Culture and Revolution

 Originally posted here 8th April 2020

As culture shifts across the globe workers are beginning to realise their importance and power again - but can this be harnessed against the Capitalist class which exploit them?

Building an effective opposition within the Neo-Con, post-industrial societies 

David Harvey, in a recent Democracy-at-Work offering, once again, with his usual eminently Marxist analysis, and profound cultural understanding, finds it necessary to dramatically switch the emphasis that the Left must take, in order to effectively combat the results of 40 years of Neo-Con Capitalism, which have clearly effectively de-unionised and de-politicised the Working Class Movements in Countries like the UK and the USA.

Now, there is a lot wrong with the TV series The Sixties (currently broadcasting on Sky in the UK), BUT, nevertheless, it does reveal much of that crucial tumultuous decade which prepared the ground for the later Neo-Con transformation of World Capitalism, which by the 1980s, with Thatcher and Reagan, was beginning to dismantle the traditional Working Class oppositional politics with the systematic destruction of its historical strengths within organised Labour, and, in the USA, the Cold War effective annihilation of all the Political Parties of the Left!

Yet France, with its Gilet Jaune Left Populism, and the current joint action with the still existing Unions' own General Strike, is demonstrating what can be done in favoured areas. And a single major crack in the Neo-Con System, still not recovered from the 2008 Economic Collapse, could this time precipitate an unrecoverable Crisis from the Capitalists point of view!

(Editor: the current worldwide health / economic crisis, for example)


The Socialist Agenda

But, the usual separation of major campaigns of "The Sixties", and the lack of a Socialist Party backing them all, guaranteed failure in spite of the remarkable numbers often involved.

BUT with a Common Socialist Agenda, and a combined fight, and, a concerted effort to prevent the always agitated-for separation of campaigns, which will always and inevitably oppose this necessary aim, and the "Please Everybody" demand from them.

It must be countered, by making the disenfranchised ex-Working Class the only reliable source for Real Change on every single front.

(Editor: they can no longer hide from the vital role 'key workers' play in keeping the whole system going)

And, within that sector, the major Class Objective will be in providing a Young Socialist Movement for the discarded Youth - just as we did successfully in the 1960s with the Labour Party's Young Socialists. That youth will thrill their de-classed elders, and energise the whole undertaking, as the introduction of the Youth did in the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties in the USA!

The Left needs a Socialist Party committed to literally all campaigns, but always unified by socialist solutions, and energised by a commitment to Working Class youth, with activities and facilities concentrated upon where those Youth are, yet mobilising them as the spearhead!

And, contradictably, NOT seeking the support of the Educated or the Middle Class, while at the same time delivering the very best informed and well explained Theory. But allowing NO exclusions of our generalist demands, and the very best organisation when under attack!

Without such a unifying participation, individual campaigns will quickly rise, and just as quickly fall. So, every single action or strike must be immediately supported, not just with individual participators. but with banners expressing both support and Socialist demands.

And, demonstrations, no matter how small, and a march directly to support the fight, with food, and collections of money arranged for the fighters, from Working Class Estates, accompanied with the most vigorous chants and energy!

Re-building History?

Adam Curtis stitches together an array of extraordinary archive film footage in Can't Get You Out of My Head

Re-Building the Real History &

Organisation of a Required Class Consciousness

There is a current on-going series of films on the BBC (Can't Get You Out of My Head), which far from being politically radical, is actually in concert with that station's News Programmes, and much of its General Content across the whole range of genres, from Drama to all other types of entertainment, are purposely working increasingly hard to either instil-into, cajole, bully or merely influence its listeners and viewers, into a hopeless and increasingly cowed state of accepting that all of the mounting calamities besetting them, at present, are entirely of their own selfish making, and actually natural built-in weaknesses within themselves.

But this isn't True!

Even the total dishonesty and complete incompetence of the Tory Government, led by Boris Johnson, is NEVER revealed by the media for what it is, and what they are trying to impose both physically-and-blame-wise by allowing to pile up, all the agonies of their OWN mishandling, into a slowly-but-surely drift into putting most of the blame upon the people themselves.

Even, any "good policies", are never carried through to a satisfactory conclusion, because they were really always only gestures, included in order to con ordinary Working People into thinking that the Government has their best interests at heart, while, in fact, always-and-ever getting things back to having the money once again rolling into the pockets of the Wealthy - their pockets: with every one back at work - preferably on lower wages, and inferior working conditions, and, if possible, well-separated from each other, rather than working together, where their natural Class Consciousness would be mutually generated once again!

Though the powers-that-be may seem to be failing, we have to clearly acknowledge just how the seemingly tumultuous mess, is, in fact, dramatically changing the forms, conditions and remuneration of employment or benefits for most workers, to significantly minimise the possibility of collective action by Workers to defend and even extend their circumstances.

And with the demise of the Unions and genuine Working Class Political Parties, the once possible means are no longer available. JUST when they are needed most!

So, they have to be replaced in a wholly new way, by using any still-extent Democracy, but now legitimately extended, well beyond the rare occasions when Ballot boxes are involved - to Public Meetings, initially addressing local issues, in the current Crisis, with decisions by Culminating Votes, along with actual organisational arrangements, to effectively carry them out! And, selected enforcers - subject to Instant-Recall-and-Replacement, if they are not carrying out the democratically-arrived-at will of the majority in such meetings.

Much earlier in this health crisis (in 2020) I published a series of papers urging that the organised response needed to be in the hands of such local democratic structures, for doing the basic jobs nest, and putting any National organisation into the empowered hands of the NHS, bypassing the Tories biased structures, and installed "leaderships"!

And all that would have been incomparably better than what actually ensued.

I will now re-issue these papers again herewith, to allow The People to make THEIR Judgments as to what should happen NOW!

The Rape of Yemen

 
Having presented the main Resolution on Yemen, many tears ago at a Young Socialists Annual Conference, I have always searched for a real Socialist account of what has been happening in that part of the World, usually without any real success!

But, the recent virtual video conference compiled by The Workers Party of Britain, is by far and away the best I have seen, and I have therefore suggested that SHAPE present the video in full. For though extensive, that kind of treatment has been exactly what has been essential for some time.

While SHAPE Journal & this blog usually concentrate upon new developments in Marxist Theory, most particularly within Philosophy and Science, as the primary area of study, SHAPE also represents an Internationalist Socialist Political line too - so, we reproduce this important piece here with the greatest enthusiasm!

