Zimbabwe's Political, Social, and Economic Prospects: 2019 in Review

By Mafa Kwanisai Mafa

Political landscape

After the 2018 harmonized elections which gave the ZANU PF party the mandate to rule, President Emmerson Mnangagwa appealed to all political party Presidents who contested in the elections to come together in a national dialogue and find a way to stop the toxic political polarization which continues to divide the Zimbabwean nation. Another reason for the national dialogue was to provide a viable platform for contributing towards lasting solutions to the challenges that confront the country. All the 19 political parties accepted the President’s invitation to Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) refused on the basis that they don’t recognize the Presidency of Emmerson Mnangagwa.

They claim that Mnangagwa is an outcome of a rigged election despite the fact that they were deemed free and fair by many international observers and also by the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe. A southern Africa bloc, Southern Africa Development Commission (SADC) is in support of the POLAD platform created by the government of Zimbabwe and support a full inclusive dialogue. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki who brokered the Global Political Agreement (2008) before was in the country towards year end to bring all stakeholders to the table and consult. President Thabo Mbeki is pushing for talks to end economic crisis. Mbeki held marathon meetings with the protagonists in Harare as well as other political, civic society, and church leaders. The opposition MDC says it is committed to “real dialogue” to solve the political and economic morass in the country and will not be part of President’s Mnangagwa’s POLAD platform.

The opposition, in cahoots with their international allies through foreign embassies and civil society groups, are escalating their efforts to topple the government of Emmerson Mnangagwa. These organizations are fighting in the opposition corner by supporting and funding the MDC destabilization agenda. The same organizations have been urging USA and EU to maintain the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, citing alleged human rights violations by the government and security services. The MDC opposition leadership has been on the whirlwind tour in western capitals asking for more sanctions to put pressure on the Zimbabwean government.

Economic Situation

Zimbabwe is in the throes of its economic decay in a decade characterized by acute shortages of cash, medicine, fuel and rolling power cuts of up to 20 hours a day. Inflation skyrocketed to 481.5% in November 2019, in the process eroding salaries and decimating pensions. Zimbabwe is also grappling with price increases which are changing every day. In the interim, salaries have remained depressed, with consumer spending severely curtailed. Zimbabwe economic morass constitutes one of the biggest threats to ZANU PF's continued hold on power. United Nations expert Hilal Elver, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, noted that Zimbabwe is on the brink of starvation, a crisis that has been compounded by hyperinflation, poverty, natural disasters and economic sanctions. The ZANU PF Central Committee report of 2019 noted that the most latent security threat that has great consequences is the unstable economy, which is largely propelled by the parallel market (black market). Formal trading prices are determined by the parallel market exchange rate, which has been sharply rising on a daily basis. Prices of all commodities and services have followed suit to unsustainable levels.

The report admitted that most people are failing to make ends meet, so poverty levels are rising very much throughout the year. As a result anger is brewing among the citizens while there is loss of confidence on the direction the economy is taking. In January a steep hike in fuel prices led to violent demonstrations across the country which the army and police ruthlessly put down. The human rights groups estimated that about 17 people were shot down with live ammunition by the security forces during the three days protests.

Zimbabwe is suffering from massive power cuts which has brought a number of businesses to a standstill. The power utility in 2019 went on to increase tariffs by 320%. The increase in tariffs was meant to solve the power crisis in the country but failed dismally with some businesses bearing the brunt as they lost productive hours.

Economic Sanctions and the Regime change agenda

This is a sad chapter in Zimbabwe's recent history which marked the beginning of a well-organized, meticulously coordinated and generously funded campaign of economic sabotage and misinformation designed to mislead both the Zimbabwean population as well as the international community with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the elected government. Activists are being trained in foreign lands by intelligence forces on how to organize and apply strategies to undermine the government and its economic policies. This is meant to render the country ungovernable and incite the population to revolt and overthrow a legitimate government.

October 25, 2019 was declared a national holiday in Zimbabwe for people to march against western sanctions. Sanctions are causing more harm as they have affected people, companies, and schools. Zimbabwe has for the past two decades failed to access lines of credit from IMF and the World Bank. Some banks in the country are restricted from trading with international financial institutions. Under the USA Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, American companies are not allowed to deal with Zimbabwe entities on the sanctions list. Some companies associated with the state have had their money intercepted and blocked when they attempt to do business with international institutions. Companies are finding it difficult to move money into the country because banks can be fined for dealing with sanctioned countries.

