People Before Profit blog

Jobs and Unity: Standing Up to the GOP Agenda

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:10:00 +0000

The latest crisis orchestrated by the Republican House leadership and Tea Party congressional delegation, this time over raising the federal debt ceiling, shows more than ever a crying need to build a more powerful popular movement.

Otherwise, the Republican political establishment, taking advantage of its 2010 electoral victory, will continue to extort the president, Congress and nation into making ever-greater concessions.

The Tea Party faction’s insistence on no concessions unless the president and Democrats agree to deeper austerity measures is damaging Republicans’ standing with the public. Their intransigence could play to the Democrats’ favor in next year’s elections.

But the bottom line for the Republican congressional delegation, regardless of political persuasion, is full speed ahead with its scorched-earth austerity agenda.

Their goals include:

•    Dismantling democratic institutions and social programs that took generations of hard struggle to win.
•    Eliminating the fighting capacity of a powerful labor-led popular movement which has emerged in battleground states with Republican-controlled governments.
•    Adding presidential and Senate victories in 2012, increasing their control of the House of Representatives, and potentially strengthening their slim Supreme Court majority.
•    Putting on steroids the accumulation of wealth by ever-fewer private corporate hands.

The 2012 elections could be pivotal for the popular movements.

What happens between now and then will go a long way in determining the election outcome and the sustained momentum needed in its aftermath, whatever the outcome.

The big question is what must change for the American working class and people, and their progressive movements, to shift from defending past gains to winning new ones.

For starters, let’s listen to the people.

In myriad polls, solid majorities of Americans favor shifting the tax burden onto the wealthy and the corporations to bring down government deficits and help fund jobs, social programs and infrastructure.

Similarly, majorities favor ending the wars, curtailing military operations abroad and moving to a green economy.

Studies show the jobs issue continues to be uppermost in most people’s minds, though the deficit has gained ground.

After all, with military-like uniformity the right wing has been marching to the “deficit” drumbeat, bringing along many Americans who, like all of us, struggle incessantly to balance family budgets.

They have even managed to hijack the jobs issue.

Any time the president or anyone else suggests a bigger government role in stimulating the economy - closing tax loopholes, raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, or tightening corporate regulations - it’s a financial disincentive for corporate “job-creators.”

The right has been dominating the terms of the national public debate over the economy as well as the agenda in Congress and in most states.

Unquestionably the far right can count on the huge economic and political resources of the most reactionary and powerful sections of capital.

But the resources on our side of the class and democratic divide are nothing to sneeze at.

The important thing is to recognize those aspects on which we can build a winning unified popular movement against the rightwing onslaught.

While uneven, the economic and political crisis and the experiences gained in struggle are thrusting the newly emerging labor-led popular coalition in a still-unfolding leftward trajectory. Among its components:

•    Understanding that the Republican establishment and the Tea Party movement, and their corporate masters, represent the main obstacle to progress now.
•    Keeping the main political fire on the Republicans while not letting Democrats off the hook.
•    Appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of the class and social forces arrayed against unions and the people.
•    Appreciating the main class and social forces whose interests coincide with those of the workers and their families, and understanding which are long-term strategic partners and which, momentary allies.
•    Organized labor transforming itself into a social movement advocating for the cause of all sections of the people.
•    Labor’s proactive challenge to racism and its championing of the fight for equality of people of color, immigrants, women, the LGBT community and other discriminated sectors as well as the cause of youth and seniors.
•    The realization that capitalism itself needs to be replaced with a more people-friendly alternative system, which increasing numbers are recognizing is socialism.

This is coupled with a deepening appreciation of the importance of unity on many levels, including the loosely-configured broad 2008 coalition of class and social forces that won the historic election of our first African American president and a Democratic congressional majority after 30 years of far-right dominance.

Showing the way forward are this year’s labor-led popular upsurge against the assault on the public sector and collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Ohio and other Midwestern states, and the massive “One Nation, Working Together” rally in October, when movements formerly at odds came together in a magnificent expression of unity.

A line of reasoning is emerging that, if packaged in popular slogans and images, could resonate with the people.

Creating jobs and putting money in workers’ pockets will revitalize the economy and expand the tax base with which to pay down the deficit and pay for the nation’s needs.

On the flip side, the just concluded federal debt deal – largely the product of Republican extortion – combined with continuing Republican state government attacks on the public sector will result in job losses that threaten to send the nation into a double-dip Great Recession and make government deficits worse.

Majority public sentiment also makes it possible to take on the right-wing lies about “big government” and government “deficits” being the main problem.

The big banks and transnational corporations are refusing to make use of trillions of dollars in accumulated wealth to invest in job creating ventures.

If the private sector won’t create jobs, then the public sector – government – must step in to fill the void. This was done during the 1930s Great Depression. If it worked then, there is no reason it can’t work today.

Most people resent that millionaires and billionaires, transnational corporations and big banks are making huge - in some cases record - profits, and still want more tax breaks.

Taxing the rich and closing corporate loopholes are also backed by broad and growing public support and popular movements.

So is bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, curtailing military operations abroad and using the money saved to recharge the economy and reduce the deficit. But some sections of the popular movements, including in labor, have been shy of integrating those demands into their programs. This makes it all the more necessary for the peace movement to broaden its base while work continues to win people over in the base of the labor and other movements.

The Obama administration’s initial efforts to move towards a green economy have faltered, in part because of the political fallout from the 2010 elections. But public sentiment and support remains strong. It must continue to be a critical element of any fight for jobs, if we are to save humanity from far worse consequences of climate change.

A successful campaign for jobs and against an austerity economic paradigm will need unity of message and action of the organized labor movement. Organizing the unemployed and underemployed will be essential, with organized labor leading a multi-union-led campaign for jobs and jobless relief involving other social movements, especially those representing people of color, immigrants, women and youth. Jobs with Justice, the Machinists union and local groups are gaining valuable experience for building a much broader united campaign.

Such a movement can draw in labor-related formations like Working America, as well as Moveon.org, Rebuild the Dream, Organizing for America and other online and neighborhood based movements. The environmental and peace movements must and can play a role. Small business is taking a big hit and would be receptive.

Sections of medium and even large business interests could be drawn in around particular demands. Federal government bodies like the congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses need to actively promote a jobs campaign. These can be joined by government bodies at state and local levels which are being forced to cut social programs and public services and lay off countless employees.

A successful campaign for jobs would go a long way to reset the framework for the public debate going into the critical 2012 elections.

Required for victory is unity of the popular forces – and its companion, divisions in the enemy’s camp.

The more united, grassroots-based and clear its message and plan of action, the more likely the labor-led popular movement will be able to leverage its new-found power, intensifying the fissures in the enemy camp, encouraging progressives in government, and putting effective pressure on conservative and middle-of-the-road Democrats.

This will give the president political space to move away from austerity measures into stimulating the economy and creating jobs, as he did during his first year in office. It will help shape public opinion, give Democrats a reason to vote, and win over a large share of the independents and even some Republican and Tea Party supporters.

It won’t be easy. The dominant sections of capital are set on an austerity course. And why not? They’re raking in profits by the bushel even as the economy languishes.

A unified message must reverberate from town halls and union halls, find its way into services at churches, synagogues and mosques, seep into conversations in lunchrooms and across neighbors’ fences, permeate educational, cultural and recreational venues. It must come forward from city councils, school boards and all form of government at the local, state and federal levels. It must become legislation around which to organize this broad constellation of class and social forces.

Action must be coordinated but needs to take multiple forms: petitioning, letter-writing, lobbying, street heat, sit-ins and job actions. And most importantly, a 2012 election campaign waged on the level of the 2008 elections and bigger.

Most likely, we won’t see significant changes for the better until and unless we win the 2012 elections. But today’s struggles will go far to shape the political landscape leading to the elections and the necessary struggles afterwards.

People are in pain, confused, angry and many are ready to move if given the opportunity.

We need an infusion of the Wisconsin spirit – from “California to the New York Island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream water,” in the words of folk-singer legend Woody Guthrie’s immortalized song, “This land is your land.”

Photo by Americans for Financial Reform/ cc by 2.0/Flickr

Either We Do Away with Capitalism, or Capitalism Will Do Away with Us

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:52:00 +0000

The following is an interview with Spanish philosopher Carlos Fernandez Liria. He and his colleague Luis Alegre Zahonero recently won the international Liberator Prize for Critical Thinking for their book, El Orden de El Capital (The Order of Capital).

This is one of the highest honors offered at the international level for a published work, but as Fernández Liria says, “news of the prize has not been carried on any of the Spanish news media, in spite of the fact that it is an international essay prize (with a cash award that is double what our own redoubtable Prince of Asturias gives for his famous prizes) a price which, after all, has been awarded to two Spanish university professors.” In this interview, Carlos speculates about this silence, the contents and purposes of his intellectual work, and its relationship to current crucial events.

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In Venezuela you just won, together with Luis Alegre, the Liberator Prize for Critical Thinking, perhaps the most important prize for Spanish-language Left intellectual production, a prize that has been won by such renowned thinkers as István Mészároz. What is your reading on this fact, and how do you think this will help spread the thesis that you defend throughout your written work?

Luis and I are very grateful. Of course, we thank the Venezuelan government, the Ministry of Culture, and President Chávez, who created this prize which allows left and critical thinking to be recognized, breaking with the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism. We also want very much to recognize Atilio Borón, who we’ve never met, but a person whom we admire very much, plus all the other members of the jury. We want to give special thanks to Farruco Sesto and Carmen Bohorquez, who for the last few years have honored us with their confidence.

As you say, the best part of the prize is that the book will now have a broader distribution. Our hope is that it will serve as one more little grain of sand in the struggles that we must soon confront, which I think will be very hard. What we are facing at a worldwide level is a head-on battle with capitalism itself. In the next twenty years we will have no other option.

This stuff about “socialism or death” is about to gain a whole new meaning, because either we put an end to capitalism or capitalism will put an end to us. Look at what is happening in Japan, for example. If the tsunami wave had been ten meters taller or the earthquake one point stronger (and who says it could not have been!), a dozen nuclear reactors would have melted down and that would have been curtains for tens of thousands of people. It might have become necessary to evacuate Japan. We are sitting on a powder-keg controlled by madmen and criminals. Who, really, are those who we call “the markets?” No matter how you put it, they’re madmen playing Russian roulette with the planet, sacrificing whole peoples, changing their minds every minute, sinking or saving countries like kids playing with toy boats. There have never been dictators who were any deafer or any more demented than these. Not even Caligula or Nero were as spoiled as they, or had anywhere near this much power. .

In several of your books, your own as well as those you authored with Luis (and this one seems to be no exception), you have insisted on a critical analysis of the concept of citizenship and a subversion of what is traditionally understood as the “state of laws,” and you try to show the impossibility of its realization under capitalism. Now you do it through an analysis of Marx’s most studied work, Capital. What do you change or deepen in this book as compared to your earlier works?