Intellectualism and Power

The supposed alternatives in tackling the Ruling Class in a Class Society

The problem, as it is seen by the participants from both sides of the Class Division in Society, arises primarily from the seeming impossibility of ever replacing the currently highly complex and increasingly global System of Capital. For, on one side it appears that way, for the dramatic losses that would be unavoidably suffered by those, who currently significantly benefit from their privileges under that System.  And also, on the other side, by the great majority, who see any significant wholesale transformation, first, as being totally impossible to even conceive of, and, thereafter, to implement. For, even the best of them have the worrying examples of Two World Wars (just concerned with which kind of Capitalists get to Rule), and then by the Long Cold War and innumerable Hot Wars aimed at either reversing the already revolutionary transformed states, or preventing actual social revolutions, in a whole series of different countries in crisis throughout the 20th century.

Both of these responses arise understandably from the immensity of such tasks! For they see Revolutions as Planned Operations, which really are always impossible, though planned Coups d'état by already powerful minorities are always possible.

For, NO Revolution is ever really planned!

The Revolutions that naturally occur always arise out of increasingly ever bigger Crises, wherein the unavoidable contradictions within any System, at some point, became both insurmountable, and naturally head for the Total Dissolution of the System.

Now, normally, the necessary transformations that make these systemic dissolutions unavoidable, also frequently result in consequent Dark Ages, which can last for long periods of time, but nevertheless, always ultimately generate the necessary solutions, for a recovery upon a wholly New Basis.

In the 19th century this historical Dynamic was uncovered by Karl Marx, who using the Dialectics of the Idealist philosopher Hegel, while studying significant and well-recorded Social Revolutions of the past, in great detail, and managed to see the Changing Dynamics involved, which prior Pluralist (Fixed-Law) Reasoning, had, in the past, made understanding such Qualitative Changes totally inconceivable!

Thereafter, such Marxists - as Marx's followers were termed - though they couldn't ever arrange for such a Revolution to happen themselves, could indeed monitor the naturally occurring inevitable series of Crises, and knew exactly when to intervene, to affect their possible individual outcomes with certain contained Phases.

But in a System like Global Capitalism, Major Crises occur, on average, every 4 to 7 years, and have, in fact done so throughout its 300 year History, but only very occasionally do they dissociate into a full-blown Social Revolutionary situation, when the whole System begins to Collapse!

Now, in many of these Crises, when the organisations of the Under Class forced compromise situations onto the Employing Class, political gains could be achieved by the Under Class, but they invariably merely prevented the situation deteriorating, for the Employers, into something much worse for them. And, over certain periods, such reforms could be established, but never forever. For, at the next Crisis the Employers would always attempt to remove such gains.

The Key confusion within the Working Class, was caused by the False Promise of such reforms ultimately achieving Justice, permanently, for the Working Class, so that the "Horror" of Social Revolution would NEVER be necessary.

But, that both deliberately ignores the real Dynamics of Social Change, and, at the same time, consciously by that always comparatively privileged layer, in the Middle Classes, opposing Revolution with absolutely everything that they do and say, and actually collect as many counter-arguments as possible - some of which appear very intellectual and "superior" to the reactions of "uneducated Workers"!

The commonest ploy of this group, is always to claim that they are "of the Left", and "prove it" by joining every kind of protest organisation, giving them a necessary Left Cover, while they seek their Ideal (Non Revolutionary) Formulations.

...

And a vital component, indeed The Touchstone, in the Theory of an aspiring Marxist Revolutionary has to be in the constant on-going analysis of Crises occurring worldwide: it is how the Penetrating Understanding that will be essentially required in the midst of a Revolution, can be honed to the state when-and-where it could be effectively used.

In the period, at the begining of the 20th century, after the failed 1905 Revolution in Russia, Lenin, a leader of the Bolshevik Party, had to leave Russia, and live full-time in Switzerland, in order to escape the attensions of the Czarist Police. Yet, by the beginning months of 1917, the Czar had been deposed - but his war with Germany continued -- though by April, Lenin knew he had to be back in Russia, as his own Party was supporting the War. He negotiated with the Germans to allow him to return to Russia, where he would pull Russia out of the War. Finally, they agreed, but only if it was via a sealed train through Germany. But, as soon as he arrived at the Finland Station in Petrograd, he immediately gave a speech condemning the War, and subsequently wrote his April Theses, arguing for a change in policy by the Bolsheviks. By July armed soldiers from Kronstadt arrived at Bolshevik Party Headquarters demanding that the Bolsheviks lead them to the Winter Palace to arrest the Provisional Government. Most of Lenin's colleages, knowing it was much too soon, were for sending the troops back to Kronstadt, but Lenin alone demurred! It was, indeed, too soon, he adnmitted, but when the right time came, THESE were the forces to arrest the Government, and Lenin convinced the Party to support them, with Trotsky to lead them. They marched to The Winter Palace, but were vastly outnumbered, and Trotsky was jailed, and immediately Lenin had to escape to Finland in disguise! But by October, with the right wing General Kornilov advancing upon Petrograd with a large force, the time had finally come. The Kronstadters were immediately sent to arrest the Provisional Government, which they did, and Lenin strode to the rostrum in the All Russian Congress of Soviets and declared -

"We shall now construct the Socialist Order!"

Lenin did not plan the Revolution: he knew he couldn't do that!

But, when it naturally occurred as the system collapsed, he was constantly identifying and interpreting the Phases of Development, and their current potentialities! Until Lenin and his Bolsheviks could intervene, WITH the support of the Workers and Peasants in arms, with the slogan "Bread, Peace and Land"

Now, Marx, in spite of his magnificent contributions to Dialectical Materialism, did not, in his lifetime, comprehensively extend it beyond a basically "Macro Approach" to History, and a similar, if more detailed and analytic approach to Capitalist Economics.

Indeed without its essential comprehensive application to the Primary repository of Knowlege and Understanding, as had been built up, in the Sciences and other Intellectual Disciplines, is Real Understanding would never be sufficient to become the default Approach to Understanding ALL of Reality-as-is.

Subsequently, the door to Idealist Alternatives would always not only be wide open, but also occasionally offer moments of Truth, that without the underlying Basis supplied by Materialism, would and indeed have, delivered a veritable avalanche of misleading alternatives, which have NO SUCH restriction upon Causality!

Whether it be via Writers, Commentators, Academics or Political Organisations, without a Comprehensive Dialectical Materialist Basis, their extractsed stance could only be some collection of Idealist Intellectual conceptions, and, consequently, would NEVER equip those involved to direct their subsequent effective interventions.

So, when the key times come, and desperately require appropriate informing intervention, what they extract-and-implement will never be effective, either in its built-in understanding, in its conceptions of what determines change within a Developing situation, like a Revolution!