In April 2019, the USA fined the Standard Chartered Bank US$18 million for dealing with a sanctioned country. Many companies have been forced to close shop or to scale down their operations. This has led to a loss of jobs. Many international investors are shying away from investing in the country.

In the past two decades, various opposition leaders from the MDC party have been consistently calling for and instating on the maintenance of the illegal economic sanctions with the aim of regime change. SADC set October 25, 2019, as the SADC day against Zimbabwe sanctions which marks the start of a sustained call for the unconditional lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe through various activities.

There is an organization based in Belgrade called Centre for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) which is clandestinely training antigovernment activists with strong umbilical links to the Zimbabwean main opposition MDC. Its mission is to layout the groundwork for civil unrest. Srdja Popovic is the founder and executive director of this organization. He is based in Belgrade, Serbia and his job is to foment revolutions in countries such as Sudan, Swaziland (Eswathini), Venezuela, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Burma, Vietnam, Belarus, Syria, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Most of the activists which were arrested in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the January 14 and 16, 2019 violent protests and charged with treason and subversion received their training in Czech Republic and the Maldives. Their training involves organizing mass protests, the use of small arms, and counter intelligence. Most of the organizations which are engaged in these nefarious and subversive activities to topple the government of Zimbabwe are also funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an American private and nonprofit organization which focuses on “strengthening democratic institutions.”

CANVAS was founded in 2003 by Srdja Popovic and Ivan Marovic and ever since it has been training antigovernment activists in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, Tibet, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Srdja Popovic was one of the key founders and organisers of the Serbian nonviolence revolution group called Otpor! Otpor! Campaign which toppled the Serbian President Slobodan Milosovic in October 2000. CANVAS has been successful in most countries mentioned in fomenting uprisings save for Swaziland, Belarus, and Zimbabwe, which are still enjoying some peace. Foreign organizations are coordinating workshops and trainings in the country, the region, and overseas to topple the Zimbabwe government.

Austerity and the International Monetary Fund

Zimbabwe launched its austerity measures under the Transitional Stabilization Programme (TSP) in October 2018 when it was presenting the 2019 national budget. The time frame of the programme is scheduled to run from October 2018 to December 2020. The purpose of the austerity measures are meant to implement cost cutting measures, and to reduce the public sector wage bill. In addition to that, austerity reforms are aimed at increasing tax revenues by introducing the unpopular 2 % Intermediated Monetary Transfer (IMT) tax, restructuring the civil service and the privatization of ailing state enterprises and parastatals. These reforms are meant to bring about fiscal balances in the public sector. These reforms are meant to reduce government spending, increase tax revenues or to achieve both. The International Monetary Fund is keeping an eye on these reforms through a Staff Monitored Programme which covers a period from May 2019 to March 2020. These measures are very unpopular with the masses as they have proved to be anti-developmental, self-defeating, and have an adverse effects on the toiling working class.

The civil service has been affected by the austerity measures in terms of salaries which are now pegged at less than US$30 a month. Persistent threats of strikes and demonstrations have crippled important sectors such as health, education and even provision of documents such as passports. These austerity reforms shrink economic growth and cripple public service delivery. From past experiences IMF is unlikely to offer any bailout to the Zimbabwe economy, which means the country will have to lift itself out of any economic slowdown caused by the austerity measures. Critics of austerity measures fear that the reforms are acting as a double edged knife that leads to economic recession, job cuts, and company closures whilst failing to tackle runaway government expenditure. Its most likely that history is going to repeat itself, cognizant of the 1990 Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) which left the economy worse off, further marginalizing the poor and vulnerable groups.

The impact of austerity measures are likely to widen the already high income inequality gap in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is worsening social suffering as the government cuts social spending by 62%. Low income households are the most affected through expenditure cuts on social protection programmes which are mend for the children, elderly and the disabled and beneficiaries of Basic Education Assistance Programme (BEAM) and health facilities. In the current budget the government prioritized Defense and Home Affairs. The impact of taxation policy on distribution and equality is so glaring. Big companies are being offered several investment incentives under the 2019 national budget, the citizens under distress of the additional 7c and 6.5c per litre of diesel, petrol and paraffin. Implications of the 2c on Intermediated Money Transfer above Zimbabwe $10 are similar. This shows the repressiveness of the Zimbabwe tax system, where the poor contribute more than the rich.