I think that the theses that Luis Alegre and I have insisted on maintained in all our previously published works do not need more clarification. As you say, we have made an effort to show that democracy and a state of laws are impracticable under capitalist conditions of production, but, on the other hand, are perfectly doable under socialist conditions. This implies as well that we Communists don’t need to invent anything new or better with respect to the concepts of the republican tradition and the thought of the Enlightenment. Very much to the contrary: What we have to do is claim the ideas of “citizenship” and “state of law” as our own, rather than cede them to the enemy as bourgeois trash destined for the ash-heap of history. All this, as you point out, we have already repeated in different formats, always trying to be as instructive as possible. But there was something very important that we still needed to do: to demonstrate that these theses were compatible with Marx. And to do this we had to read Marx and offer a rigorous interpretation of his work. It has taken us fifteen years to do it. But I think that we’ve demonstrated that Capital can be understood much better if we see it as an integral part of the Enlightenment tradition and republican thinking, something which we do find in the framework of the Marxist intellectual tradition. And what is more, the result becomes much more useful for understanding the human disaster that we are now facing under capitalism.

In its evaluation of the book, the jury that awarded you the prize was appreciative of the fact that “with explicit transformatory purposes you set yourselves to create a reinterpretation of the critical theory of capitalism, in consonance with the challenges of a world that is growing more complex, thus aggravating and increasing the sophistication of its contradictions.” The implications for revolutionary processes like those of Venezuela (To Understand Venezuela, Think of Democracy: The Moral Collapse of the Western Intellectuals, also written with Luis Alegre) or Cuba: (Cuba, the Enlightenment and Socialism, jointly authored with Santiago Alba) have been a constant in your work. You are a tenured university professor and you collaborate with alternative publications like Rebelión. How do you see this relationship between the production of theoretically rigorous thought as in The Order of Capital and the concrete political action that is so urgent at this moment?

When you are trying to theoretically understand something like capitalism it is impossible to remain indifferent. If right triangles would be a monstrous injustice, if the square of the hypotenuse would not be able to be the sum of the square of the other two sides unless it would condemn half of the world population to misery and drive the planet toward ecological and human suicide, professors of mathematics would have a lot more subversive inclinations and the field of mathematics might end up being as persecuted and censored as the works of Marx are among economists. The more we understand what capitalism really is, the more monstrous it becomes. And then it becomes impossible to stand there with your arms crossed, doing nothing.

Your work in the 1980’s on a TV program, “The Crystal Ball,” that became a classic of Spanish audiovisual imagination, or a book like Education for Citizenship, with a heavy graphic component, shows your interest in passing on to younger generations in the most attractive and contemporary manner possible the tools that are necessary for critical analysis. How do you think we can make use of spaces like the Internet in this direction?

What is happening on the Internet is a unique revolution. In just a short span of time, television, which had been the most powerful instrument of ideological control in human history (even more so than the church, for instance), has been transformed into an antique, a household dust-catcher like the sewing machine or the typewriter. Young people don’t get their information from television; they don’t even get their entertainment from it any more. Their world is on line, and this opens unparalleled possibilities for the revolutionary struggle. The Arab revolutions and the Spanish 15-M movement are examples.

In spite of your having a solid publication record, and in spite of your being a professor at one of the most important universities in the country, on several occasions you’ve suffered censorship in the media. Has this prize changed anything in this sense?

Look, I could care less, but news about the Prize hasn’t been covered in any of the Spanish media, in spite of the fact that it’s an international prize (with an award that’s twice what our redoubtable Prince of Asturias gives out with his famous prizes), which, after all, has been awarded to two Spanish university professors. We’re not so much talking about censorship, but about something much worse: The media have been kidnapped by their owners, vast commercial corporations that can’t see any further than their own interests. There are no truly public media that escape this reality. Here there is no more freedom of expression than that which a few multimillionaires can afford to pay for.

In a recent contribution to La pupila insomne [The Insomniac Pupil] you say that “capitalism can no longer allow a society worthy of the name,” and you conclude that the so-called “Spanish Revolution” has only just begun. A few weeks after making this statement, you repeated it. Why do you say this?

We are in a blind alley with no way out, so it can’t be any other way. This doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily going to win the battles that are to come, but I have no doubt that the peoples are going to put up a good fight. Everyone now recognizes that, economically speaking what is happening worldwide is class struggle, pure and simple. The first ones to recognize it have been, as business magnate Warren Buffett said, “Those who are winning,” that is, the rich and powerful, the very same speculators who are dragging the world to the brink of disaster while they amass more and more money. The great Wall Street economist Michael Hudson has been repeating this endlessly: What is happening is called class struggle, just plain class struggle. And the lower and middle classes are getting soundly whipped. But there will be a fightback. In Greece they’re putting up a good fight. It’s going on in the Arab countries, in Latin America, in Iceland, in Portugal. In Spain it is still impossible to predict how the 15-M Movement will develop, but for now it hasn’t stopped growing. But I’m telling you that this fall will bring us a lot of surprises.

(Published in CubAhora / Rebelion.org | Translated by Owen Williamson)

Photo by bnv producciones/ cc by 3.0/Wikimedia Commons

China's Path to Socialism

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:50:00 +0000

Note: Following is the full text of the keynote speech made by Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), at a grand gathering marking the 90th founding anniversary of the CPC at the Great Hall of the People Friday, July 1, 2011

Today, together with the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in China, we are holding this grand meeting here to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and also to review the great course of China’s development and progress and look ahead at the bright future of development and prosperity for the country.

90 years of history

The CPC was founded 90 years ago today, which was an epoch-making event in the history of the Chinese nation. From then on, the Chinese people embarked on the bright road of striving for independence and liberation and began the glorious pursuit of prosperity and strength for the country and themselves.

Over the past 90 years, Chinese Communists and the people of all ethnic groups in China have, through indomitable struggles, achieved major successes in revolution, development and reform. Today, a vibrant socialist China has emerged in the East, and the 1.3 billion Chinese people are forging ahead full of confidence under the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

In the 170 plus years since the Opium War of 1840, our great country has weathered untold hardships, our great nation has waged earthshaking struggles, and our great people have scored splendid achievements in the annals of history.

Following the Opium War, China gradually became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and foreign powers stepped up their aggression against China. The feudal rule became increasingly corrupt, the country was devastated by incessant wars and turbulence, and the Chinese people suffered from hunger, cold, and oppression. To salvage China from subjugation was an urgent mission for the Chinese nation. And the Chinese people faced the historic tasks of winning independence and liberation, and making China strong and prosperous.

In those dark years, in order to change the destiny of the Chinese nation, the Chinese people, led by many leading figures with lofty ideals, waged unyielding struggles to explore a new future against great odds. Not resigned to fate, the Chinese people launched one struggle after another, such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, and the Yihetuan Movement, but all these struggles ended in failure. The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen put an end to the autocratic rule that had existed in China for several thousand years. This revolution greatly boosted China’s social progress, but it did not change the country’s nature as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society or end the misery of the Chinese people.

Facts have shown that neither the mission of striving for national survival nor the historic task of fighting imperialism and feudalism could be accomplished by reformist self-improvement movements which did not touch the foundation of feudal rule, old-style peasant wars, revolutions led by bourgeois revolutionaries, or other attempts to copy Western capitalism. To find a way of achieving China’s development and progress, one must, first of all, find an advanced theory that can guide the Chinese people in their revolution against imperialism and feudalism, and an advanced social force must rise that can lead social changes in China.

In 1921, the CPC was born in the process of integrating Marxism-Leninism with the Chinese workers’ movement. The birth of the CPC was a natural product of the development of modern and contemporary Chinese history as well as the indomitable exploration of the Chinese people for survival of the nation. The birth of the CPC put the Chinese revolution on the right course, gave the Chinese people a powerful motivation and created bright prospects for China’s future development.

Role of the Party

Over the past 90 years, our Party has united with and led the Chinese people in writing a grand epic in the history of human development on this ancient land of China, evidenced in three earthshaking events.

The first is that our Party, firmly relying on the people, completed the new-democratic revolution, winning national independence and liberation of the people. The Party and the people fought through the Northern Expedition, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation in 28 years, during which they defeated Japanese imperialist aggressors, overthrew the Kuomintang reactionary rule and established the People’s Republic of China. With the founding of New China, the Chinese people became masters of their country and society and determined their own destiny. China achieved a great transition from a feudal autocracy that was several thousand years old to a people’s democracy. Great unity and unprecedented solidarity of all ethnic groups were realized in China. The history of old China being a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society which was like a heap of loose sand was brought to an end once and for all. The unequal treaties imposed on China by imperialist powers and all the privileges they had in China were abolished. The Chinese people stood up, and the Chinese nation entered a new era of development and progress.

The second is that, firmly relying on the people, our Party completed the socialist revolution and established the basic socialist system. We creatively achieved the transition from New Democracy to socialism, therefore creating a socialist society for a quarter of the world’s population in this large country in the East, and brought about the most extensive and profound social changes in Chinese history. We established industrial and economic systems that were independent and fairly complete, and we gained important experience of building socialism in China, a country with backward productive forces.

The third is that, firmly relying on the people, our Party carried out a great new revolution of reform and opening up, creating, upholding, and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics. Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, we have reviewed China’s practices of building socialism and drawn on the experience of other countries. We have embarked on the path of reform and opening up with tremendous political and theoretical courage and courage in practice. Going through an arduous process of trial and error, we have formed the Party’s basic theory, line and platform and gained basic experience in the primary stage of socialism, established a socialist market economy and constantly improved it, made China fully open, and made world-renowned progress in the socialist modernization drive.

These three major events reshaped the future and destiny of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. They irreversibly ended the misery endured by China in modern times when it suffered from both domestic turmoil and foreign invasion and was poor and weak. They also irreversibly started the Chinese nation’s historic march for development, growth, and great rejuvenation. They gave China, a civilization of over 5,000 years, a completely new look and created unimagined prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Changes in Chinese society

The profundity and the political and social impact of the changes that have taken place in Chinese society and in the destiny of the Chinese people over the past 90 years are rare in the history of human development.

What has happened shows that in the great cause of China’s social development and progress since modern times, history and the people have chosen the CPC, Marxism, the socialist road, and the reform and opening up policy.

History has also fully shown that the CPC truly deserves to be called a great, glorious and correct Marxist political party and the core force leading the Chinese people in breaking new ground in development.