Indeed, no matter how elevated, and imbued with Justice a political stance and programme is, it can never be based upon the ability to accurately predict the detailed future, but it simply MUST be capable of "interpreting Real Change" on the fly, and, changing emphasis as appropriate, in all the nuances of such Changes, in the remarkable Event that is a Social Revolution! Those organisations who participate in such an Event, with a "Now-and-Forever Programme", are bound to fail - for the Enemy Class will change its positions constantly - seeking to protect their weath and privilege, they will, as they always have done, con and mislead the People...

Dialectical Materialism as a Revolutionary political weapon is NOT a fixed and correct Stance, BUT, on the contrary, a constant means of addressing every problem as it arises dynamically, with a resounding Truth faster than the Enemy's Lies!

For apart from responding to their changes of direction, we must also be wrong-footing them with our own judgement of changes in the mood and temoer of our own Working Class : and ours will be principled, while their's will not!

Socialism, Science & Energy

 

Beating the Pandemic, Economic Depression and Climate Change - only Socialism and Nuclear Fusion can do it!

Deep down, everyone now knows that Capitalism and its Ruling Oligarchs will definitely never beat the combined threat of the Current Slump and the Global Covid19 Pandemic, because to do it would have to end their Worldwide Dominance. Look at the almost incessant Wars in the last couple of centuries - absolutely ALL OF THEM to maintain, extend or transfer that particular mode of wealth and power.

NO - All the usual past "solutions" cannot possibly solve it - and Capitalism is fundamentally opposed to what is necessary to reverse catastrophic climate change. 

The current multiple crises facing humanity are too devastating to be addressed in the old ways (scientific, social or economic), for many of these crises are now becoming existential - the continuance of the Human Race now solidly embarked upon a series of terminal swoops towards a guaranteed oblivion!

We need both

The Rule of the People

&

Nuclear Fusion

to totally reorient things and finally break forever the malignant Power of a Ruling Capitalist Class.

Nothing else can do it!

AND, for the first time in human history, this is now clearly possible. The pieces of the puzzle exist, at least.

However the Super Rich will never cede The World to its Working Classes. They have proved that they will go to World War to maintain their wealth, position and privilege. Remember it wasn't the Nazis that dropped Two Atomic Bombs upon civilians, but the United States of America, who dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war had already been won - primarily as a warning to the communists.

But for many decades the various committed activists and political organisations, on different fronts, have insisted upon their perceived Crisis as the Primary Danger, and have refused to join forces with the many other movements, but with the present devastating simultaneous many-sided Crises all coming together at once, the insistence upon separate struggles is quite obviously self-defeating and WRONG.

For now, the very best of the Nuclear Fusion Scientists has joined the fray in earnest, with the leading Focus Fusion Group, around Eric Lerner, coming out with a new video linking Energy Generation and the Fight for Socialism as crucial allies in the Overall Struggle!

A United Front of all the Fighting Organisations must be forged to remove the Common Enemy - the Ruling Billionaires.

And the means to remove ALL the causes of the Existential Crises is now clearly imminent and Led by One of Us!

The world must be reclaimed and saved for the majority of the population. Look at the mess The Ruling Class are making of Fighting Covid 19 and the Slump!

FIGHT

for

Socialism, Democracy & a Future! NOW!

Before and After a Communist Revolution

Destroyed shops in Minneapolis

Commodities, Services and Jobs

PREFACE:

This paper started with the incentive to talk about Work-and-Fulfillment within an alternative Socialist Society, as distinct from the Capitalist Societies we all currently inhabit! But, such a single purpose endeavour as that intended objective, was immediately and dramatically overtaken by the significantly fast-deepening crisis of current World Capitalism, revealed by the latest bi-monthly Lecture by Dr. Richard Wolff in the Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

For it was precipitated by the joint effects of the beginnings of a mighty global virus epidemic, due to a wholly new Coronavirus, but occurring along with a Major Simultaneous Crisis in the Global Oil Industry, due to the threat of competition from the burgeoning Fracking Shale Oil Industry in the USA, which immediately caused a dramatic drop in the price of Oil across the Globe, and then immediately thereafter, a catastrophic drop in the value investments upon the Stock Markets of the World.

To make matters worse, the crisis caused by COVID19 was quickly transforming into a Global Pandemic, which literally nowhere was prepared for after, many still recovering from the economic slump of 2008!

Clearly, that joint Crisis had to be addressed NOW, urgently and even before any discussion upon Jobs, because a New Worldwide Recession could well be already in-motion, and the right political actions by the Revolutionary Left MUST come first, for the Current Crisis could be the initiation of a Revolutionary Situation.


JOBS

So, in this context, the struggle for Jobs will also be transformed!

The ways people earn their livings have dramatically changed under Capitalism, and though all occupations have not been equally affected, not every one has been affected in the same ways, or to a similar degree. And, it is the jobs of what are termed the Working Class (the Employees) and their families, that have been affected most damagingly, while those of the Owning Class - the Employers, also including a wide range of business owners, from many of the so-called Petty Bourgeois, though vastly smaller that The Working Class, and whose livelihoods depend exclusively upon the Workers - as Customers for their essentially-supplied goods (as in local individual shop-keepers in Working Class areas), whose Life Standards don't usually rise very much above those of their customers. But thereafter, via larger scale suppliers of needed utility services-and-regular-supplies, then upwards to a swiftly improving range of well-remunerated suppliers, and particularly to more expensive Services, then on to the ever more well-financially endowed middle class professionals in Medical and Financial Services. For while all of these people need to work-to-Live, most would never agree to being categorised as being members of the Working Class, though at times of Acute Crisis they are undoubtedly hit too!

Only the real Owning Class - the Bourgeoisie, have Resources well beyond their Daily Needs, as apart from previously accrued Wealth, and the consequent wherewithal for further Investments, their primary sources of regular additional income, in addition to Profits from their Owned Enterprises, are also significantly added-to by Interest from investments, Rents from owned and rented-out Properties, and even lucrative fees from Financial Services and/or Advice expensively supplied to those who can pay.

Clearly, the overall numbers involved are totally dominated by the vast size of the Working Class, but reduce swiftly across those intermediate Groups, until arriving at the Big Bourgeiosie, the numbers then shrink to a relatively tiny proportion: indicated by the fact that the total wealth of the bottom 3.5 billion people on Earth is matched exactly by that of the top 80 individual Capitalists, mostly situated in the USA!

But, not all of these Classes enjoy what they have to do, to continue to exist. Nor are most of their jobs at all fulfilling!

Yet there are Jobs that can be, and often are, fulfilling: those that serve their fellow workers in Health and Education - those doing significant research and development in Key areas of Knowledge, Care and Advice, plus Firemen and Lifeboat men, Arts and Crafts workers, as long as they are not undercut by cheaper factory-produced competing goods, or have been somewhat elevated to exclusively supplying the rich.