By experimenting with TPS the government is repeating the mistakes of 1990 under ESAP and it’s expecting different outcomes. The commercialization and privatization policy is being smuggled into the fiscal policy under the government mantra of “Zimbabwe is open for business.” The Transitional Stabilization Programme, just like the previous Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, is affecting the economic opportunities for the urban middle income and the working class while marginalizing the poor further, especially women and children. The combination of privatization with the proposed labour market reforms under the Special Economic Zones, further exposes labour to exploitation. The Public Private Partnerships model in public hospitals has led to segregation and deepening inequality between the haves and have nots.

The austerity measures have failed to stabilize the economic situation as the cost of living has increased to extreme levels. The ever increasing prices of basic commodities has become a breeding ground for more poverty and vulnerability amongst the masses. The persistent hard economic situation is reversing and derailing some of the progressive plans the government has put in place to attain the UN sustainable development goals. The Zimbabwean government is a signatory to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the 2020 Agenda and it is committed to ensure that no poverty or hunger exists by 2030. It looks like there is no reprieve for the masses as fuel prices are continuing to rise due to the weakness of the Zimbabwean dollar against the US dollar and other foreign currencies.

The Zimbabwe government must come up with socialist policies that ensure that all citizens afford to live a dignified lifestyle. The economic hardship are causing moral decadence and erosion of social norms and values. The urban areas are becoming dangerous as incidents of robberies and prostitution are on the increase as well as reports of drug abuse amongst the youths. By intruding the TPS government is trying to please the IMF because since 2016 the government has been implementing the IMF staff monitored programmes.

Social services

Upon attainment of independence in 1980, Zimbabwe experimented with Socialism as it pursued a free primary school education and primary health care policies. This contributed to the high literacy levels which the country boasts as the highest in Africa, but the withdrawal of government support as recommended by ESAP climaxed in the introduction of school fees and user fess even in government hospitals. This had serious repercussions on women and children, as this contributed to gender inequality as parents were forced to prioritize educating the boy child at the expense of a girl child. Child mortality heightened as expecting mothers could not afford the hospital fees. These reforms mainly target social services, and even now in Zimbabwe it is the social services that are bearing the brunt of the austerity measures. Under the TPS, the government has removed fuel and electricity subsidies and this has caused the skyrocketing of prices of basic commodities and services.

The removal of subsidies are greatly affecting the companies on production as many companies are closing shop because it’s now difficult to sustain operations using diesel and petrol power generation. Inflation is rising at an alarming speed and the living standards, life expectancy, and economic production are plummeting. These hardships are causing increase in inequality, disaffection and exclusion. Opposition to the ruling class is deepening each day. The government economic crisis is becoming more pronounced, with a mounting foreign debt, declining experts and urban strife due to increased food prices, unemployment, the rising cost of living and brain drain. Many educated Zimbabweans are leaving the country for the foreign countries where they are being subjected to xenophobic attacks and precarious labour and exploitation.

The government under the direction of TPS intends to privatize some parastatals. With the high levels of corruption in Zimbabwe it is likely that these companies will be sold to acolytes, fronts and elites. This could be reminiscent of what happened in Russia in the 1990s, a period that gave rise to the oligarchs who stripped Russia of its gas and oil resources leading to the emergency of overnight billionaires. The Russian ultra-rich, such as Chelsea Soccer Club owner Roman Abramovich, amassed wealth during the economic and social turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the introduction of the free market economy. Oligarchs are monopolistic by nature. These are the pitfalls of privatization.

Greece is a good example of a country which experimented with austerity measures. In 2010, Athens imploded after its Parliament voted and approved the draconic austerity measures which they thought would unlock 120 billon Euros of emergency loans for the debt stricken country to avoid insolvency. Up to this day Greece is feeling the negative effects of austerity measures nine years later. The Greece story is a good example of how negative and cruel the austerity measures could be. The experimenting with TSP will leave most of the Zimbabwean population in dire straits. The public expenditure cuts, linked with this year’s drought and the effects of Cyclone Idai, will leave many people destitute. Pro-poor and socialist policies are the only way that is going to redeem the toiling masses and bring social development. The government vision of an upper middle class by 2030 under its slogan Vision 2020 remains a pie in the sky, influenced by western imperialist privatization efforts. The reality for most Zimbabweans is an economy that is regressing at an unprecedented rate.

Drought and Climate Change

Zimbabwe is grappling with a nationwide drought that h” The government vision of an upper middle class by 2030 under its slogan Vision 2020 remains a pie in the sky as the economy is regressing at a faster, unprecedented rate.