We owe all our achievements over the past 90 years to the tenacious struggles waged by Chinese Communists and the people of several generations. The Party’s first generation of central collective leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong at the core united with and led the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in achieving the great victory of the new-democratic revolution, establishing the basic socialist system and creating the fundamental political prerequisite and institutional foundation for all development and progress in contemporary China. The Party’s second generation of central collective leadership with Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the core united with and led the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in starting the great march toward reform and opening up, sounding the bugle of the times for building socialism with Chinese characteristics and ushering in a new period of socialist development. The Party’s third generation of central collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at the core united with and led the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in steadfastly carrying out reform and opening up, advancing with the times, guiding reform and opening up to move in the right direction, and successfully ushering the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics into the 21st century. Since the Party’s Sixteenth National Congress, the Party Central Committee has united with and led the entire Party and the people of all ethnic groups in following Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents, fully implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development, energetically promoting scientific development and social harmony, and continuing to advance the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics by building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

At this moment when we are marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, we cherish the memory of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation who contributed so much to China’s revolution, development, and reform and to the founding, consolidation, and growth of the CPC. We cherish the memory of revolutionary martyrs who gave their lives in founding, defending, and building New China. We also cherish the memory of all the forerunners who struggled tenaciously for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation in modern times. Their tremendous contributions to China and the Chinese nation will go down in the annals of history.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, I wish to pay high tribute to workers, farmers, and intellectuals throughout China, to the democratic parties, people’s organizations, and patriotic figures from all walks of life, and to the People’s Liberation Army, People’s Armed Police Force, and public security police. I would also like to extend sincere greetings to our compatriots in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, and Taiwan and to overseas Chinese. Lastly, I wish to express cordial thanks to all the foreign friends and people of other countries who are friendly to the Chinese people, and view favorably and support China’s revolution, development, and reform endeavors.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics

We have embarked on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, formed a system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics and established a socialist system with Chinese characteristics. These achievements made over 90 years of endeavors, innovation, and enrichment, should be valued, upheld on a long-term basis and continuously built upon by our Party and people.

The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the only way for China to achieve socialist modernization and create decent lives for its people. In taking the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we should, under the leadership of the CPC and bearing China’s basic national conditions in mind, pursue economic development as the central task, uphold the Four Cardinal Principles, be committed to the reform and opening up policy, free and develop the productive forces, strengthen and improve the socialist system, promote the socialist market economy, socialist democracy, an advanced socialist culture, and a harmonious socialist society, and make China a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist country.

The system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics is sound, which guides the Party and people in realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as they advance along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The Party has consistently integrated the basic tenets of Marxism with the specific conditions of China, and it has made two great theoretical achievements in the historical process of adapting Marxism to China’s conditions. One is Mao Zedong Thought, which represents the application and development of Marxism-Leninism in China. Mao Zedong Thought has resolved in a systematic way the issue of how to accomplish the new-democratic revolution and socialist revolution in China, a big semi-colonial and semi-feudal country in the East, and made painstaking effort to explore the issue of what kind of socialism China should build and how to build it, thereby making new and creative contributions to enriching Marxism. The other theoretical achievement is the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This is a scientific theoretical system consisting of Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development and other major strategic thoughts. It has systematically addressed a series of significant issues, such as what kind of socialism China, a large developing country of over one billion people, should build and how to build it; what kind of party we should build and how to build it; and what kind of development China should achieve and how to achieve it. The system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics represents the continuation and development of Mao Zedong Thought.

The socialist system with Chinese characteristics, which fully embodies the distinctive features and strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics, is a fundamental institutional guarantee for development and progress of contemporary China. In the course of promoting the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist system, we have put in place a complete set of integrated, interconnected systems in the economic, political, cultural, and social fields. They include the following: the system of people’s congresses which is China’s fundamental political system; the basic political systems which include the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of community-level self-governance; the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics; the basic economic system with public ownership being the leading sector and economic entities under diverse forms of ownership developing together; and specific economic, political, cultural, and social institutions based on the fundamental political system, basic political systems and the basic economic system. These systems and institutions are compatible with China’s reality and conform to the trend of the times. They keep the Party and country full of vitality and fully tap the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of the people and all sectors of society. They serve to free and develop the productive forces and promote all-around economic and social development. They uphold and promote fairness and justice and aim to bring prosperity to all. They make it possible to pool resources to undertake major national initiatives, and they can effectively defuse risks and meet challenges on our road ahead. They serve to maintain ethnic solidarity, social stability, and national unity.

Challenges today

We are facing drastic changes in the world and arduous tasks of promoting reform and development and maintaining stability in China. For our Party to unite with and lead the people in forging ahead, make new progress in its work and win new victories for its cause, it must hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, keep to and expand the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, uphold and enrich the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and adhere to and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.

Looking back at China’s development and progress over the past 90 years, we have naturally come to this basic conclusion: Success in China hinges on the Party.

A review of its 90 years of development shows that the following are essential for our Party to preserve and develop its advanced nature as a Marxist political party: The Party should free up the mind, seek truth from facts, advance with the times, take a scientific approach toward Marxism, use Marxism as an evolving theory to guide practice in new realities, uphold truth, correct mistakes, blaze new trails, and maintain the motivation that enables the Party to forge ahead in a pioneering spirit. It should serve the people, rely on them, work for their benefit with heart and soul, draw on their wisdom and strength, and always maintain close ties with them. The Party should appoint officials on their merits, attract as many talents as possible, use our cause to inspire, train, and cultivate high-caliber personnel, constantly absorb new blood, and maintain its vitality at all times. The Party should police itself and impose strict discipline on its members, face its own serious problems and resolve them in a timely manner and thus keep its soundness.

The entire Party must be keenly aware that at a time of profound changes in global, national and intra-Party conditions, we are now faced with many new developments, problems, and challenges in our effort to enhance the Party’s leadership and governance and its ability to resist corruption and degeneration and to withstand risks, and strengthen its governance capacity and advanced nature. We are facing long-term, complicated and severe tests in governing the country, in implementing reform and opening up and in developing the market economy, as well as tests in the external environment. And the whole Party is confronted with growing danger of lacking in drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lacking in initiative, and corruption. It has thus become even more important and urgent than ever before for the Party to police itself and impose strict discipline on its members.

We must recognize the new realities, continue to guide Party building with scientific theories, study and solve major theoretical and practical issues in Party building in a spirit of reform and innovation, focus on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and accelerating socialist modernization, fully appreciate and apply the law governing the development of Marxist ruling parties, promote comprehensive progress in the great new undertaking of Party building, and make Party building more scientific.

Ideological challenges

To make Party building more scientific under the new historical conditions, we must continue to free up our minds, seek truth from facts, advance with the times, adapt Marxism both to China’s conditions and to the current times, and make it known to the general public so as to raise the ideological and political awareness of the whole Party.

The Party’s growth over the past 90 years shows that theoretical maturity is the basis for political conviction, advancing with the times theoretically is a prerequisite for forging ahead in action, and unity of thinking is an important guarantee for the whole Party to march in step. We Chinese Communists believe that the basic tenets of Marxism are an irrefutable truth and that Marxism must be constantly enriched and developed as practice changes, and we never take Marxism as an empty, rigid, and stereotyped dogma. For Marxism, practice is the source of its theory, the basis for its development, and the criterion for testing its truth. Any actions that stick to dogma, ignore practice, or overstep or lag behind real life will not succeed. We made mistakes and even suffered severe setbacks in some historical periods, and their root cause was that the guiding principles of the Party at the time were divorced from the real conditions in China. It was only by restoring and upholding the line of seeking truth from facts that the Party was able to correct its mistakes, overcome its setbacks and forge ahead triumphantly by relying on its own strengths and those of the people. The experiences and lessons our Party has learned in this regard are reviewed systematically in the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party and the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China. We must never forget these experiences and lessons.

The development of practice, cognition of the truth, and innovation of theories know no boundary. The practice of the Party and the people keeps progressing, so should the theories guiding it. The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics will definitely be expanded through the innovative practice of the Party and the people, and the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics will surely continue to improve as we deepen reform and open up wider. This process will certainly open up broad prospects for theoretical innovation. In upholding Marxism under the new historical conditions, it is important to promptly address new issues emerging in practice and thus provide scientific guidance for practice. We should have a correct understanding of the global development trend and China’s basic condition of being in the primary stage of socialism, find out more about the features of China’s development at the current stage, review the new experience gained in a timely manner by the people led by the Party, and create new theories with the focus on major issues concerning economic and social development, so as to ensure the vitality of scientific theories.

Every step forward in theoretical innovation should be accompanied by progress in arming Party members with such new theoretical innovation. This is an important experience the Party has gained in improving itself. To build a Marxist political party committed to learning, we must lose no time in studying all scientific, new ideas and new knowledge in human society. All Party members and cadres should take learning as an intellectual pursuit, study in an in-depth way and master Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought as well as theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics, foster a worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, and genuinely cultivate virtues, increase knowledge and enhance competence through learning. All the comrades in the Party, especially leading Party cadres at all levels, should constantly improve themselves both ideologically and politically, reinforce our ideals and convictions, and enhance our eagerness and resolve to tirelessly work for the cause of the Party and the people. We should be fully committed to doing so to ensure that we remain firm and faithful in our actions.

To make Party building more scientific under the new historical conditions, we must recruit people on merits without regard to their origins, adhere to the criterion of evaluating cadres in terms of both political integrity and professional ability with priority given to integrity, and encourage outstanding individuals in all fields to join the cause of the Party and country.

The Party’s growth over the past 90 years shows that once the political line is adopted, cadres are important in ensuring its success. To place cadres on merits without regard to their origins is dictated by our Party’s nature and goal. The only interests the Party has are those of the people, and it does not have special interests for itself. The Party adheres to this lofty principle, and for all those who are loyal to the people, identify themselves with the people and dedicate themselves to the people, the Party provides a big arena to give full play to their talent. Whether the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics can become wider and whether the Chinese nation can achieve its great rejuvenation depend on our success in training and fostering a large number of outstanding personnel, and particularly, in bringing outstanding personnel in all fields to the fore and bringing out their best.

We should open up, with greater vision, determination and courage, channels for recruiting talented personnel, quickly identify outstanding cadres in all fields and put them to good use. We will continue to give top priority to political integrity in placing cadres, and select and place those who have firm political conviction and outstanding performance and are capable and well received by the people. Cadres should be placed in accordance with the principles that integrity should be fostered in self-improvement, in setting an example for others, and in enhancing competence and that integrity should be matched by competence. We will continue to place cadres based on their performance so that capable people are given opportunities and well placed, honest persons are not disadvantaged, those who seek personal gains by acting in a calculating way and currying favor will gain nothing, and all outstanding cadres can dedicate themselves to the Party and the people.

To continuously train a large number of outstanding young cadres is of fundamental importance for carrying on the cause of the Party and the people from generation to generation. To shoulder heavy responsibilities, young cadres must foster a sound worldview and correct views on power and career, and they should be loyal to the Party’s cause, be identified with the people, be committed to whatever they do, and constantly improve themselves. Young cadres need to take the initiative to work in hardship areas and complicated environments and take up challenging positions to temper their moral character and work style and improve their ability. When young cadres come to the fore in large numbers who have honed themselves in tough and complicated environments, endured the test of major struggles, and proved themselves outstanding and promising, they will create a great future for the cause of the Party and the people.