Actually whatever it is that workers do, they are all majorly affected by how the vagaries of the current Employer-Employee relation can affect their security and happiness. Literally everyone below the Bourgeoisie are damaged by the usual relations, which regularly throw many out of their jobs, and into sometimes desperate hardships and homelessness!

Now Capitalism, being always driven by the Profit Motif, will always put cheapness over quality, for what it produces for the Mass Market, and hence drives its employees into ever more unfulfilling repetitive tasks, taking away any of the pleasures of creative activities, for the more profitable drudgery of tending the faster repetitive processes of machines.

So, these two dominating, and likely to escalate pressures, effectively remove what pleasures could be got from work: so, even changing ownership of the Workplace, would never be enough! Even the Distributive Co-operative Movements (owned by their customers) could NOT significantly improve the lot of their workers, because of competitive pressure from the abundance of Capitalist alternatives, who would simply buy all their required resources from cheaper, more exploitative sources.

So, any attempt at piecemeal changeovers, will simply never solve the problems of labour: Capitalism itself has to be dismantled!

Now the recent effort of the People's Forum in New York to present the whole of Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, read in a succession of major languages by native speakers, actually addressed many of these seemingly intractable questions at its very launch, in 1848. And it did not shrink from a Revolutionary capture of State Power by the Communists, which was essential to both defeat the local Forces of Reaction internally, and thereafter go on to defeat Capitalist Armies of Intervention, and continue to defend the Revolutionary State! The subsequent history of Russia after the Revolution proved that this part of their analysis was not only correct, but imperative in ensuring the continuation of their State.

But, for such a Revolution to happen at all, in a mostly Feudal/Peasant Economy, had meant that it had to both carry out the objectives of a Capitalist Revolution, to dispense with the earlier economic stage of Feudalism, and almost simultaneously demolish it as it was created, in order to establish its own absolutely crucial anti-capitalist intentions.

And, in such a country as Russia that involved a very short Alliance with the Peasantry under the banner of Peace, Bread and Land - to keep them on-side, but it actually and unavoidably ground to a halt, and they had to continue to increasingly concede to the more successful Peasants, who naturally saw the Future very differently to the Working Classes of the cities, and were striving for Feudal type Landed Estates; so the necessary Counter-Capitalist security measures expanded to also suppress the Kulaks (rich peasants) and their followers demands. But, in the countryside, the old alliance dissolved in the light of new "Landed" perspectives, and the security organisations found themselves opposed by Peasant-Soviets, increasingly dominated by the Kulaks.

A major Fight then arose between the Bolshevik Leadership of comrades like Lenin and Trotsky, and a fast burgeoning administrative Bureaucracy organised and led by Stalin!

But there are No Peasants in the UK!

The Fight will be against the Big Bourgeoisie!

The small businesses will finally be won to our side.

Transcending the Lockdown in a Revolutionary Way

There can be NO solution to the Coronavirus Pandemic via the conceptions and means of our current Capitalist Governments. 

The entire Ethos and Economic Imperatives of those involved had-to-be, and indeed have-been undermined, by their endless seeking of larger profits no matter what the cost!

And those means, and their costs, are not only soaring ever higher, but are also totally unable to cope with that other range of ever-mounting crises that even threaten Mankind's continued existence upon the planet. For, the unavoidable growth of both Personal & Governmental Debt is not only unsustainable, but also, it now appears, totally unavoidable.

And, at the very same time, Global Warming and the poisoning of both the atmosphere and the oceans appears to be unstoppable, and incapable of even maintaining the current situation.

Finally, the lack of any real National Health Service, in most countries of the World, including the USA, means that the Covid disease doesn't even look like being overcome.

The universally subscribed-to General Consciousness is incapable of dealing with these seemingly Terminal Crises. And, there are NO means currently-available for the People under Lockdown to challenge the powers that be.

...unless you're a fanatical far right American that is.

The only protest is coming from the Right - but they can't see a way out of this besides returning to the economic normal - and they don't seem to care about infecting people and / or deny the seriousness of the contagion. 

And, there are NO universally shared ideas of what to do about it all!

The Bottom Line of corporations and the Capitalist class maximising their profit, inexorably determines everything that Governments can do!

Societies in all Past Human History arrived at only one possible solution to such terminal Crises!

REVOLUTION

And that means putting the People, the Planet and their Future FIRST.

And there is a task that only the People can be trusted with - surviving the lockdown!

The NHS in the UK hasn't been top-down-directed in its efforts to combat the Coronavirus: it has been, in fact, an amalgam of the very best of the People, and taken along with the self-discipline of all the Rest of the People, keeping rigidly to the need for Social Distancing.

ALL gains have been achieved just in those two areas alone!

Give The People the task of administering adequate Personal Protection Equipment, within small local areas, run by their own democratically elected committees, and THEY will build a safe Country - built up area-by-area

Corona Solutions: The only way out of this Catastrophe!

Italian police breaking up a Coronavirus protest outside a prison

Part I

Though Governments and their subservient Media, throughout the World, attempt to insist that they already are, as adequately as is humanly possible, effectively addressing the Global Calamity of the Coronavirus Pandemic: that is certainly NOT THE CASE!

For they will never ever admit their own and absolutely crucial liability, or, that the main sufferers from what they propose are overwhelmingly the ordinary People - The Working Class, the "key" workers - along with the Old and the Poor. And these authorities demand a trenchant and unwavering obeying of their chosen solutions, which are primarily to give trillions of Dollars, Pounds and other currencies, to help Big Businesses (themselves and their class), as being the ONLY thing that they could possibly do to keep us all afloat.

These measures will, of course, maintain their current Economic System, and the consequent and gross inequality of wealth, resulting in the tiny social class that owns, rules and directs everything, once again calling all the shots.

But, of course, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people will die with what they have instituted as solutions.

And, if they get the workforces back to work very soon, which is indeed the demand from sections of that same Ruling Class, those fatalities could soar even further in yet further, so-caused Waves of Infection.

Our demands as workers should be obvious.

All Work and Living Spaces MUST first be made safe - immediately!

And to achieve that it will be necessary for as many as possible to be got back to work, BUT with the sole, essential and primary job of making things safe to work there! And vague talk of achieving this WILL NOT DO! For, it will have to be addressed piecemeal, and with a detailed strategy. 

Decontaminating public spaces in South Korea

First, well defined local areas must be made safe, and thereafter kept safe, one at a time.