Drought and Climate Change

Zimbabwe is grappling with a nationwide drought that has depleted dams, cutting output by hydro power generation at Kariba dam. The has caused harvests to fail as most crops are wilting and this has prompted the government to appeal for US$464 million in aid to stave off famine. These prolonged droughts, dry spells, and heat waves are a result of climate change. Most major cities in Zimbabwe are rationing water in an effort to stretch the water supplies. The world over more than 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress and the UN has warned that the problem is set to worsen with demand expected to grow as much as 30% by 2050. A combination of drought and economic meltdown are pushing Zimbabwe to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. In the rural areas, 5.5 million farmers are struggling to find food. In urban areas, the inflation rate of 480% is forcing the poor families to survive on just one meal a day. The crisis is being made worse by a formal unemployment rate of 90% and also by an indebted government that is struggling to provide basic services, perennial shortages of fuel and foreign currency, and regular 20-hours daily power cuts.

Zimbabwe is marching towards unprecedented food insecurity levels in its history, the 2018/19 was the driest season in 40 years and these are the signs of climate change. Approximately 8 million Zimbabweans are now dependent on food from the World Food Programme and other donor agencies from western countries. Water and electricity are in short supply and basic health services close to collapse. The rising inflation has made the imported food in the shops unaffordable to many.

Zimbabwe was also ravaged by Cyclone Idai which devastated the eastern parts of the country leaving 259 people dead and thousands displaced. The storm caused destructive winds and heavy precipitation causing riverine and flash floods, deaths, and destruction of property and infrastructure. According to official figures, 250,000 people were affected by the cyclone. The forecast was done two months before the cyclone struck but authorities were “caught off guard.”

Trade Unionism, Picketing and Demonstrations

As the nation is falling in a deeper economic abyss, trade unions have come under spotlight and clashes with the government and business over the working conditions are increasing. The Zimbabwean working class is dwindling with 10% employment rate. The working class in Zimbabwe is starving, failing to pay rent, and has no access to health care. The purpose of trade unions among other things are to negotiate for living wages and better working conditions, regulating relations between workers and the employer, taking collective action to enforce the terms of collective bargain, raising new demands on behalf of its members, and helping to settle grievances.

Trade unionism in Zimbabwe has been hijacked by politicians and no longer serves the interests of the working class. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) came into existence on 28 February 1981, after joining of six unions, namely African Trade Union Congress (ACTU), the National African Trade Union Congress (NACTU), Trade Union Congress of Zimbabwe (TUCZ), United Trade Unions of Zimbabwe (UTUZ), Zimbabwe Federation of Labour (ZFL) and the Zimbabwe Trade Union Congress (ZTUC). These unions came together to form the now Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. The ZCTU is now being used by the western governments as a tool for the regime change agenda which saw it becoming a bedrock of the opposition party, the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) which was formed and launched in September 1999.

The birth of the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) on September 12, 1999 was the genesis of the ZCTU participation in politics. This unwarranted meddling in politics has left the working class poorer. Trade unionism in Zimbabwe has become a stepping stone for individuals to gain political power at the expense of the poor working class whom they claim to represent. The unions are failing to address the working class needs yet they must be the voice of the working class. Majority of the working class in Zimbabwe are being subjected to exploitation, unions must negotiate for higher living salaries, and jobs must be dignified and productive with adequate social protection. The unions have been captured by western government forces seeking to topple the government so that they can exploit the natural resources freely. Currently, Zimbabwe is reeling from the economic sanctions wrought by illegal economic sanctions imposed by USA and EU. The ZCTU must join calls and demand the lifting of the sanctions that are severely affecting its membership. The current crisis in Zimbabwe is exacerbated by the disputed 30 July 2018 elections, economic collapse, high prices and cash shortages, high unemployment, and public health crisis. The local authorities in major cities are failing to provide adequate clean water to residents and even basics such as regular garbage collections have been delayed.

Company closure and the slowing down of production in most sectors of the economy has led to a decline of trade union membership, and those that are still working are earning very low wages. Most workers are now in the informal sectors such as vending. Factory shells in the light and heavy industrial sites in major cities are deserted. Manufacturing and industrialization has stagnated and been replaced by importation of finished goods from neighboring countries.