Talent is the most important resource and a strategic resource for a country’s development. All the comrades in the Party and the whole society should adhere to the major principle of respect for work, knowledge, talent, and creation, imbue themselves with the view that everyone has potential talent to develop, and do not hesitate to use talents for the cause of the Party and the people. We should provide broad platforms to talented persons of all types to pursue their career and fully tap their development potential, and make sure that everyone contributes their due share to the country, the people, and the nation. It is particularly important to speed up the training of talented young people and to ensure that capable people emerge in great numbers and put their talents to best use and that everyone can bring out their best.

People first

To make Party building more scientific under the new historical conditions, we must follow the principle of putting people first and governing for the people, firmly adhere to the Marxist viewpoint on the people, purposefully implement the mass line of the Party, and maintain close ties between the Party and the people.

The growth of the Party over the past 90 years shows that the fact that the Party comes from the people, takes root among the people and serves the people ensures its invincibility. Putting people first and governing for the people is what the Party is all about. It fully embodies the Party’s fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly. It is the ultimate yardstick to guide, assess, and test all governance activities of the Party. All the comrades in the Party must bear in mind that maintaining close ties with the people gives the Party its biggest political asset while alienation from the people poses the greatest risk to the Party after it has gained political power. Therefore, we must always place the people’s interests before everything else, and make sure that the aim and outcome of all our work is to realize, uphold and expand the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. We must exercise power for the people, identify ourselves with them and work for their interests. This will win us the most extensive, reliable, and solid popular support, which will serve the source of strength for our work.

All Party members must put the people foremost in their minds, respect the people as masters of the house and their creativity, and treat them as teachers. We must ensure that in their growth, our political vision and governance capacity draw inspiration from the creative practices of the people. We should attach great importance to work relating to the people under new conditions and do the job well. We must consult the people on policies, learn about their needs, and seek suggestions from them. We must listen to their views, truthfully reflect their wishes, help alleviate their hardships, and protect their economic, political, cultural, and social rights and interests in accordance with the law. The people will care about and feel close to the Party only when the Party feels the same toward them. Party and government offices at all levels and their officials should be more community-focused in their work, regularly visit communities, and stay close with the people. In this way, we can learn more about the actual conditions of the people, address their concerns, and give them a warm feeling that we care about them. We should take local communities as a training ground for officials and encourage them to forge closer bonds with the people through daily interactions and become better able to serve them. Serving the people and carrying out people-related work should be pursued as the central task of community-level Party organizations and the basic duties of community-based officials. This will enable community-level Party organizations to play a key role in promoting development, serving the people, increasing public cohesion, and promoting harmony.

Fighting corruption

To make Party building more scientific under the new historical conditions, we must follow the principle of fighting corruption in a comprehensive way, addressing both its symptoms and root causes, and combining punishment with prevention with emphasis on prevention. We must intensify efforts to improve Party conduct, uphold integrity and combat corruption so as to maintain the advanced nature and integrity of the Party as a Marxist political party.

The growth of the Party over the past 90 years shows that cracking hard on and effectively preventing corruption is crucial in gaining popular support for the Party and ensuring its very survival, and it is therefore a major political task the Party must attend to at all times. The Party is soberly aware of the gravity and danger of corruption that have emerged under the conditions of the Party being long in power as well as the need to combat corruption throughout the course of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. The Party’s unequivocal and consistent opposition to corruption and the steady, notable new progress made in fighting corruption and upholding integrity provide an important guarantee for advancing reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. On the other hand, grave challenges and daunting tasks remain in fighting corruption. If not effectively curbed, corruption will cost the Party the trust and support of the people. The whole Party must remain vigilant against corruption, be fully aware that fighting corruption will be a protracted, complicated and arduous battle, and give higher priority to combating corruption and upholding integrity. The Party must demonstrate greater confidence and resolve and take more forceful measures to improve the institutions for punishing and preventing corruption and unswervingly fight corruption.

Leading officials at all levels must bear in mind that our power is entrusted to us by the people and can only be used in their interests. In exercising power, we must serve the people, hold ourselves accountable to them, and readily subject ourselves to their oversight. We must not turn our power into an instrument for making personal gains for a handful of individuals. Officials at all levels must have a keen sense of living up to the people’s trust, guarding against wrong doing, and holding themselves to higher standards. We must act in the true Party spirit, ensure integrity, and play an exemplary role in society. One should not forget his origin when in prominent position; he should not abandon the role of public servants once in public post, or use power for personal gains. We must preserve the political integrity of Communists.

To make Party building more scientific under the new historical conditions, we must place power, Party affairs, and Party members under institutional safeguards, improve democratic centralism, and promote Party building in an institutionalized and standardized way and through due process.

The growth of the Party over the past 90 years shows that Party institutions are of fundamental importance in building and running a party with several dozen million members, as such institutions bear closely on the Party’s long-term and overall performance and its stable growth. Institutional building must be fully integrated with our efforts to strengthen the Party ideologically and organizationally, improve its style of work, combat corruption and ensure the integrity of the Party. In improving Party institutions, we must set out clear priorities, take a holistic approach, carry on fine traditions while innovating boldly. Our goal is to establish a system of Party institutions which are well coordinated in terms of scope, comprehensive and effective and are governed by rigorous procedures.

In enhancing the building of Party institutions, we should follow the Party Constitution, exercise democratic centralism, adhere to and improve the Party’s leadership system, reform and improve its leadership and governance. We should develop intra-Party democracy, promote transparency in Party affairs in an active yet prudent manner, ensure the principal status and democratic rights of Party members, improve the system of Party congresses and the intra-Party electoral system, and improve the mechanism for democratic decision making in the Party. We must safeguard the solidarity and unity of the Party, enhance its creativity and fight arbitrary behavior by individuals and weakness and laxity, which violate the principle of democratic centralism. All the comrades in the Party should bear in mind that all people are equal before the law, that no one has the privilege to overstep institutions and that no exception should be made in enforcing institutional safeguards. We should familiarize ourselves with, strictly apply and conscientiously safeguard Party institutions.

In short, if all the comrades in the Party care about the Party’s future, fulfill their responsibility for its growth, and promote Party building with greater vigor, our Party will better keep up with the trend of history, stand firm in the forefront of the times and advance social progress.

Since the very day of its founding, the CPC has heroically shouldered the historic mission of uniting with and leading the people in achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In pursuing this great cause, we must unswervingly follow the basic line of the Party, continue to free up our minds, forge ahead with reform and opening up, promote scientific development, enhance social harmony, and make overall progress in the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics from the new historical starting point.

Looking to the future, all the comrades in the Party must never forget that it was thanks to reform and opening up that China has developed rapidly in the past 30 plus years, and we must promote China’s future development by continuing to carry out reform and opening up.

Successes of the reform

The most salient feature of the new period is reform and opening up. Reform and opening up constitute a great new revolution carried out by the people under the leadership of the Party in the new historical stage. They are a critical choice that holds the future of contemporary China. They are what we must pursue in upholding and building socialism with Chinese characteristics and achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Only by carrying out reform and opening up can we develop China, socialism, and Marxism. Profound changes are taking place in the world, in China, and in the Party. China suffers from a serious lack of balance, coordination, and sustainability in its development; and there are institutional obstacles to scientific development. In no way can we get around these problems, which must be resolved in the course of deepening reform. We must firmly follow the line, principles, and policies adopted since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Party Central Committee, be confident and courageous, apply the spirit of reform and innovation to all aspects of government administration and strive to make greater progress in reform and opening up. We should keep developing the socialist market economy in our reform, ensure the soundness of decisions concerning reform and enhance coordination of reform measures taken. We should identify areas where breakthroughs can be made, set priorities in deepening reform and opening up, advance reform in important areas and key links when opportunities are ripe and continue to reform the economic, political, cultural and social systems in an innovative way. We should further free and develop the productive forces, promote the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist system, and get rid of all the notions and remove all the institutional drawbacks that hinder scientific development. By doing so, we will create a strong momentum in advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

On the way forward, we must firmly carry out the central task of economic development and stay committed to pursuing scientific development.

Pursuing economic development as our central task is essential for reinvigorating China and achieving prosperity and enduring political stability of our Party and country. Only by promoting sound and rapid economic development can we build a strong material foundation for enhancing China’s development and prosperity, ensuring happiness and wellbeing of the people of all our ethnic groups and achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In the past 30 plus years of reform and opening up, we have pursued economic development as the top priority and developed the productive forces at an unprecedented speed. This is the fundamental reason for the marked improvement in China’s overall strength, the living standards of the Chinese people and China’s international standing. In the time to come, we must continue to follow the strategic thinking that only development counts and firmly carry out the central task of economic development, and we should not waver in the slightest in this pursuit.

The productive forces are the primary force driving the development of human society. Our Party entered the historical arena representing China’s advanced productive forces. All the Party’s endeavors are pursued to free and develop the productive forces and improve the people’s lives. We have made remarkable achievements. However, China’s basic condition has not changed, that is, it is still is in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so for a long time to come, and the principal issue in society is still how to meet the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people while upgrading backward social production. And China’s international status as the largest developing country in the world has not changed. Development is still the key to solving all the problems in China. We should seize and make the most of the important and strategic opportunities that have presented themselves now and in the coming period to promote China’s development. To do so will enable us to take the initiative, gain advantages and ensure victory in the future. But this also presents a major test for our Party’s governance capacity and for our nation’s self-improvement capacity. We must continue to focus on pursuing development and consolidate the material foundation for upholding and building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

In contemporary China, only development counts, and this calls for pursuing scientific development. We should take scientific development as the goal and give priority to accelerating the shift of model of economic development. We also need to place more emphasis on the following efforts: putting people first; promoting comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development; taking all factors into consideration when making overall plans; carrying out reform and opening up; and ensuring and improving the people’s wellbeing. We will accelerate strategic adjustment of the economic structure, scientific and technological progress and innovation, and the building of a resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society. We will promote fairness and justice; long-term, steady and rapid economic development; and social harmony and stability. We will continue to make new and greater achievements in pursuing civilized development that leads to increased production, better lives for the people, and a sound ecosystem, and thus lay a more solid foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Socialist democracy

On the way forward, we will continue to vigorously promote the development of socialist democracy and keep to the socialist path of enhancing the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics.