And, that process must commence with testing everyone in each such small-and-well-defined-area, and all acting accordingly with what is increasingly found to achieve that state! Then, the brought-in, allocated workers along with the uninfected from the area, will together then make the area safe to work in physically.

Thereafter, sufficient workers to maintain the continued precautionary testing AND keeping-the-area-safe, especially including not only public areas, but also workplaces and leisure areas and necessary facilities and shops.

This MUST BE the primary task!

And, this must also be backed-up by the still isolated-at-home workers, who MUST refuse to go back to work unless-and-until their intended workplaces, and their means of getting there, are BOTH made safe.

Clearly, a choice of these areas must be determined by where BOTH of these complete sets of requirements are covered by a single-defined-area! For, if both workplaces and their at-home-workers are situated close-together, they must get priority, and these must occur first, in areas where these conditions are available.

The Essential Discipline for doing all this, must be organised, within the areas, and constantly open-and-informing! So, it must NOT be provided by elite forces like the Police or Army, BUT by the people involved themselves, and NOT imposed from without and top-down.

So, getting that MUST first involve a local-to-each-area, and democratically elected committee, organised either electronically or by post. But, such a "Local-Area-Council" must have instant-recall and replacement of its members, if this delivers an undemocratic committee: it MUST reflect the majority opinions of those it represents and acts for!

Outside of these areas, concerned with everything that they need, must be organised initially solely by newly-formed Sections of and from within the NHS, along with workers in the Public Transport and Goods Delivery Industries, again organised via defined Regions with similar democratic structures to defend their own conditions too.

The Myth that workers aren't up to decision-making must be dumped immediately, and throughout these arrangements, for it has and always will construct a privileged decision-making elite, who ultimately will primarily represent only themselves and their ilk in their decisions!

Only these forms of organisation will be able to do the job in the interests of the people. They will make better choices, for they will be concerned to defend their own families and workmates, and friends where they live and work, and not to defend the right to make profits as has been the case in the response and decisions made thus far!

The only ones we should trust to protect our health are the NHS workers and the people working at the front line. 

Coronavirus and Capitalism

What are governments putting first, the health of key workers, or the health of the economy?

What the COVID19 crisis tells us about the Capitalist State

and The People - and how the response could be conducted differently...

THE ESSENTIAL PREMISE:

Remember, the UK is a Capitalist State, run by a right-wing, strongly pro-capitalist Tory Government. A vast crisis, such as this current Coronavirus Pandemic, cannot but increasingly reveal their priorities in running things primarily in their own interests - the interests of the capitalist class.

And that isn't in the interests of the majority of the People!

Their primary motivation is ALWAYS keeping their own wealth and Power.

The major issue in this serious Pandemic boils down to the main key roles of the State, the Crisis and maintaining the status quo. There can be no doubt whatsoever that State controls will be necessary in fighting the pandemic: but it really depends upon what kind of a State is involved in making those decisions.

For depending upon the Economic System currently instituted in an affected country, government policies pursued can be very different indeed, for they will depend exclusively upon what the role of the State is considered to be by those in charge. And a Capitalist State will have very different objectives from those of a Socialist State. And in a bureaucratic Stalinist State, like China, it will react very differently to a Socialist State with real Democracy.

For, as the Pandemic is certain to be limited in duration, those policies, on the one hand, will most certainly be to protect the people from the Pandemic, but they will also, most certainly, on the other hand, be very differently determined, depending on what kind of State will emerge "after the deluge"! Will the State relinquish emergency powers as quickly as it adopted them? What about during a subsequent economic crisis??

A State's primary purpose will always be determined by exactly what, and therefore also, who, in that society, it is primarily designed to serve! If it is Capitalism - or even Stalinism - and therefore, its directing practitioners, who consider themselves primary, it will pursue very different set of policies, in addressing the Pandemic, to the exactly opposite situation that which would pertain, if it were, instead, addressing the circumstances of the vast majority of the population, and hence the Working Class.

For, such a crisis could clearly expose both gross inequality and the purposes of the Capitalist State all too overtly, and if not managed strictly in ways to purposely-hide its directing intentions. So, any policies about testing for the Virus, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) will be vital!

Getting proper protective equipment out to all key workers should be the number one priority of any State working in the interests of the people

Who will get tested and when?

And, who will receive the necessary PPEs?

And will they be isolating or protective PPEs?

And crucially are the PPEs intended for the detected-infected or for the as-yet-uninfected?

But, with the insistence upon hand-washing, where are they getting infected from?

For some countries seem to be spraying possible sites, where the virus could settle! What then would be used in those circumstances?

Now clearly, there are other ways of combating the Pandemic by using the above means in very different and better ways! We have to ask why did they choose the ones that they did?

Were their reasons medical or political?

Why have right wing populist governments such as USA and Brazil (and the UK if we're honest), dragged their feet and been so much more reluctant to lock down than their equivalents in Social Democratic countries?

The former are obviously NOT currently terminating the Pandemic: in fact they are purposely extending its duration! And, with the very clear pressures for early partial or temporary reductions in the extents of the Shutdown, could not this elicit second or even more waves of the Pandemic!?

How many of the old and infirm will survive these waves?

For, the biggest collections of deaths are in populations within care homes.

Why is that considered to be a good policy? And why are those figures not published home by home?

For answers, you only have to look at the political advantages for the powers-that-be!

Why wasn't a testing of the population organised, with those having the Pandemic being isolated, at home but with isolating facemasks until they were clear (this would in the end effectively deal with 80% of the detected infections who get a 'mild' version of the disease). They would then be monitored, and if it intensified in any they would be immediately transfered to Hospital. All others tested and found to be OK, would get a protective face mask and be released.

All travel, particularly from aboard, but also, initially, at home travel would still be banned as they are now! So, extractable zones would be systematically sectioned off and treated in these ways, gradually clearing increasing areas, within which tested clear individuals would be allowed free movement, and could meet and socialise with others similarly OK'd, but must wear their protective aids.

Workplaces could be targeted, particularly those directly serving the public, such as shops.

Everyone else would be under similar conditions to now, but would get their turn as their zone was arrived at via constant extensions.

A General Shutdown would be gradually and systematically lifted.

From restriction to our homes, areas of locally restored free movement would be gradually be increased, until well-defined and increasing areas would allow gradually re-instituted local travel!

Instead of the total shutdown of all free and unmonitored social protest: such would be made available in all the released areas. And these MUST always start in the most highly populated districts in towns and cities, and only last-of-all in the sparsely-populated estates of the privileged!

THE VITAL POSTSCRIPT:

And, how should the system, described above be organised?

Should it be by the police or army?

NO!