Zimbabwe currency collapsed in 2009 which led to the adoption of the US dollar as legal tender but the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe lacked the foreign currency reserves to meet this obligation. Prices of basic commodities have risen dramatically and the purchasing power has been eroded. In January 2019, the country’s 305,000 civil servants gave notice to strike after they were paid in the local currency which is called the bond note instead of the US dollars. During that same period the government raised fuel prices by over 200%, which made Zimbabwe fuel to be the most expensive in the world. The following day, the ZCTU called a three-day general strike, which was supported by many civil society organizations. Many people joined this nationwide strike because of widespread anger over economic decay but there was massive looting and property destruction. This provoked a brutal crackdown by the security forces, and the government shut down the internet to prevent social media coordination of the demonstrators.

Between the period of 1996 and 1999, George Linke of the Danish Trade Union Council came to Zimbabwe with an agenda to transform the ZCTU into a political party. Part of his mission was to identify other groups in the country which were to join the proposed new political formation. This party was to spearhead the regime-change agenda. The transformation of the ZCTU as a political formation brought together employers, workers, students, and former white farmers. This new party was also formed as a response to a government resolution to designated 1,500 white-owned farms for expropriation and the increased emphasis on black empowerment and the draft constitution which would enable the government to acquire white-owned farms compulsorily without compensation. The ZCTU allowed itself to be transformed into a political party so that it can serve the interests of the former white farmers and western capital. Labour unions are being funded by the arms of the US government through conduits such as the National Endowment for Democracy, International Republican Institute, and National Democratic Institute, which have nothing to do with strengthening workers’ rights and everything to do with toppling governments.

In September 2019 the Zimbabwe health care system became shambolic, characterized by an acute shortage of drugs and an indefinite industrial action by doctors over salaries. The country’s public hospitals, already beset by a myriad of challenges, degenerated into death traps after doctors embarked on a strike that is still ongoing. In response, the government dismissed 448 doctors while it pursued disciplinary action against 1,000 others.

Also in August, Zimbabwe was hit by another wave of protests, which saw the security forces brutally squashing the demonstrations. The ZANU PF ruling party and the main opposition party MDC both feel the way forward and out of this economic crisis is to impose neoliberal austerity measures against the working class and the poor. The right-wing organizations that are currently pushing for social dialogue are fronts of the imperialist countries and are funded by them.

Demands

The Zimbabwe working class are demanding a living wage and pensions.

Workers are demanding that never again should they allow the workers’ struggle and trade unions to be hijacked by politicians.

Workers demand the immediate stoppage of harassment of street vendors who are trying to make a living to support their families.

Workers stand against the government mantra of “Zimbabwe Is Open for Business” as this is tantamount to selling the country to imperialist investors.

No to privatization of government companies, as this will benefit the elite connected to the government who will buy the company for a song.

The rich, which include huge mining companies, multinational corporations and foreign investors, must be taxed more to finance developmental interests of the poor

The only way forward is to smash the system of capitalism which breeds wars, poverty, and misery and replace it with Socialism. This can only be achieved by building an International Workers Socialist Revolutionary Party. This is the time as capitalism is in deep crisis globally.

Aluta Continua!

The author may be contacted at cdemafa@gmail.com

Ending the Epoch of Exploitation: Pantherism and Dialectical Materialism in the 21st Century

By Chairman Shaka Zulu

Lots of people aren’t familiar with the term “bourgeoisie” or for that matter with thinking in terms of the different classes—even though we live in a class-based society. Moreover, we live in an epoch of history that is based upon class exploitation and class dictatorship. In this “Epoch of Exploitation,” there have been different ages each with their own distinctive class structures based upon the relationship each class had to the mode and means of production.

These can basically be defined as: Slavery, Feudalism, and Capitalism. In each of these periods, there was an exploiting ruling class, an exploited laboring class, and a middle class. Under slavery, there were Freemen as well as Slaves and Slave Owners. These might even be slave traders or hired men of the slave owners.

Under Feudalism, the lower class were the Serfs or poor peasants, and the ruling class were the landed nobility, the Lords, and Ladies. The middle class were the Burgers or Bourgeoisie, who lived in independent towns or burgs, which were centers of trade and manufacturing. These “freemen,” who governed their towns more or less democratically, waged a struggle with the Lords to maintain their independence and this culminated in a wave of Liberal Bourgeois Democratic Revolutions that overthrew Feudalism and replaced kingdoms with republics.