People’s democracy has always been a glorious goal pursued by the CPC. Since the reform and opening up policy was introduced, the Party has reviewed both positive and negative lessons in developing socialist democracy, and it has come to the conclusion that without democracy there can be no socialism and socialist modernization, and that the essence of socialist democracy is that the people determine their own destiny. We have steadfastly promoted the political structural reform and made major progress in developing socialist democracy. We have eliminated de facto life tenure for leading officials, and realized orderly succession of organs of state power and leaders. We have expanded orderly public participation in political affairs, and the people are extensively involved in decision making. We have upheld and improved multiparty cooperation under the leadership of the CPC, carried out political consultation, democratic oversight and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, and developed the broadest possible patriotic united front. We have set up a sound decision-making mechanism that enables us to be fully aware of the conditions of the people, reflect their will, pool their wisdom and lighten their burden to make sure all our decisions meet the people’s interests and aspirations. We have set up a sound and dynamic personnel mechanism which attracts large numbers of talented people, puts them to best use and prepares them for both promotion and demotion. This has created wide-ranging opportunities for people to fully tap their potentials. We have established a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics. Under this system, the Party willingly operates within the limit set by the Constitution and laws and supports the people’s congress, the government, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and the judicial organs which have independent responsibilities in accordance with the law and their respective charters in working in concert and harmony. We have set up a sound system of checks and supervision over the exercise of power to ensure that Party and state organs exercise their powers in accordance with statutory jurisdiction and procedures. Practices have fully proved that China’s socialist democracy is full of vitality and that the socialist path of enhancing the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics is correct and ensures that the people determine their own destiny.

On the other hand, we must also recognize that the development of China’s socialist democratic legal system has not fully met the need of expanding people’s democracy and promoting economic and social development. Some specific institutional arrangements of the system of socialist democracy are inadequate, and there is still room for improvement in terms of safeguarding people’s democratic rights and giving play to their creativity. As the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics moves forward, so should the cause of building China’s socialist democracy.

To develop socialist democracy, we must keep to the path of enhancing the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics. What is important is that the leadership of the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country, and the rule of law should be well integrated. We will actively yet prudently carry out the political structural reform to achieve the fundamental goal that the people should determine their destiny, increase vitality of the Party and the country and fully tap the initiative of the people. We will expand socialist democracy, build a socialist country under the rule of law, and promote socialist political progress. We should ensure that the Party plays its role as the core of leadership in exercising overall responsibilities and coordinating the efforts of all sides, and improve its capabilities to conduct scientific, democratic, and law-based governance. This will enable the Party to lead the people in effectively governing the country. We must see to it that all state powers belong to the people, improve institutions for exercising democracy, diversify its forms, expand its channels, and ensure that the people can participate in democratic elections, decision making, administration and oversight in accordance with the law. We will fully implement law-based governance as a fundamental policy, raise public awareness of the rule of law under socialism throughout society, improve law making, ensure strict law enforcement, impartial administration of justice, and observance of law by everyone and that everything we do is governed by law. In short, we will improve institutions, standards, and procedures for exercising socialist democracy, give greater play to the superiority of China’s socialist political system, and provide a better institutional guarantee for promoting prosperity, development, and enduring political stability of the Party and the country.

Socialist culture

On the way forward, we will continue to promote vigorous development and enrichment of socialist culture, and unwaveringly develop an advanced socialist culture.

Advanced socialist culture is an ideological and intellectual banner of a Marxist political party. As culture has increasingly become an important factor in competition for overall national strength, we must have a keen sense of our own cultural identity, have confidence in our culture, focus on raising the quality of our nation and shaping a noble character, redouble efforts to promote cultural reform and development, carry out cultural innovation in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and enable the people to share in cultural achievements.

We will continue to develop a national, scientific, and popular socialist culture oriented toward modernization, the world, and the future. We will increase the public appeal of the advanced socialist culture, and promote comprehensive development of socialist cultural and ethical progress and material progress. We will steadily increase the whole nation’s cultural creativity and let people enjoy richer and more colorful cultural life, and we will make sure that their basic cultural rights and interests are better ensured, and comprehensive progress is made in their ideological and moral standards and scientific and cultural levels. All these efforts are designed to create a source of inspiration for the Chinese nation.

To develop advanced socialist culture, we must incorporate improving socialist core values into the entire process of national education, promoting cultural and ethical progress, and Party building. We will continue to use the latest achievements in adapting Marxism to China’s conditions to equip the whole Party and educate the people, guide cadres and the people to acquire a deep understanding of the Party’s advances in theoretical innovation, and reinforce their ideals and convictions. We will vigorously promote the national spirit centered on patriotism and a spirit of the times with reform and innovation at its core, enhance self-respect, confidence and pride of the Chinese nation, and inspire the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups to join hands and work hard for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We will use the socialist concept of honor and disgrace to guide public conduct, intensify efforts to cultivate public morale, professional ethics, family values, and personal ethics, strengthen moral education among young people, and foster inspiring cultural pursuits and healthy, civilized lifestyles in the whole society. We will speed up the reform of the cultural sector, accelerate the building of a system of public cultural services, and develop cultural programs and the culture industry. We should bring Chinese culture to the world, develop cultural soft power compatible with China’s international standing, and increase the influence of Chinese culture in the world. The Chinese nation has created an extensive and profound culture with a long history, and it can surely add new splendor to Chinese culture on the basis of inheriting and enriching its fine traditional culture.

On the way forward, we will continue to vigorously ensure and improve the people’s wellbeing, and work to build a harmonious socialist society.

Socialist development

To attain the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, it is necessary to ensure and improve the people’s wellbeing and promote social harmony. We must promote social development to uphold the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and the enduring political stability of the country, and ensure that social development advances in step with economic, political, and cultural development.

To promote social development, we should focus on ensuring and improving the people’s wellbeing, and make special efforts to solve the most practical problems of the utmost and immediate concern to the people. We should ensure that development is for the people and carried out by the people and that they share in the fruits of development. We will strengthen the institutional arrangements for ensuring and improving the people’s wellbeing, give high priority to promoting employment in our economic and social development, and accelerate the development of education, social security, medicine and healthcare, low-income housing and other social programs. We will ensure that all the people have equal access to basic public services, make more efforts to regulate income distribution, pursue prosperity for all, and strive to ensure that all the people enjoy the right to education, employment, medical and old-age care, and housing.

To strike a balance among reform, development, and stability and achieve unity of the three is an important guideline for achieving overall success in China’s socialist modernization. Development is critically important, and upholding stability is also a critically important task. Without stability, nothing could be done, and even the achievements already made could be lost. This is a lesson that all the comrades in the Party should keep in mind, and we should make all the people keep this lesson in mind.

China is going through social changes unparalleled in scope. While releasing tremendous dynamism for China’s development and progress, these changes have inevitably given rise to conflicts and problems. The movement of social conflicts is the basic force driving social development. We should follow the law governing social development, face problems squarely, and properly handle conflicts among the people and other social conflicts. We should reduce and defuse these conflicts by building the material basis, enhancing moral strength, improving policies and measures, and providing a stronger institutional guarantee. We should energize society to the greatest possible extent, maximize factors of harmony and minimize factors that undermine harmony. We should strengthen social administration in an innovative way. We should build a socialist social administration system with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Party, with responsibility assigned to the government, with the assistance of society and with the participation of the general public. We should also make social administration more scientific and ensure peace and happiness for the people as well as social stability and harmony.

International issues

Strong national defense and a powerful army provide a strong guarantee for upholding China’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity. We must coordinate economic development with the building of defense capabilities, pursue a development path with Chinese characteristics that meets the need of both military and civilian sectors and promote both China’s prosperity and its military strength in the course of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The army should fulfill its historic mission in the new stage in the new century. The scientific development of national defense and the army should be the general guideline to follow, and priority should be given to accelerating change in the way of raising troops’ combat effectiveness. We should intensify efforts to build a revolutionary, modern, and standardized army in an all-around way. We must adhere to the fundamental principle of the Party exercising absolute leadership over the army and the fundamental purpose of the army as a people’s army and cultivate core values for contemporary revolutionary military personnel. It is important to expand and intensify military preparedness and conduct military exercises with IT applications and raise independent defense- and weaponry-related R&D capabilities. We should speed up all-around development of modern logistics and the training of a new type of high-caliber military personnel, and promote reform of national defense and the army in an active yet prudent manner. The army must be run strictly and in accordance with the law. It should comprehensively enhance its capability to accomplish a range of military tasks, and the most important one is to win limited wars under the conditions of IT application. We need to speed up the building of a modern armed police force. We also need to enhance public education on national defense, strengthen our national defense mobilization and reserve forces, and strengthen and develop unity between the army and the government and between the army and the people.

We will unswervingly implement the principle of “one country, two systems” under which the people of Hong Kong administer Hong Kong, and the people of Macao administer Macao with a high degree of autonomy, and fully support the governments of the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions in governing in accordance with the law, growing their economies and improving the wellbeing of their peoples. We will promote exchanges and cooperation between Hong Kong and Macao and the mainland, unite with all forces that love the motherland, Hong Kong, and Macao, and sustain long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macao. We should pursue the general goal of promoting peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait, deepen exchanges and cooperation in all areas and expand interactions across the Strait. We should join hands in opposing and checking separatist activities for “Taiwan independence” and work for the happiness of compatriots on both sides of the Strait and the future of the Chinese nation.

Around the world, peace, development, and cooperation remain the trend of the times, but we face multiple challenges in our efforts to achieve world peace and development. To share in development opportunities, jointly tackle risks and build a harmonious world of durable peace and common prosperity is the common call of the people of all countries.

The CPC and the Chinese people have always been a positive force for promoting world peace and development. Years ago, the CPC and the Chinese people made a solemn commitment to contribute their due share to human progress. We will make unremitting efforts for the noble cause of peace and development of mankind and strive to make new and greater contributions to mankind.

China’s foreign policy aims to uphold world peace and promote common development. We will continue to pursue an independent foreign policy of peace and unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development and the win-win strategy of opening up. We will develop friendship and cooperation with all other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, uphold the legitimate demands and common interests of developing countries, and take an active part in multilateral affairs to make the international political and economic order more just and equitable. We will unswervingly follow the basic state policy of opening up, improve our open economy, and fully improve the performance of our open economy. We will strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with countries around the world and continue to contribute to the common development of all countries through China’s own peaceful development.

The CPC will, following the principle of independence, complete equality, mutual respect, and noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, conduct exchanges, cooperation, and mutual learning of governance experience with political parties and organizations of other countries and regions to promote China’s relations with other countries.

In summation

A review of the Party’s growth over the past 90 years leaves all of us the same impression, that is, since the very date of its birth, the Party has been representing young people, relying on them and enjoying their support. Li Dazhao, one of the founders of the Party, called on young people to devote their youth to advancing civilization and promoting the wellbeing and lasting youthfulness of humanity. Most of the founding members of the Party and its members of succeeding generations joined the Party when they were young, and they were resolved to dedicate all their lives to the Party and the people. In the Party, there are always many energetic young people with lofty ideals and great passion. This is an important guarantee for the Party to remain robust and youthful 90 years after its birth. Young people represent the future of both China and its people. They also represent the future and hope of the Party. The whole Party must care about young people, listen to what they have to say, encourage their growth, and support their entrepreneurship. Both the Party and people have placed high hope on young people. Young people in China must acquire a keen appreciation of the glorious history of tenacious struggles waged by the Chinese people in China’s modern history. They should cherish a lifelong love for our great motherland, our great people, and our great nation. They should have lofty ideals and firm convictions, gain knowledge and skills, develop moral integrity and willpower, and prepare themselves for hard work so that they can fully release their talent and prove their value on the big stage of life. Let their youthful vigor shine with brilliance in the course of rendering great services to the Party and the people!