It should be by the People themselves, within the successively released enclaves, each of which should elect their own Area Council to do the organising, and whose meetings should be open to the public! For, as has been shown by the discipline of the majority of the People in the Shutdown, by their are highly responsible and evident clapping-and-helpful support of the NHS, and who, along with the appropriate resources, will do an infinitely much better job than any Tory Government of Billionaires could even imagine!

For, unlike a top-down rigorously imposed control, the maximally democratic monitoring by everyone, and immediately-responsive actions of the local People's Councils will straight-forwardly implement the maximally fair outcomes, with the energetic and guaranteed support of their People.

Culture and Revolution

As culture shifts across the globe workers are beginning to realise their importance and power again - but can this be harnessed against the Capitalist class which exploit them?

Building an effective opposition within the Neo-Con, post-industrial societies 

David Harvey, in a recent Democracy-at-Work offering, once again, with his usual eminently Marxist analysis, and profound cultural understanding, finds it necessary to dramatically switch the emphasis that the Left must take, in order to effectively combat the results of 40 years of Neo-Con Capitalism, which have clearly effectively de-unionised and de-politicised the Working Class Movements in Countries like the UK and the USA.

Now, there is a lot wrong with the TV series The Sixties (currently broadcasting on Sky in the UK), BUT, nevertheless, it does reveal much of that crucial tumultuous decade which prepared the ground for the later Neo-Con transformation of World Capitalism, which by the 1980s, with Thatcher and Reagan, was beginning to dismantle the traditional Working Class oppositional politics with the systematic destruction of its historical strengths within organised Labour. and, in the USA, the Cold War effective annihilation of all the Political Parties of the Left!

Yet France, with its Gilet Jaune Left Populism, and the current joint action with the still existing Unions' own General Strike, is demonstrating what can be done in favoured areas. And a single major crack in the Neo-Con System, still not recovered from the 2008 Economic Collapse, could this time precipitate an unrecoverable Crisis from the Capitalists point of view!

(Editor: the current worldwide health / economic crisis, for example)


The Socialist Agenda

But, the usual separation of major campaigns of "The Sixties", and the lack of a Socialist Party backing them all, guaranteed failure in spite of the remarkable numbers often involved.

BUT with a Common Socialist Agenda, and a combined fight, and, a concerted effort to prevent the always agitated-for separation of campaigns, which will always and inevitably oppose this necessary aim, and the "Please Everybody" demand from them.

It must be countered, by making the disenfranchised ex-Working Class the only reliable source for Real Change on every single front.

(Editor: they can no longer hide from the vital role 'key workers' play in keeping the whole system going)

And, within that sector, the major Class Objective will be in providing a Young Socialist Movement for the discarded Youth - just as we did successfully in the 1960s with the Labour Party's Young Socialists. That youth will thrill their de-classed elders, and energise the whole undertaking, as the introduction of the Youth did in the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties in the USA!

The Left needs a Socialist Party committed to literally all campaigns, but always unified by socialist solutions, and energised by a commitment to Working Class youth, with activities and facilities concentrated upon where those Youth are, yet mobilising them as the spearhead!

And, contradictably, NOT seeking the support of the Educated or the Middle Class, while at the same time delivering the very best informed and well explained Theory. But allowing NO exclusions of our generalist demands, and the very best organisation when under attack!

Without such a unifying participation, individual campaigns will quickly rise, and just as quickly fall. So, every single action or strike must be immediately supported, not just with individual participators. but with banners expressing both support and Socialist demands.

And, demonstrations, no matter how small, and a march directly to support the fight, with food, and collections of money arranged for the fighters, from Working Class Estates, accompanied with the most vigorous chants and energy!

George Galloway launches new Workers Party

Galloway launches new party, worth watching and wait for the working class poet, Chris McGlade, towards the end...

Democracy, Socialism & Leadership

Is Capitalist Democracy even possible?

We live in a Capitalist Economic System, and have done so for such a long time that most people consider that it must be the best. It didn't seem to have been imposed by War, but ultimately by the clear successes of Capitalist Enterprises in competition with alternative forms of economic organisations: they evidently must have been victorious in the Market Place!

But, nevertheless, it was never ever a free choice of individuals - a genuinely democratic decision - as to what sort of Economic workplaces there would be. Such decisions were still only taken by people with sufficient Money and Power, who were in a position to make and implement such decisions for everyone else.

Even after the English Revolution in the 17th centiry, with the King executed, and Parliament victorious, the vast majority of ordinary people who had ensured that victory still had NO say whatsoever in what was to replace the Old Regime. Ordinary citizens had NO vote to elect Members of that Parliament, who exclusively represented those who already had wealth, but now also had the Power, which used to reside solely with the Monarch.

But now, Oliver Cromwell, a landowner in Parliament, and then a military leader of the New Model Army in the field, after victory became the Lord Protector of the New Regime, and had established that position by both Status, but also by Force! Many of the reins of power which had been in the hands of the King, were now in Cromwell's hands, and he was perfectly clear what he had to do with them.

And the Diggers and the Levellers who had fought alongside him against the King, were now his enemies, and absolutely nothing that they had fought for, was granted to them. For, once in power all the taxes, tariffs and other income of the State were now directed via Cromwell's priorities!

Diggers and Levellers

Parliament had been increasingly dominated by wealthy farmers, landowners and traders, and had never represented the bulk of Working people, so from their Victory in leading an "Alliance of All The People", they naturally set about what was in their own interests alone, and for many that enabled the beginnings of Capitalist production and organisation.

So, what was evidently continuing fight for Democracy all about? Was it ever, in the minds of its leaders, about "Power to the People"?

The answer must be clearly "NO!"

It must always look as though that was its objective, but in truth was only ever to be a facade, behind which the Wealth and Power of those now in charge was to be maintained and greatly enhanced.

And looking at the current Chaos in British Politics, is that not still the case?

And, once such a success had been achieved in Britain, it was evidently possible elsewhere too. So, the British colonists in North American were next, and then it was France, but the difference was now up-front and from the outset a clear promise of "Democracy For ALL!" was necessary to bring together the necessary Alliance to carry the Revolution to Victory.

But, of course, involving the enfranchisement of only those with the wealth to implement the now well-established objective of Capitalism!

Democracy

or

Liberté Egalité et Fraternité

were the necessary slogans, so may have been the marshalling demands for the People, but they were never the real intentions of the Revolutionary Leaders!

Indeed, some lessons were learned, so by the time of the 20th century Revolutions, indeed Vanguard Parties equipped with committed Marxist leaders were now not only inevitably involved, but were the only guarantors of the demands of the workers and peasants, and ultimately the only possible leaders. The Slogan of the Russian Bolshevik Party was

Bread, Peace and Land!

somewhat different, I think you will agree.