The bourgeoisie became the new ruling class and the petty bourgeoisie (little capitalists) became the new middle class, and a new class--the Proletariat—the urban wage workers and the poor peasants were the lower class. As the Industrial Revolution took off, the bourgeoisie got richer and the petty bourgeoisie more numerous, while the proletariat were formed into industrial armies to serve in the struggle with Nature to extract raw materials like coal and iron ore and transform them into steel and goods of all type.

In this Bourgeois Era, the bourgeoisie reconstructed society in their own image and interest. Under this Bourgeois Class Dictatorship, the state exists to maintain the inequality of the class relations and protect the property and interests of the ownership classes. Bourgeois Democracy is basically a charade to mask over the reality of class dictatorship. The masses may get to vote, but the ruling class calls the tune. Money talks and the government obeys.

The charade is for the benefit of the Petty Bourgeoisie who are the voters and hopers that the government can be made to serve their class interests. The dream that they will one day climb into the upper class and share in the privilege and opulence motivates them to subordinate their own class interests to those of the bourgeoisie. A greater challenge to the bourgeois class dictatorship is getting the working class to adopt its world view and politics that clearly do not serve their interests.

This is where the middle class are of use, and where some proletarians find their niche and a point of entry into the petty bourgeoisie as promoters of bourgeois ideology and politics. I’m talking about all manner of jobs and positions from union boss to preacher and news commentator to teacher. These hacks and hucksters sell us the illusion that this is the best of all possible systems and all is right with the world so long as we do as we are told.

They serve the ruling class by playing the game of “divide and rule” and throwing water on any sparks of resistance. They feed the masses disinformation and “fake news” and feed people’s idealism and false hopes to prevent them from identifying and thinking about their true class interests.

The job of our Party is to help the masses cut through this BS and to arm the people with an understanding of revolutionary science on which our political-ideological line is based. We call this Pantherism, and it is based on application of revolutionary science—dialectical materialism—to the concrete conditions we face in the 21st Century.

We make no bones about it, we are revolutionary socialists determined to bring the Epoch of Exploitation to and end and empower the common people. In other words to advance the evolution of human society to Communism.

DARE TO STRUGGLE DARE TO WIN… ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Shaka Zulu is chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party's prison chapter.

President Thomas Sankara: A 70th-Birthday Tribute

By Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu 

This was originally published at Pan-African Review.

President Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara would have turned 70 on the 21st of December 2019. At the tender age of 37, however, he was felled by bullets from soldiers loyal to his best friend, Blaise Campaore. Thomas Sankara’s passion was Africa’s advancement; his experimental field was Burkina Faso. What President Sankara wanted to see in Africa, he strategized, mobilized and implemented in Burkina Faso. He would then present his successes to African leaders, while encouraging them to surpass his achievements. Thomas Sankara’s achievement are too numerous to be summarized in an essay or even be elucidated in any book, but a few key points will be here noted.

Perhaps, the first in Thomas Sankara’s achievement is his refusal to borrow a dime from the IMF or any other foreign government or agency, mobilizing instead his fellow citizens to invest in community development and to consume only what the land of Burkina Faso yielded. Likewise, President Sankara, at the risk of being a target of the malignancy of Western governments, strongly encouraged other African leaders to shun external aid and borrowing. Thomas Sankara implored African leaders to rethink governance by reorganizing governmental systems and expressing those systems along a different line from the West in order to reduce costs and simplify governance.

A Pan-Africanist who was deeply committed to the cause of African people, it bothered President Sankara that African leaders were not seriously investing in the progress and unity of the continent, but were excited about uniting and aligning with the West. At a 29 July 1987 meeting of African leaders in Addis Ababa, he decried the poor attendance often recorded at meetings where Africa’s advancement is discussed; “Mister President,” he asked the [O]AU chairman, “how many heads of state are ready to head off to Paris, London, or Washington when they are called to a meeting there, but cannot come to a meeting here in Addis-Ababa, in Africa?”

Like Patrice Lumumba, Sankara incurred the wrath of the French President, Francois Mitterand when Mitterand visited Ouagadougou in 1986. Citing the spirit of the 1789 French Revolution, President Sankara reprimanded France for its oppressive policies in Africa and for the disrespectful treatment of African immigrants in France. Mitterand was livid with rage. He was used to African leaders groveling and shriveling under the mighty-hand of France. The French President would toss his prepared speech aside and take on Sankara, concluding with the thinly veiled threat, “This is a somewhat troublesome man, President Sankara!” Many would say that Sankara’s days were numbered after that fateful visit.

