And it is imperiling Earth. In their endless quest to expand and cheapen production, the imperialists plunder resources; pollute water and air; tear down forests; poison soil; and pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The U.S. military, with its monstrous methods of warfare to enforce global domination, consumes more oil than any other institution on the face of the planet.9 The imperialist system has put the planet on an insane trajectory of environmental devastation.
But It Doesn't Have to Be This Way... We Can and Must Make RevolutionThink about it: the interconnected labor of hundreds of millions of people across the planet is organized not to meet basic human and social needs but for the accumulation of capital. Think about it: wealth that is socially produced is seized and privately controlled by capitalist owners... to serve new rounds of profit-making. Think about it: the liberating potential of new technology to free people from unnecessary toil, to help address the environmental emergency, and other great problems... is turned into new nightmares of exploitation, control and surveillance, and genocidal war-making.
Think about it: there is no f*cking reason why this system must keep going on... except for the fact that the imperialists hold power. The basis exists to organize society and economy in a radically different and emancipatory way. The technology, the scientific and broader knowledge, the productive forces overall, especially the people themselves, hold open the possibility of enabling basic human needs to be met and opening up the possibility for humanity to move beyond exploitation, suffering, and scarcity and create a shared abundance.
But the profit system stands as the barrier to that.
Take malaria. Hundreds of thousands of children die each year in Africa of this disease--but pharmaceutical companies, with their vast research capabilities, have not rushed to develop a vaccine. Why? Because as the New York Times business pages calmly explain: "there is no money to be made from a vaccine for poor children who could not possibly pay for inoculation."10 WTF! This is absurd, this is cruel; this is totally unnecessary.
Or take the crisis of decent and affordable housing in U.S. cities. This could be easily solved. The materials and resources exist; countless numbers of socially committed architects and urban planners want to contribute their know-how to a better world; there is a vast reservoir of basic people in the oppressed communities who are locked out of jobs or whose skills are not utilized, and millions of young people burn with a desire to change the world . But under this system, people and resources are not brought together and people are not mobilized to solve the housing crisis--because profit rules and housing is an object of investment and global speculation... while 6,300 people are evicted from rental households every day in the U.S.11 This is absurd, this is cruel, this is totally unnecessary.
Humanity can free itself of exploitation and suffering. But to realize that potential, this system needs to be overthrown. And there is a way to prepare to do that today that is set out in HOW WE CAN WIN--How We Can Really Make Revolution.
Another world is possible. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, provides the vision and framework for a liberatory, planned socialist economy that serves the betterment of humanity and aims to overcome the great divides between those who mainly work with their hands and those who work in the realm of ideas, between women and men, different regions and nationalities; that protects the ecosystems of the planet; and that is oriented to advance the world revolution to uproot all exploitation and oppression... and emancipate all of humanity.
We Need Revolution... This System Needs To Be Overthrown... Another World Is Possible
1. Reward Work, Not Wealth, Oxfam International, 2018.
2. "Why Won't We Learn from the Survivors of the Rana Plaza Disaster?," Dana Thomas, New York Times, April 24, 2018.
3. Thailand: Forced Labor, Trafficking Persist in Fishing Fleets, Human Rights Watch, January 23, 2018.
4. Brian Merchant, "Life and death in Apple's forbidden city," The Guardian, June 18, 2017.
5. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2013: Global Value Chains; International Labour Organization, World Employment and Social Outlook 2015: The Changing Nature of Jobs Supply chains (sometimes referred to as commodity or value chains) take two forms: a company like GM builds parts plants, etc., in other parts of the world; or a company like Nike subcontracts production to other companies, which subcontract to others, and they subcontract to others, etc.
6. The ability of the U.S. government to run up deficits and finance growth--this too is linked to the agony of super-exploited labor in the bowels of the new industrial zones of the Third World. You see, China pours massive earnings from the export of goods manufactured in its sweatshops into bonds and debt sold by the U.S. Treasury. The workings of this system combine financial parasitism with elementary brutality.
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