But notice that whatever was achieved, whether sufficient or not, now just had to be via a Revolution, and with a very different set of Alliances upon each side! It had to be led by a Vanguard Revolutionary Party, informed by a Marxist critique of Capitalism! And, no alliances with Liberals could any longer be trusted.

And even if such a Revolution were successfful, it would elicit invasions from Capitalist Nations on all sides, and if those failed, which they certainly did in the case of Russia, then such a Rogue State would be effectively isolated from trading worldwide. And, even long-duration pressures and defensive expenditures would be inflicted upon such a State as in the Cold War, could be, and indeed were implemented!

In the end only World Revolution could ever guarantee the success anywhere!

Now, the self-proclaimed Socialist Parties in the various combatants in the First World War, ALL supported their own individual countries. Whereas in Russia the Bolsheviks agittated vigorously againat the War, even within the Army and Navy of the Russian State . Only the Bolsheviks in Russia, on successfully taking the power, pulled out of that War between Capitalist Nations.

And, after the war, they re-named their Party The Communist Party, and set about the worldwide construction of an International Organisation of genuine Socialist Parties to replace the prior International that had been the objective of Marx himself, but which had been vigorously attacked from within by Anarchists and the Social Democrats, who had turned it into a toothless Talking Shop alone!

The Question was not only an appropriately theoretically-equipped Revolutionary Party, but also one having a resolute Anti-Capitalist Leadership!

And, even within Russia the Revolution was not yet assured.

For it had replaced the Capitalists with a State Appointed Bureaucracy, without extending Democracy into all the Workplaces nationwide: and the Bureaucracy, instead, established itself as a privileged Elite, rather than a real Socialist Leadership!

Two vital components must be ensured at the hearts of Revolutionary Parties worldwide.

• First, the commitment to the continuing development of the Philosophy of Marxism, termed by Marx himself as Dialectical Materialism (contrary to what many think, this did not happen in the USSR. 

Especially, in its crucial extension to The Sciences, which was never undertaken in the past!

• And Second, in its commitment to Workers' Control in their workplaces, to combat the emerging of a privileged Bureaucracy!

Finally, what is currently called Democracy, in literally all countries in the World, must be totally dismantled, as it is currently the stongest bastion to the Rule of Capitalism: as significant modifications have turned it into its very opposite!

Money now dominates everything!

The ones spending the most money selling themselves and manipulating communications get elected! Also, the electors have no means of questioning or even mandating their chosen representatives.

And instant re-call and replacement is totally impossible. Even the initial selection of Candidates for Office is now rarely left to the members of the Party Branch they are to represent if elected! And innumerable other changes, which have been instituted to concentrate power in a centralised elite within the Party.

Democracy itself must be renovated to deliver what it was intended to achieve in its conception!



Postscript:

But, there are still problems, that are not easy to address!

In the early 20th century, several leading Bolsheviks were impressed by the Empirio Criticism of physicists Henri Poincare and Ernst Mach, which was a Positivist alternative to strict Materialism, and it caused Lenin to immediately suspend other theoretical work to urgently write the book Materialism and Empirio Criticism, which emphatically condemned such a philosophical retreat.

And, it achieved two things: it pulled back those leading Marxists in the Bolshevik Party - realising their mistake! And also it confirmed the intellectual Leadership of V. I. Lenin in the Party.

Later, in July 1917, in the interlude between the two revolutions of that year, the Kronstadters arrived at Bolshevik Headquarters, armed to the teeth, demanding that a leading Boshevik to both lead and speak for them in making the demands upon the Kerensky Government to resign.

Literally everyone at Bolshevik headquarters were against it, knowing that it was too soon, and it would undoubtedly fail.

But Lenin disagreed!

These are our people, and when the time comes we will be able to count upon them - but if we tell them now to go home, we will rightly lose their trust.

Though warning it is probably too soon, they would nonetheless, be led to the Winter Palace by Trotsky, to show whose side we are on.

And that is what happened! It did fail, and Trotsky was jailed, and Lenin had to hide in Finland,

BUT, in October when the time was right! The Bolsheviks said "NOW!", and the Kronstadters stormed the Winter Palance, and the Second, this time Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, was carried through to success.

Again the tactical Leadership of Lenin was vital...

Switch to the present day in the UK!

Jeremy Corbyn gets elected to the Leadership of the Labour Party by an extended membership of the Party, and goes for Policies much further to the left than Party was used to.

But most of the Labour MPs in Parliament were NOT chosen by their Party Branch members! During the Leadership of Tony Blair, he had changed the rules, so that the central leadership provided all Party Branches with a list of suitable candidates as MPs - none of whom were remotely Left. He even renamed the Party New Labour!

And, their Blairite MPs were against Corbyn from the start - they did everything they could to remove him, and played a major role in Labour's recent historic defeat. They undermined the shift to the Left at every turn.

The necessary structures of a Real Democracy must support effective leadership, while opposing bureaucratic elites attempting to win power by NON DEMOCRATIC means!

Not easy. But vital. 

The State II

Anarchists "Smash the State"

The Key Purposes of the Revolutionary State

Now, anarchists were, and still are, totally opposed to the idea of a Socialist State (or indeed to any kind of State at all), and they instead extol the virtues of democratically-run local communes and grassroots action.

It was The Anarchists that brought The First International Association of Working People, organised by Karl Marx, to total collapse.

Marx had insisted that a Socialist State was vital, providing both centralised resources and services to all, and protecting the new system from threatening opponents. Negotiating with other states on a global basis, would be essential - at least for a time.

It would definitely be even more imperative, after a successful Revolution, as most, if not all other states would still be under the prior kinds of Regimes, driven to protect their own Capitalist interests, and would consider the very existence of the Socialist State an exemplar for their Working People, and hence a threat to the current rulers too.

But, returning to the Anarchists, Subsequent History has shown that they were wrong, and Marx was indeed right! For, after the Sucess of the Russian Revolution - England, the USA and even Japan sent in armies to put down the Revolution, but due to a strong State-Organised Red Army of The People, they were all successfully defeated.

And, even after the Revolution, there were still ex-owners and even so-called Social Revolutionary Parties (based on the peasantry and still strong in the truly vast countryside), who continued to work against the new regime. It definitely required a State-wide organisation to root them out, or everything gained by a People's Revolution would be lost - most Revolutions do indeed fail.

And, in addition, opposing and surrounding Capitalist Powers worked incessantly to isolate the new State, particularly in Trade and Commerce, and even sent in agents allied with internal opponents, and even criminals, to undermine the nascent socialist Economy, and smuggle out valuables originally targeted for confiscation by the State to be taken from the wealthy as The Property of the People.

