the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 19, 2024
It’s 77 days and counting down to the Presidential election and promises abound on the campaign trail. Kamala Harris is at the top of the Democratic party ticket, and she is focusing on economic issues: costs of medicines, affordable housing, and grocery prices.
The Democratic Party is promising price cuts on popular medicines prescribed for such diseases as diabetes, heart, Crohn’s, and cancer. First time homebuyers are being promised some tax credits, and possibly some down payment support. A federal ban on price gouging across the food industry is being put forward as an answer to high grocery prices.
But there is no magic wand waved by a politician that can solve these economic problems within the framework of this system, which is based on profit, capitalism. For it is a system where pharmaceutical companies set astronomical prices on drugs and make obscene profits on them, even when prices are reduced; it is a system where millions of people are “house poor” or “rent poor” or even homeless, because property developers, real estate magnates, banks, and private equity groups keep hiking up home and rent prices. It is a system where grocery prices are determined by agribusiness, and giant grocery store chains, with no regard to whether people can afford to eat, or not.
Life-saving drugs should and could be FREE. Housing could and should be affordable. Prices could and should be based on the amount of labor put into producing them, and not on how much profit could be made by a billionaire class. And wages could and should be indexed to costs.
And the truth is—this will only happen, not because workers vote for one capitalist party or the other every four years to save us, but when workers are organized to shut down this system and build one where everyone has the right to health care, to housing and food—that is, to live in a rational, humane society.