MAY DAY!!!!!

April 30, 2023Show more

Written in September of 2021, titled “Through Pluripolarity to Socialism,” I figured, what better way to jump back into my second year of this podcast than reading some excerpts from the manifesto itself, on May Day.

People’s and Peoples’ Demands for Socialism Today:

Capitalism long ago ceased to be historically progressive. Humanity faces the task of wrestling the world-girding socialization of production from its control right on the verge of a new industrial revolution involving robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the Internet of Things, 3D printing and the like. Capitalism cannot develop their full potential while China leads the way, increasingly gaining control over their standards, intellectual property and associated rents from the capitalist world and challenging the cyber supremacy of the US security state.

Today a number of peoples are already building socialism, but most are left paying the price of keeping declining and extortionate capital in control. It is high time all working people began building socialism by forming themselves into a ‘class for itself’, overthrowing the capitalist class and taking political power.

Of course, we will reach communism – a society that produces use values, rather than (exchange) value, and distributes the social product by taking ‘from each according to their ability’ and giving ‘to each according to their need’ – only at the end of a long road. We must traverse several stages of socialism – increasingly socialized production, distribution and outlook – before our productive capacities, our societies and our cultures become capable of relating to other individuals, groups and societies in solidarity, whilst living harmoniously with other species and the planet.

In doing this, the key is seizing control over the state from capital. The role of the public power, the state, is essential and distinctive and control over it should be in the hands of working people. Though capital may rule over considerable private enterprise, particularly during the early socialist stages, a socialist state must progressively subject all production to social ends through planning for the general interest. Whether to socialize given means of production will be a contextual and often pragmatic decision.

Each country, with its historical configuration of productive development, social organization and culture, will proceed along this path with its own pace and pattern. Some may join the journey late, some may take interesting detours and some, likely a small number, may not join in anytime soon.

The overriding principle of ‘people and planet over profits’ implies the following major demands of people and peoples struggling for socialism:

1. Physical, economic and emotional suffering during the pandemic makes the full socialization of health care, with universal access free at the point of use, the lever that opens the gates to socialism. It must include community-based public health systems extended to the remotest districts and villages capable of offering the best prevention and treatment approaches for present and future pandemics. Such healthcare systems are possible in poor countries as well as rich and have two further advantages. Their need for skilled medical practitioners will expand public education, training and research in prevention and cure, offering high quality work for many. Their need for an active public authority strongly committed to social welfare is just what is objectively necessary for the transition to a socialist society. If such a public health system proves possible, if not wholly at least substantially, people will clearly see, demand and be willing to work towards, extending its model to other cognate spheres, such as education, child and elder care or housing....