And, many different and previously non-existant Public Services had to be devised, built and organised on a vast scale, literally from scratch - and from immense Defensive Military Forces, on the one hand, and a totally new National Health Service, and a Quality Education System at all levels not just for the rich, but for Everybody and, finally, of course, Public Transport too - Russia was a truly enormous country! 

And, the intended country-wide Democracy, to be based upon People's Councils (or Soviets), was initially miniscule, and needed both resources and guidance, so that individual isolated organisations didn't all make the same mistakes all over the country.

What a tremendous undertaking! Yet with a majority of the People energetically-on-board. Remember, everything that had existed previously was constructed and maintained by, and to serve the needs of, the wealthy landed Gentry and the then Ruling Class, with the Tsar at its head. Absolutely nothing had served the needs of the workers - either the Peasants on the Land, or the Workers in the Factories.

Whole droves of agents. hangers-on and even servants to the Prior Ruling Class and their institutions, were now "demoted" to ordinary working class status - and of course they didn't like that one bit!

So, the enormous task of building a new, fairer society, had to undertaken with the whole country locked in Civil War with the Royalists and their supporters, while also being ravished by Armies of Intervention, aiming to put down the Revolution and re-instate the Old Regime.

And all this in the biggest physical country on Earth!

They needed to be organised Country-Wide - and that had to be via the State apparatus - how else could it have been done?

And, not only did they do it! BUT also the leaders of the Revolution - The Bolshevik Party, knew not only why they need a State, but also its dangers! For Lenin had long explained that, in the longer run, on the way to Communism - there would be a deliberate Withering Away of the State!

But, this was a completely new kind of Revolution. There was no nascent Capitalist Class, held back by a Feudal Regime. For, in spite of the Feudal monarchy, Capitalism was growing apace and welcomed by the Ruling Class. The Capitalists were certainly not siding with any Socialist Revolution.  Maybe the February Revolution of 1917 removed the Tsar, but the Revolutionry Tide hadn't yet finished, the October 1917 Revolution, this time led by the Bolsheviks, was for terminating Capitalism too.

And, all objectives were achieved - at least initially!

But, all Revolutions attempt the apparently impossible, by which is meant - that they attempt to establish the Wholly New. NO prior patterns were ever available for guidance: in fact every Emergence of any kind is inevitably prefaced by a series of major crises in the prior situation, which always finally culminate in the System's Total Collapse. And only then does a very different series of alternative constructive attempts occur, which, initially at least, also fail.

But, nevertheless, they can and do finally culminate in a wholly New and final breakthrough into a self-maintaining success - a new stable system.

The Origin of Life was such a Revolution, as was the Emergence of Consciousness in Human Beings. But, even these were not achieved without devastating calamities along the way!

And this one was surely typical of the real biggies, like Life and Consciousness: it would be a truly major Emergence Event, and would require a long gestation period to remove all unwanted liabilities left over from the past. And, as distinct from the other major Emergences, this one involved, for the very first time, conscious participants and organisations, who were aware of the occurrence of such events, and not only could they consciously intervene, but so could and did the defenders of the previous System. 

The problem with anarchists is that they don't understand Emergence. The Revolutionary State is the attempt to build and defend the new stability - without this consolidation of power Capitalism will return with ease. 

Socialist Broadband!

Great stuff from our future Chancellor John McDonnell ;)

Workplace Democracy and Democratic Ownership

"Workplace Democracy and Democratic Ownership: moving from theory to strategy". Richard Wolff and Gar Alperovitz at Left Forum, 2013.

Some very interesting and unexpected revelations come out of this debate - worker co-ops alone will solve nothing as they will inevitably recreate all of the same problems regarding market competition and consumption that you get with laissez-faire capitalism - the only difference will be workers rather than bosses will have to become cutthroat in order to survive. 

So what is the solution? Society must control the economy, not the other way around. Top-down Stalinist type controlled economies didn't work either - so what does the relationship between society and the workplace need to be in order to make work work for the benefit of all?

Gar Alperovitz hints at a possible way out looking his work with steel workers in Youngstown Ohio in 1977... democratic community ownership of companies and resources, rather than worker cooperatives, as a way of really democratising the means of production (and distribution and digital infrastructure, in the modern world), and subsequently the entire economy.

Organising for Real Social Change

In spite of several major crises, such as the decade-long slump in the 1930s, and the similar and still continuing Depression commencing in 2008, the problems which caused them have not, and indeed cannot, be solved, whilever we live within a Capitalist Economic System.

For, this system is driven by maximising Profit for the Few, while directly extracting the wherewithal to maintain and extend the System, from the the work and the pockets of the majority of the People - the Many! And, the consequences throughout the last century have been totally horrendous - TWO World Wars with literally Tens of Millions of Deaths - entirely due to rival Capitalist powers wanting bigger shares! Impending climate catastrophe as the system requires perpetual growth and the destruction of the natural world which that necessitates. And, also, there have been - Revolutions in TWO of the biggest Countries in the World, whose stated purpose was to build Socialism and bury Capitalism for ever.

So, how has Capitalism survived?

There is no easy answer, but one of the primary reasons the many haven't been able to overthrow the few is because literally ALL the means of disseminating Information are in the biased hands of the Wealthy, and even the apparently Democratic Political Systems, worldwide, have been bought to both speak and act always in a pro-capitalist way!

Yet, even so, it has all been insufficient, and we are now living within a period of literally constant wars - either to supress any divergence from the pro Capitalist Bloc, or to supress any challenge the dominance of the current hegemony of the Leading Capitalist Power - the USA!

And, no matter what setbacks the war-mongers get, they simply redouble their efforts, to maintain the status quo - one way or another. 

It is becoming an existential Crisis for Capitalism, and as they have NO solutions - they still carry on with the vast increases in Debt, which precipitated the continuing Crisis of 2008! It hasn't been a solution to that, so stepping it up again to even higher levels won't solve things now.

So, how can the People break out of their currently powerless position?

They have to FIRST bypass the usual means, and take to the streets!

And, then they must strive to build Socialist Political Parties with the Theory necessary to inform their actions.

And that MUST be Marxist - BUT NOT the distorted versions of the Stalinist/Communist and even the Trotskyist aberrations, but a NEW and Genuine Marxism, based upon the contributions of Karl Marx, but now finally extended into Science, where it is currently exposing the myths of Modern Sub Atomic Physics, as well as rejecting the many Damaging Revisions, in the name of Marxism, which are no such thing!

There is no shortage of Issues: get out there and DEMONSTRATE!