Ninety years ago, the CPC only had a few dozen members. Back then, China was a poor and backward country and its people were leading a miserable life. Today, the CPC has more than 80 million members. China is prospering and its people are living a happy life. All the achievements of the Party over the past 90 years have been made by the Party together with the people. We will never forget that the people are the real heroes.

We have every reason to be proud of what the Party and the people have achieved, but we have no reason to be complacent. We must not and will never rest on our laurels.

In the first half of this century, the Party will unite with and lead the people in accomplishing two grand goals: First, to build a moderately prosperous society of a higher level to the benefit of over one billion people by the centennial of the founding of the CPC and, second, to make China a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist country by the centennial of the founding of New China. We have great responsibilities on our shoulders. All the comrades in the Party must keep in mind their historic missions, remain modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and maintain the style of plain living and hard struggle. We should be eager to make changes and innovations and guard against rigid thinking and stagnation. We will not vacillate, relax our efforts or act recklessly. And we will never be intimidated by risks or confused by distractions. We must unswervingly forge ahead along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and work even harder to unite with and lead the people of all ethnic groups in China in working for our happy life and the bright future of the Chinese nation.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao meets with President Obama (by U.S. Army).

Frederick Engels on the Historical Development of Modern Socialism

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:44:00 +0000

In the first chapter of Part Three of his classic work Anti-Dühring, Engels discusses the origins of the modern socialist movement. He begins with the enthronement of "Reason" by the pre-revolutionary 18th century French philosophers who thought that only reason could be used to answer any of the questions of existence.

After the overthrow of Louis XVI and the abolition of the monarchical French state, a new state was constructed by the revolutionaries – one based on "eternal" reason and designed to be completely rational. The spiritual progenitor of this state was Rousseau's book The Social Contract.

But "eternal" reason turned out to be simply the explanation of existence from the point of view of the rising bourgeois class. The complexity of the new political reality they had created quite eluded them as the contradictions between their class and the newly conscious masses of the disposed poor of Paris and the countryside began to manifest themselves.

The wretched of the earth exerted themselves and the bourgeois rational state fell apart and morphed into the Reign of Terror under which the masses, for a moment, gained "the mastery" and saved the Revolution. With the abolition of feudalism the bourgeoisie had expected social peace but instead got a furious international response and the development of an intense struggle between the poor and the rich at home.

After Robespierre and the Jacobins, representing the French masses, were overthrown on 9 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794) by the conservative bourgeoisie, the new ruling class lost faith in its own ability to rule. After five years of corrupt government under the Directory, they surrendered to the coup d'etat of Napoleon Bonaparte on 18 Brumaire Year IX (November 9, 1799).

All this turmoil was a reflection of the "development of industry upon a capitalist basis [which] made poverty and misery of the working masses conditions of existence of society." From the dispossessed Paris masses (the "have-nothings" and other disadvantaged groups the proletariat began to develop "as the nucleus of a new class." However, at this time "the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed."

At this historical juncture the three "founders" of socialism appeared: Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen. First on the scene was Claude Henri Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). The Revolution was supposed to be a victory of the Third Estate (production workers) over a ruling class of idlers (the nobility and the Catholic hierarchy and its priests). But, in reality Engels says, the victory did not go to the Third Estate as a whole but only that part of it owning property, "the socially privileged part."

Saint-Simon saw the Revolution as a struggle between "workers" (anyone engaged in productive activity) and "idlers" – people living off unearned income. For him "the workers were not only the wage workers, but also the manufacturers, the merchants, and the bankers." Science and Industry must move to the forefront and lead the revolution. The undeveloped nature of the class struggle within the Third Estate is apparent – the proletariat and the capitalists are in the same "class." (I can't say the vast majority of the American people have gone much beyond that stage of consciousness yet but it has recently begin to dawn on them that class struggle is real).

Saint-Simon's heart was in the right place as he wanted to improve the conditions of the lowest and greatest number of the Third Estate – what would become the proletariat and included the masses of downtrodden peasants, the most numerous and poor; Engels quotes him: "la class la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre." However his socialism was utopian as he expected the bankers to lead the way into the new world! "The bankers especially were to be called upon to direct the whole of social production by the regulation of credit." Ironically the bankers today, the finance capitalists, do control production but in their interests not those of "la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre."

Saint-Simon actually thought the rich bourgeoisie, bankers and manufactures, would change themselves into public servants and use their ruling positions to help the poor and oppressed. But at least he realized the "poor and oppressed" made up the majority of "the people" (Third Estate). In fact Engels credits him with understanding that the Revolution was a three way struggle – Nobility vs. the Bourgeoisie AND the propertyless masses even though there was a tendency to group the latter two together when contrasted to the Nobility.

His greatness was in proclaiming that "all men ought to work" and recognizing that within the the bourgeois revolution the Reign of Terror represented the power of "the toiling masses" against the haut bourgeoisie. Engels quotes Saint-Simon addressing himself to the poor masses: "See what happened in France at the time when your comrades held sway there; they brought about a famine." The "they" are the bourgeois enemies of Robespierre and the rule of the Parisian sans culottes.

Saint-Simon also saw a future where economics was more important that politics , i.e., the administration of things (planned economy) over the administration of people (the bourgeois state) – i.e, he envisioned "the abolition of the state." We find in Saint-Simon the seeds, Engels says, of "almost all the ideas of later Socialists that are not strictly economic."

Following on the appearance of Saint-Simon came the ideas of Francois-Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837). He contrasted the actual living conditions of the people after the establishment of bourgeois rule ("material and moral misery") with the pictures of what life would be like painted by their pre-revolutionary propaganda and by the "rose-colored phraseology of the bourgeois ideologists of his time."

In his first book, The Theory of the Four Movements (1808) he wrote, "Social progress and changes of a period are accompanied by the progress of women towards freedom, while the decay of the social system brings with it a reduction of the freedoms enjoyed by women." Therefore, "Extension of the rights of women is the basic principle of all social progress."

Engels says of him, with respect to the above passage, that: "He was the first to declare that in any given society the degree of woman's emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation." This not only tells us a lot about Saudi Arabia, but where our own society is heading with its failure to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and the movement to restrict the right to abortion, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling that the woman discriminated against for years at Walmart have no right to a class action suit to redress their grievances.

Fourier also divided the history of human development up to the present era into "four stages of evolution," which were 1.) Savagery 2.) the Patriarchate 3.) Barbarism, and 4.) Civilization. In this scheme "Civilization" appears with the development of capitalism in the 1500s and he says "that the civilized stage raises every vice practiced by barbarism in a simple fashion into a form of existence, complex, ambiguous, equivocal [and] hypocritical."

Engels says that for Fourier civilization develops along "a vicious circle" throwing up contradictions it cannot resolve and arriving at the exact opposite destinations that it wants to arrive at or at least pretends to want to arrive at so that, as Fourier writes, "under civilization POVERTY IS BORN OF SUPER-ABUNDANCE ITSELF." For example the US, the richest country in the world, has 25 percent of its children at or under the official poverty line – a completely ridiculous society!

One of the things Engels admires about Fourier is his masterly use of the dialectical method in his writings, which he compares to that of Hegel "his contemporary." Engels also says something curious here. He says Fourier postulates the "ultimate destruction of the human race" which he introduced into historical science just as Kant had introduced the "ultimate destruction of the Earth" into natural science. But, in this pre-Star Trek world, Kant's end of the Earth scenario would have entailed the end of the human race as well.

Saint-Simon and Fourier were products of the French Revolution but, Engels points out, at the same time over in England just as great a revolution was taking place. The whole basis of bourgeois society was being changed by the development of steam engines and tool making machines and manufacture (from the Latin "manus" hand) was being replaced by gigantic factories were machines tended by workers began to to turn out commodities rather than commodities directly made by them, "thus revolutionizing the whole foundation of bourgeois society."

This industrial revolution began to divide society in to a powerful group of capitalists on one hand, and propertyless proletarians on the other. The heretofore large and stable middle class began to break up and tended to be forced down into the lower class of workers – "it now led a precarious existence." Sound familiar?

However, then the term "middle class" had a different meaning than it does now. Then it meant the class of artisans and small shop keepers who thrived in the era of manufacture. Now it is used to refer to an income group consisting of well paid workers and professionals whose wages were partially subsidized by the mega-profits of the imperialist international capitalist corporations who bought a modicum of social peace at home at the expense of the international solidarity of first world workers with third world workers and peasants by the creation of a labor aristocracy, according to Lenin, in the metropolitan countries.

Professionals such as lawyers, doctors and the parasitical class of preachers and priests were also included. With the decline of high paying production jobs in the West due to the rise of industry in the third world, among other factors, these high wage jobs are disappearing forcing the "middle class" down into lower paying jobs and so, as in the first days of capitalism, it now leads "a precarious existence."

Another difference is that today we have labor unions, pro-working class political parties and associations, and growing class awareness which is developing into a major class battle for the protection of people's jobs, life styles and incomes. This battle is just beginning and should grow as today's world capitalist system proceeds further down the path of decay and self destruction.

But in the England of the early 1800s, capitalism was on the rise and not the decline. It was into this world that the third great early founder of socialism arose: Robert Owen (1771-1858).

Owen was a materialist in philosophy and thought that humans were the product of their heredity (although at this time nothing was known of genes or DNA or any of the mechanisms of heredity) and their environment, most particularly their childhood environment.

For 29 years (1800-1829) he managed New Lanark the large cotton-mill employing around 2500 "hands" in Scotland. And, Engels says, by "simply placing the people in conditions worthy of human beings" the workers lived in a society without "drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, [or] charity." He sent all the children off to school at age 2, put the working day at 101/2 hours (not the 13 or 14 that was the norm) and kept everyone on full wages when there was a four month shut down due to a cotton crisis AND made large profits and doubled the value of the business. Well, my goodness! Why didn't all the capitalists follow suit?

They didn't follow suit, for the same reason Owen fought with the other shareholders at new Lanark – they didn't like the extra expenses that had to be put out for "conditions worthy of human beings." After Owen left in 1825 the community continued, in one form or another, under different capitalists, until 1968 when it went bust. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site drawing in around 400,000 tourists a year to visit it and the house where Owen lived.

In his work "The Revolution in Mind and Practice" (1849) Owen wrote he was unhappy with New Lanark because "The people were slaves at my mercy." He pointed out that New Lanark's 2500 workers, with steam power, created as much social wealth as it it took 600,000 workers to create a couple of generations earlier. Those 600,000 had to be paid living wages just as the 2500 – so what happened to all the surplus wealth saved in wages that would have gone to 597,500 extra workers? It was pocketed by the capitalists.

