EDITORIAL
The Working Class Can Save Itself

Aug 13, 2024

We are caught in the grip of a deadly system, ruled by its drive for profit.

This system, capitalism, creates inflation, driving down our standard of living—letting the corporations, banks and financial groups take an even bigger share of society’s wealth.

This same system pushes many people into unemployment, temporary or part-time work, while forcing others to work overtime. This, too, comes from the drive to amass profit.

The profit-driven system cheats schools, roads, water systems and other public services in order to grab money for war.

Military spending props up the profits of almost every big corporation in the country, depriving us of needed schools and services. But it’s not just a question of money. Today, the U.S. is involved in actual wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and in shadow wars throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. These wars are spreading.

But instead of confronting these crises, TV, newspapers and social media focus on the election—and on candidates of the two parties.

It’s true, the two parties have candidates who seem a little different. Donald Trump doesn’t talk like the usual Republican banker, even if he’s a billionaire like the others. Kamala Harris appears sprightly, more reflective of the population in its diversity—at least, compared to Biden, an old, square, political hack.

They seem different, yes. But so what? Candidates come and candidates go.

But behind candidates are parties. And behind these two parties is the capitalist class.

Whatever squabbling the two parties do, at the end of the day they conspire to make sure society functions well for the very rich—and basically only for the very rich.

Under Trump, the Republicans gave tax breaks worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year to the corporations and the wealthy who own them. Under Biden and Harris, the Democrats gave subsidies worth trillions more to the corporations and their wealthy owners.

It’s two different ways of doing business, but the result is the same: more of society’s wealth flows to the very top of the social order. That wealth comes from the public treasury, originally created by the labor of the men and women who make the wheels of society turn.

The wealth stolen from our labor over the years is more than enough to have solved the crises we face.

Every person could have had a decent standard of living. Every child could have had a complete education, given culture and the skills needed to function in modern society. Public services could work to serve the good of the public. These two parties haven’t turned society’s wealth to the population during the last 168 years they shared the government between themselves. Why would anyone believe they will do it now?

Face facts. To have what we need, we, ourselves, will have to fight for it.

The only way workers have ever had even a slight improvement in their lives is that they fought for it. What really moved things is that working people brought the economy to a halt—from the moment the slaves left the plantations en masse in 1863 up to the mass strikes, then to urban revolts, working people have spread their movements.

We will have to do the same thing, but this time we cannot stop at shutting down the economy. The capitalists who created this mess will have to go—along with the two parties serving them.

There are no political saviors. The working class has only itself to depend on.

But that’s more than enough. Our class lives in the heart of the economy. We produce the food, goods and services society needs; we transport it all; we distribute it. We work in the center of finance and accounting. Making everything run, we can shut it down. This gives us power—if we organize to use it.