Prior to the French President’s visit, Thomas Sankara, a man of deep philosophical convictions, had in 1984 dumped the colonially contrived and imposed name of Upper Volta to call the nation what they wanted to be known as, Burkina Faso, “Land of Incorruptible People.” That renaming exercise was paired with an asset declaration exercise where President Sankara made known his properties, consisting of one working and one broken down refrigerators, three guitars, four regular motorcycles and one car. Thomas Sankara capped his salary at $462 and forbade both the hanging of his portrait at public places and any form of reverence attached to his person or presence.  Burkina Faso is about Burkinabes and there are 7 million of them. This seemed to be his guiding principle.

Thomas Sankara believed and invested in the education of Burkinabes. Literacy rate was at 13% when he became the president in 1983, and by the time of his assassination in 1987, it stood at 73%. Under his administration, numerous schools were built in Burkina Faso through community mobilization, teachers were trained and women were strongly encouraged to pursue education and career.

Burkina Faso’s agricultural fortunes experienced a turnaround during Thomas Sankara’s administration. First, the consumption of imported goods was strongly discouraged and Burkinabes once more reclaimed their taste buds from France. Thomas Sankara redistributed idle-lying lands from wealthy landowners to peasants who were eager to cultivate them. In three years, wheat cultivation jumped from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare. His administration further embarked on an intensive irrigation and fertilization exercise leading to an outstanding success across other crops including cotton. Burkina Faso soon become self-sufficient in food production, while cotton was used to make clothes, after having banned importation of clothing and textiles.

Convinced that the health of Burkinabes was paramount in any conversation regarding national advancement, President Sankara flagged off a national immunization program that–within weeks–saw the vaccination of over 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. Access to healthcare was a basic human right of every Burkinabe and President Sankara mobilized communities across the nation to build medical dispensaries, thereby ensuring the proximity of primary healthcare to citizens in the most remote areas.

Infrastructural challenges were tackled headlong by President Sankara, mostly through the mobilization of citizens, both rich and poor, as construction workers in the building of access roads and other structures across the country. Within a short period of time, all regions in Burkina Faso became connected by a vast network of roads and rails. In addition, over 700 km of rail was laid by citizens to facilitate the extraction of manganese. In order to move Burkinabes away from slums to dignified houses, brick factories were built, which utilized raw materials from Burkina Faso. For the sake of emphasis, all these were achieved without recourse to borrowing or external financial assistance in a nation dubbed one of the poorest in Africa before Thomas Sankara became the President.

A man of integrity and transparence, Thomas Sankara expected nothing less from everyone in leadership position in Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara refused to use air conditioning system as president of the country, since according to him, that will be living a lie as majority of Burkinabes could not afford such. Upon assumption of power, Thomas Sankara sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and commissioned the use of the cheapest brands of car available in Burkina Faso, the Renault 5. Salaries of public servants, including the president’s, were drastically reduced, while the use of chauffeurs and first-class airline tickets were outlawed.

Ever before women advancement became a buzzword globally, President Thomas Sankara led the way in advocating for the equal treatment of women. His cabinet was heavy with female appointees while numerous governmental positions were occupied by women. Female genital mutilation, polygamy, underage and forced marriages were outlawed while women were encouraged to join the military and to continue with their education even during pregnancy.

Thomas Sankara was passionate about the environment and its conservation.  He encouraged citizens to cultivate forest nurseries and over 7,000 village nurseries were created and sustained, through which, over 10 million trees were cultivated in order to push back the encroachment of the Sahel desert.

President Sankara pursued peace with his adversaries. On the morning he was gunned down, he was armed with a speech he had worked on all night, aimed at reconciling opposing factions in Burkina Faso and addressing the grievances of certain sections of the labor force. He did not live to present that speech.

In the short time he had, Burkinabes advanced as a nation and as a people. Outside of the already enumerated physical signs of progress, the social psychological impact on Burkinabes, of being truly and completely independence for the first time since the late 19th-century colonial incursion, was tremendous. Ironically, it was that same independence from France, termed “a deteriorating relationship” with the former colonial powers that Captain Blaise Campaore cited as one of the major reasons why he instigated the coup against Sankara.