This new wealth was being generated all over England. It was being used to wage the wars of the Empire and to maintain an oppressive aristocratic and bourgeois order at home. "And yet this new power was the creation of the working class." Owen wanted this vast new wealth to go to the working class that created it for the building of a new society in which it would be, as Engels says "the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all."

In his day, because of his reforms at New Lanark, Owen was considered a great philanthropist. He was lionized and respected and welcome at the tables of the rich and powerful. But as soon as he started talking about the working class creating all the wealth and how it ought to build a new society based on "common property" he was dropped like a hot potato, became persona non grata, and shunned by official society. He therefore went to the working class and became a union leader and, Engels says, "Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen."

Owen called for the overthrow of three great impediments to the advance of the working class and the reform of society along communist lines – private property, religion, and "the present form of marriage (Engels)." Marriage is going through some radical changes nowadays and it is certainly very different from the forms of marriage Owen would have seen in the early 19th century. But private property and religion (i.e., supernaturalism and superstition) are still major impediments that hold back social progress for workers.

The last few pages of this chapter Engels devotes to vituperative attacks against Dühring and his negative views of the three utopians compared to whom Dühring is a pipsqueak. Engels says Dühring displays "a really frightful ignorance of the works of the three utopians." Their works are still worth reading (Dühring's are not) and whatever limitations they have were the result of the undeveloped conditions of early industrial capitalism.

But, since the time of the utopians and today (the 1870s) "modern industry has developed the contradictions laying dormant in the capitalist mode of production into such crying antagonisms that the approaching collapse of this mode of production is, so to speak, palpable."

Well they may have been "palpable" to Engels, but capitalism is still around, sad to say. And once again the palpability of capitalist collapse is in the air. From the looming default of Greece, to the threat of defaults spreading to Spain, Portugal and Italy which will bring down the Euro-zone and mobilize millions of workers to take to the streets of Europe, to the failure of the recovery in the United States and the desperate turn to the Tea Party by big capital to nurture home grown fascism to attack the workers and their unions, the smell of capitalist decay is everywhere. Let us hope this generation of workers will pay due to the long ago optimism of Frederick Engels.

Does It Matter Which Party Wins?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:44:00 +0000

It is obvious that there is a growing feeling of frustration and even anger among supporters of the Democratic Party with its performance over the past two years.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking for the labor movement, strongly expressed this unhappiness in some recent speeches.

I am also disappointed with some aspects of the Obama administration's domestic and foreign policy.

But I don't forget that this administration governs in a very hostile political environment in which the right is laboring overtime to wreck its initiatives at every step of the way.

In addition, there are the structural pressures of governing in a capitalist economy and state.

Then there are conservative pressures coming from congressional Democrats and members of the administration.

However, everything can't be explained away by the objective context. The president and his administration can be faulted for a number of policy decisions.

But the main question from a strategic point of view is this: Does it make any difference, from the standpoint of the class and democratic struggles, which party gains political ascendency?

Some – not the labor movement or other mass organizations of the American people – say no, it doesn't.

Some even go a step further and say a Democratic victory creates popular illusions, which in turn weaken the people's struggles. And the only way out of this vise is to form a third party now.

Communists don't agree with either one of these views. In our view, the differences between the two parties of capitalism are of consequence to class and democratic struggles.

Neither party is anti-capitalist, but they aren't identical either. Differences exist at the levels of policy and social composition. Despite the many frustrations of the past two years, the election of Barack Obama was historic and gave space to struggle for a people's agenda.

If, on the other hand, the Republicans had been victorious in 2008 the character of class and democratic struggles would have unfolded very differently. Our movement would have been on the defensive from Day One, the Democrats would be running for cover, and the Republicans would have an unfettered hand in their efforts to liquidate the welfare state, roll back the rights revolution of the 1930s and 1960s, and crush the people's movement - labor in the first place.

As for the wisdom of a third party, we have always advocated the formation of an independent people's party at the core of which are the working class and labor, racially and nationally oppressed people, women, youth, immigrants, seniors, gay and straight, etc. It is essential for any deep-going social change. But its realization depends on more than our desire, more than our political-ideological attitude. Millions who have to be at the core of this party still operate under the umbrella of the Democratic Party, albeit in an increasingly independent fashion.

Moreover, to separate ourselves at this moment from these forces would be contrary to our strategic policy of building maximum unity against rightwing extremism now and in next year's election.

Now that doesn't mean that we give up our advocacy of an independent people's party, but we also understand that its formation is dictated by concrete political realities and strategic necessities. Nor does it mean that we push the mute button when the Obama administration takes positions that we don't agree with. Just as we show no hesitation in supporting, and fighting for, the administration's progressive initiatives, we should have no compunction about taking issue with the administration when it takes positions with which we don't agree.

Which is what we have done.

When someone says we are not critical of the administration, what they usually mean is that our criticism isn't as sweeping and categorical as they would like.

We make criticisms, but we do it in a certain context and with a certain strategic objective in mind. We are keen to the fact that the agenda of the far right is to bring this administration and country to its knees, with a heavy dose of racism, lies and economic sabotage, setting the stage for a full-blown return to power of the most reactionary, racist, anti-labor, anti-women, homophobic and militarist grouping in U.S. politics.

We want no part of that. We don't have any illusions about the Democratic Party, but we don't have any illusions about the Republican Party either.

Furthermore, we are also aware of the undeniable fact that no other party besides the Democratic Party stands a chance of beating the GOP next year.

Photo by PeoplesWorld.org/cc by 2.0/Flickr

Three Irresolvable Crises of Capitalism

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:42:00 +0000

Editor's note: This article is based on a presentation made on a Political Affairs panel at the 2011 Conference on Working Class Studies held at the University of Illinois - Chicago last June.

Among the serious crises facing civilization are three major ones created by modern capitalism that the system is inherently incapable of resolving – the growing wealth gap, the technological displacement of workers and looming environmental catastrophe.

A fourth crisis could be termed, the crisis of democracy. The growing wealth gap and the concentration of economic power in fewer hands continuously undermines democracy and democratic institutions. This is best illustrated by the flooding of corporate money into the electoral and legislative process and corruption of the US Supreme Court with the Citizen’s United case.

Capitalism is a system of inherent crisis based on the exploitation of labor by capital. It has lurched from one economic crisis to the next throughout its history due to the anarchy of overproduction. Today we are experiencing a different kind of global financial and economic crisis begun in 2007, on the scale of the crises of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Panic of 1873.

But the crises being brought on by the wealth gap (which is also a major factor in the current economic and financial crisis), technological revolution and environmental crisis, are of a different overall magnitude, have reached a new quantitative and qualitative character, pose far reaching disruptive threats to society, and in the case of the environmental crisis, to the very existence of life on planet Earth.

These crises are beyond the capacity of capitalism to effectively resolve and reflect the system’s growing instability and its ultimate unsustainability. They represent a crisis for the system itself.

The havoc and suffering being wreaked on human kind and the planet by modern capitalism underscore the growing necessity for active social transformation to a sustainable, demilitarized, equitable and democratic economy and society. Such a transformation is necessary for human survival.

Transforming society requires a highly mobilized and conscious working class and people, majority movements led by organized labor and it’s allies at every level for democratic reform and socialism, that will “by degrees wrest control” of the direction of social development from the capitalist class.

But the most reactionary ruling class sectors of finance, energy and military industrial complex and those they influence politically especially the extremists dominating the Republican Party – represent the immediate danger and generally oppose even minimum reform at every step.

For example, the highly monopolized oil and energy industry is the creator and biggest funder of global warming deniers and drive reactionary, warlike tendencies in foreign policy.

Without a decisive defeat of reaction and the Tea Party extremists, the path to more fundamental democratic reforms and revolutionary change is not conceivable.

“Metabolic rift” between society and nature

Marxism views the contradiction between labor and capital as the main social contradiction; labor is the source of wealth creation which is privately appropriated by capital.

But as a growing trend of Marxists are rediscovering, Marx also viewed nature as the source of wealth, having said, “If labor is the father of wealth, nature is the mother.”

This illustrated Marx’s view of the dialectical relationship between Nature and society.

“Many lives from nature, i.e. nature is his body and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature,” wrote Marx in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

Humans interact with nature for their existence and the reproduction of society. Marx referred to this interaction as a “metabolism,” much like any self-regulated, metabolic process in the human body or nature.

But he noted there is an inherent destabilizing, destructive antagonism between the capitalist system of production and nature, which has led to a “metabolic rift.” An early expression of this was the revolution in capitalist agriculture and the destructive tendency toward soil exhaustion.

I got to thinking further about these contradictions after learning how the city of Chicago is preparing for the consequences of long term climate change through implementation of a far reaching Climate Action Plan.

Even if greenhouse gas emissions are curtailed or reversed in the near future, the city’s climate will be like Baton Rouge, Louisiana according to climate experts. It will be wetter in the spring and fall and dryer in the summer. Extreme weather events will increasingly overwhelm the present day infrastructure. The number of 90 degree weather days will skyrocket and heat emergencies will endanger thousands of lives. These things are happening now.

Climate change requires many adjustments including planting different tree species, laying permeable paving to absorb the increased runoff, reducing the heat island effect and air conditioning all public buildings including schools. Everything, according to the Climate Action Plan, except shutting down the coal burning generating plants that are spewing greenhouse emissions!

Most climatologists recognize these changes are inevitable even if greenhouse gas emission is curbed today. The damage is done and even if we begin to reverse it, it will take many generations to heal the Earth.

Globally, the most severe damage and risk to life will be in the ocean coastal areas due to sea level rise and river flood plains in the developing, poorest nations of the world.

It will likely require the relocation of large numbers of people from areas that will be underwater, including perhaps parts of Manhattan.

Society has to begin implementing plans to anticipate these changes now on a grand scale while fighting to radically curb greenhouse gas emissions Total global costs to adapt to the new conditions and ultimately heal the Earth will be staggering and mean the reallocation of immense national and global resources, much that is either in the coffers of the rich or wasted on such things as military production.

Is there a natural limit to the capitalist reproductive forces of society and are we reaching those limits? Can capitalism deal with such problems? Certainly it’s a system constantly revolutionizing the means of production, highly inventive, fluid, flexible, adaptable and resilient. It could continue on for years in crisis and stagnation, especially given the current austerity policies being imposed in an effort to further redistribute wealth upward.

And it’s not that the capitalist class isn’t aware of these problems and doesn’t have some answers. Substantial sections are aware, especially of the environmental crisis. Al Gore even speaks of a “sustainable capitalism” and urges immediate action. Some do so on the basis of self interest, seeing their own fortunes at stake. Some even seek to profit off its solution, including through “cap and trade” schemes.

