Labor Party based on a reinvigorated and fighting trade-union movement, allied with all the oppressed and exploited, is a far better strategy than that of the labor fakers ceaselessly begging at the feet of big money capital. Such a party can emerge from the coming struggles of working people in every arena against the horrors that the boss class requires for its survival.

The power that working people generate in Washington on Oct. 2 with their sheer numbers can serve to remind them they are a social force capable of great Marty Goodman / Socialist Action (Above) A year ago, one of the great labor battles in recent New York City history:

Stella D’Oro bakery workers waged an 11-month strike against moves to slash wages and benefits. Finally, in September 2009, the bosses closed the plant and laid off all the employees.

Although the AFL-CIO Labor Council did little to mobilize solidarity, the Stella D’Oro workers stood up and fought for their rights—a stirring example to working people everywhere.

deeds. The history of all social change in the modern era is the history of the working-class masses, in alliance with all the oppressed, breaking from the status quo of minority rule and embarking on an independent course.

American workers are no exception. They have a remarkable and tested capacity to fight back, which during the Great Depression of the 1930s broke the grip of industrial capitalism to exploit at will. They will do it again, this time taking the struggle forward to the construction of their own working-class party and to a definitive break with the heinous capitalist system itself.

Today’s unprecedented assaults are changing the consciousness of millions. When these emerging fighters take the field of action, and convert their potential strength into great mass movements demanding fundamental social and economic change, the present labor bureaucracy will be swept from the scene, the deadly lesser-evil conception of politics will wither away, and a new world will be in the making.

The participation of today’s militant fighters in the Oct. 2 mobilization—with their own class-struggle ideas and programs and under their own banners— can be an important step in this direction. n Saturday, Oct. 9 10 a.m. Eco-socialism 2 p.m. Socialist election policy: What would Debs do?

4 p.m. Rosa Luxemburg: A revolutionary for the 20th century 7:30 p.m. Film: Land and Freedom (call for location)

Sunday, Oct. 10 10 a.m. Defending immigrant rights Location (except Sat. evening film):

Mayday Bookstore, 301 Cedar Ave. South Minneapolis, (612) 333-4719.

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vised by workers’ committees. caused decline in value.

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