But the system as a whole is inherently incapable of reorganizing in a way that will be able to solve theses crises long term. The rivalries and conflicts of interest within the ruling circles make unity on a direction difficult if not impossible, and especially on the scale of action needed.

Some sections of the ruling class, gripped by the fever of immediate and maximum profits (especially in the energy industry) are compelled to pursue a death march, blind to the consequences.

Propelled by the profit motive, the system must constantly expand in all directions. The tendency is to intensify these contradictions and crises.

As the crisis of everyday life deepens, more people are being drawn into struggle to meet their needs and those of their families and communities. Each struggle heightens awareness and unity and helps people to gain a deeper understanding of the “nature of the system.” But it will take mass grassroots democratic movements on a much greater scale than present to win basic social reforms, and to take our country on a different path.

Growing wealth gap

The drive for accumulation of wealth and maximization of profits is an iron clad law of capitalist development, relentlessly compelling the system toward monopolization.

The system has developed from monopolization of the home markets to monopolization of global markets. This has developed to such a degree that most global production and financial sectors are now controlled by 6-8 behemoth transnational corporations.

“The share of foreign assets, sales, and employment represented by General Electric’s (GE’s) foreign affiliates rose from 36 percent, 38 percent, and 46 percent, respectively, in 2000, to 50 percent, 53 percent, and 53 percent in 2008—making GE primarily a global, as opposed to U.S., producer."

A similar trend developed with Ford, whose sales and employment of foreign affiliates now constitutes 58% and foreign assets 46% of its operation, note John Bellamy Foster, Robert McChesney and Jamil Jonah write in article entitled, The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital.

As far back as 1999, the Wall Street Journal noted:

In industry after industry the march toward consolidation has seemed inexorable….The world automobile industry is coalescing into six or eight companies. Two U.S. car makers, two Japanese and a few European firms are among the likely survivors.

The world’s top semiconductor makers number barely a dozen. Four companies essentially supply all of the worlds recorded music. Ten companies dominate the world’s pharmaceutical industry, and that number is expected to decline through mergers as even these giants fear they are too small to compete across the globe.

In the global soft drink business, just three companies matter, and the smallest, Cadbury Schweppes PLC, in January sold part of its international business to Coca-Cola Co., the leader. Just two names run the world market for commercial aviation: Boeing Co. and Airbus Industrie.

This development has also led to an increase in global labor solidarity including the beginnings of global trade unions for example in the steel industry.

As a consequence of this monopolization, the top one percent of wealthiest US families own half the nation’s wealth. In 2009 they had a net worth 225 times that of the median family net worth, the largest gap in history. In 1960 that gap was 125 times.

Since the 1970s wages have stagnated while productivity has soared. This extra surplus value created by this productivity has gone into the pockets of the rich.

Meanwhile, 43 million are living in poverty by official estimates, or 14.3 percent of the population. This is one in seven Americans, the highest rate since 1959.

Hundreds of billionaires and 10s of millions in poverty go hand in hand. The existence of one depends on the other.

The drive for maximization of profit engenders further economic and social inequality based on race and gender. While 9.4 percent of whites are in poverty, 25.3 percent of Latinos and 25.8 percent of African Americans are poor. communities of color face worse housing, schools, health care, infrastructure, environmental conditions, and access to fresh foods.

The growing wealth gap means today's youth will have a bleaker future – a lower standard of living, higher rates of permanent joblessness, part time and temporary work and a lifetime of debt associated with university education. Unemployment rates among African American teens are 90% in some urban areas. There are over 5 million African American youth between 18-24 who are out of school and out of work, which contributes to the "pipeline from school to prison."

At one time the US capitalist class needed a large highly educated and trained domestic workforce and a first rate infrastructure. Now with the globalization of production, it’s no longer an essential.

“The commitment of major sections of the transnational elite to a people-friendly public sector, a vibrant national economy and a modern society has waned in recent decades,” wrote Sam Webb in a recent article in the People’s World. “In fact, this elite is turning the state into its personal ATM machine and a military juggernaut to enforce its will at home and abroad. It's not an exaggeration to say that this social grouping has become a parasite sucking the life out of our government, economy and society, while living in bubbles of luxury, racial exclusion and class privilege and exploiting labor globally.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated it will take $2 trillion to modernize and bring up to code the US infrastructure. There is no outcry by large sections of US ruling circles to pour money into domestic development and bolster public education.

But austerity is in. Austerity measures are being imposed by global capital to radically cut labor costs, dismantle, diminish, privatize and eliminate government and rob social wealth.

This is a stark reality in Greece, Spain and Portugal and in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey. And the Republican right and Tea Party extremists will aggressively carry out such a policy for the entire nation if they win in 2012.

Wall Street has recovered from the “Great Recession” and is earning record profits. But this is being called a jobless recovery for workers, with a double dip crisis looming without substantial governmental economic stimulus.

Big business economists and mouthpieces of corporate “think tanks” speak of the “new normal”: eight percent unemployment, lower standard of living, less public services and less democracy.

The National Jobs for All Coalition estimates the current number of unemployed or underemployed in the US at 28.6 million or 18 percent off the population. In the African American and other communities of color, the unemployment rate is 20 percent. And among African American youth, 90 percent.

Without a policy of massive rebuilding of the country funded by a redistribution of wealth, these conditions will persist and worsen.

Technological displacement and outsourcing – twin capitalist "demons"

The capitalist system grew since 1750 at an average rate of 2.25 percent, said Marxist David Harvey. It is estimated three percent growth is needed to reduce unemployment to its pre-crisis state. Present growth rates are not close to that.

To sustain that level of growth previously, it took $.4 trillion yearly in profitable investment. Today it would take $1.4 trillion. By 2030 it will take $3.0 trillion. Harvey says this is not feasible.

Finance capital has invested little in the domestic manufacturing industry for the past 30 years. Instead they have exported capital and jobs to low wage zones globally and sought other more highly profitable investments. These include in the stock and mortgage markets, and the energy futures markets, in a phrase - making money from money. This has all led to uncontrolled financial speculation or “financialization” and to the current crisis.

Nevertheless, capitalism is a system that must constantly revolutionize the means of production. US workers are still the most productive in the world and the US is still the leading manufacturing economy.

New technological innovations, outsourcing to low wage zones and speed up allows the capitalist to compete globally. Commodities can be produced at lower cost allowing for the further expansion of markets. Capitalists are compelled to do this by the internal drive to maximize profits.

For example, between 1996-2006 alone US manufacturing jobs declined by 12 percent. Yet from 1998 to 2003 industrial output increased. The domestic steel industry produces far more steel today than it did 30 years ago with 400,000 less workers.

One study done in the mid 1990s suggested 90 million of 124 million jobs in the US workforce were vulnerable to technological displacement.

Labor saving technology displaces two workers domestic workers for every job outsourced overseas. These are interconnected phenomena.

The revolution in mass communications makes it possible to accelerate outsourcing of jobs abroad including high tech, governmental and administrative workers while accelerating the race to the bottom in wages and working conditions for all workers. Some state and local governments are outsourcing public sector jobs especially service centers.

It is estimated US corporations will outsource 3.4 million white collar jobs overseas by 2015.

The technological displacement extends to the retail sector. The first self check out system was introduced in 1992. In 2008 there were 74,000 self checkout systems in North America. This year it is expected to reach 215,000 systems, displacing thousands of workers.

Aside from the mass joblessness created by the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, the millions of workers being displaced by technology and outsourcing are superfluous.

According to the UN, globally there are some 200 million people unemployed, which is expected to persist for years to come.

Increasingly the workforce will either be highly skilled or unskilled and low paid. Capitalist global competition means a relentless drive to reduce wages, benefits, working conditions and environmental protections – the race to the bottom.

To extract maximum surplus value, capitalists pursue the dream of robotic production that never touches human hands, and are achieving it in places.

But replacement of human hand with automation also means more workers without purchasing power, and consequently a constriction of demand, and weakening of any economic recovery.

It underscores the need for radical economic reorganization and social reforms that can put 26 million to work healing the environment, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, developing new alternative sustainable energy sources, retrofitting the nation for energy conservation and expanding educational, cultural and recreational opportunities.

Further reforms are needed like lowering the eligibility age for Social Security benefits and increasing them to allow for early retirement, shortening the work week with no cut in pay and opening up the universities for free or low cost for continuous education and training, and creating a system of universal health care.

These are reforms dominant sectors of the US capitalist class will never undertake on their own, especially since the tendency is to “pull the plug” on modernization of the US infrastructure and downsize the role of government.

Capitalism’s war on nature

Historically, capitalism came on the scene as the most environmentally destructive economic system. The process of capital accumulation gouged the Earth, deforested continents, spoiled the oceans, over fished them, polluted rivers and waterways, fouled the air and exhausted the soil.

As environmental problems arose and resources became scarcer, the solutions necessitated by expanding production meant ever greater environmental destruction.

Today’s mountain top removal, fracking and degradation resulting from the extraction of oil from the Canadian tar sands are some of the most vivid examples.

Today, the ecological crisis is accelerating and the Earth is reaching or has surpassed key tipping points in planetary systems that will alter life for thousands of years. If the present rate of accumulation of greenhouse gases is not reversed, the Earth will become uninhabitable for humans and all living species.

This “metabolic rift”constitutes a basic contradiction between the relentless and destructive expansion of capitalist production and the finite resources of the world and the planetary systems that sustain life.

Scientists have identified planetary boundaries that must not be surpassed in order to sustain life on the planet. Nine have been identified: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, global freshwater use, change in land use, biodiversity loss, atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution.

In three cases boundaries or “tipping points” have already been surpassed – climate change, the nitrogen cycle and biological diversity.

Climate change is causing extreme weather conditions – excessive heat, droughts and flooding. It is estimated 70 percent of the Earth’s land surface will experience drought conditions. It is projected agricultural production will be reduced by 30 percent in the US and globally.

Global climate change will force hundreds of millions of people to relocate from low lying and coastal areas. There is and will be growing competition over energy, water, food and other scarce resources leading to the possibility of conflict.

These are urgent issues facing the US working class and people and the world as a whole. The resolution of these crises, the redirection of policy and resources, can’t wait until “socialism” and must be part of today’s struggles.

Mass struggles can and must force necessary reforms and regulations on capitalist development, to regulate it’s destructive capacity and force the redistribution of wealth and redirection of resources toward the needs of the people.

But capitalism is inherently limited and it is increasingly apparent more fundamental reforms are necessary. To solve the urgent problems requires the massive reallocation of social resources, global cooperation on an unprecedented scale, and a reorganization of production to meet human needs not profits.

The struggle to redistribute the wealth to create millions of living wage jobs through expanding education, universal health care, mass transit and affordable housing, modernizing the infrastructure, and building a sustainable, demilitarized, democratic economy that begins to heal the Earth can unite a majority of Americans and is the path to democratic socialism.

Photo by Infrogmation of New Orleans/ cc by 3.0