Africa has produced much greatness; let it never be said that the continent is lacking in greatness. If truth be told, Africa’s great people of character and principle have often been silenced by forces of greed, exploitation and selfishness. Africa must then learn to build strong and enduring systems for the protection of virtue, the promotion of character and the vilification of vice. Africa would have been better than what it is today, if Thomas Noel Isidore Sankara were alive as an elder statesman to celebrate his 70th birthday anniversary. Yet, in death, he continues to serve as an inspiration to many Africans on what we can become as individuals and as a continent if we choose selflessness, commitment and passion for the continent and her people as the driving force behind our actions.

From Stolen Land to Riches: US Neo-Colonialism in South Korea

By Riley Bove

The history behind the division of Korea into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) is a complicated matter that crosses many spheres. The history between the US and Korea dates back to the Joseon Dynasty when American missionaries introduced Christianity to the peninsula through mission trips and the building of orphanages. When the Japanese colonized the Korean peninsula at the turn of the 20th century, it led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the enslavement of Korean people, as well as the violent suppression of culture, language, and national sovereignty. After World War II and the defeat of Japanese colonialism, and the liberation of Korea, the US enacted both military and governmental control in the southern half of the peninsula. The Korean War was one of many conflicts during which US imperialism acted through proxies to contest the global struggle for socialism and national liberation through the US’s “containment policy.”

The point of this article is to explore the ways in which the US has enacted imperialism and neocolonialism on the Korean Peninsula since its division in the post-WWII era and into the present day. While much attention is paid to the devastation the US caused--and continues to cause--in the DPRK, this article focuses more on the divisive and exploitative role its played in the ROK.

The history of the exploitation of the Korean peninsula dates back to the colonization of Korea by Japan in 1910. By the 20th century, the Korean peninsula had already come under the Japanese sphere of influence and under the militarized gaze of the Meiji government. By 1910, Korea was fully under Japanese colonial rule. American missionaries had already been in contact with the Korean peninsula, starting the 1880s, spreading the evangelical faith throughout and beginning the connection between Korea and the West.  Japan had set its imperialist sights on conquering the rest of the Pacific by 1940. From 1910 to 1945, Korea was subjected to a brutal 35-year-long colonization by the Japanese. For example, Korean women experienced sexual subjugation under Japanese rule. In her essay, “The Korean “Comfort Women’: Movement For Redress,” Sarah Soh Chunghee states that, “Japan began drafting Korean women in full force from around 1937 when its army invaded China and the soldiers raped and murdered tens of thousands of Chinese women in Nanjing” (1228). While occupying Korea, Japan forced women into sexual slavery and men, women, and children were murdered by the Japanese as they moved to fight the indigenous resistance  movements that emerged.

By the end of WWII, the liberation of Korea was underway as revolutionaries swept the Japanese imperialists from the peninsula. Both the Soviet Union and the US consolidated to rebuild the peninsula after the liberation movement. The Soviets helped the north establish a workers-led state and reclaim the land previously owned by landlords. There were preparations to have a “People’s Republic” in Korea that was of, by, and for Koreans. However, this never came to fruition. Anna Louise Strong, in her report for the CIA, writes that: “When the Americans landed in Korea, the Koreans had already a de facto government. A "People's Republic" had been declared a day earlier by a congress of Koreans themselves. General John R. Hodge, commander of the U. S. armed forces, dissolved this "People's Republic," and drove most of its members underground.”  Strong details how, between the liberation of Korea and the creation of the state of South Korea, a people’s democracy was already established in the south. However, the American forces overthrew the de facto government and established a US-backed puppet military dictatorship. The north established their own government without any assistance from foreign powers, while in the south, the Americans maintained their iron grip which has continued into the present day.

After the American “intervention” and toppling of the de facto “People’s Republic of Korea” government, the American imperialists  implanted a pro-US ally, Syngman Rhee, in order to govern the southern half of the peninsula. Rhee was a Western educated Korean who had anti-Japanese credentials but was fully in the pocket of Washington and Wall Street. Once Syngman Rhee was in power, he imposed his oppressive crackdown of all dissidence. In their essay, “Organizing Dissent against Authoritarianism,” Park Mi states that, “Even a moderate dissident became equated as a procommunist and pro-North Korean activity that was deemed to be prosecuted under the National Security Law” (263). The National Security Act (NSA) became the justification for repressive actions of the Rhee regime, including massacres that totaled in the hundreds of thousands. Park also details that, “Military confrontation with North Korea was used as an excuse to justify violations of human rights and the suppression of political dissidents” (263). The geopolitical landscape of a divided Korea was used by the South Korean-US government as a justification for the suppression of the people’s right to self-determination. At the same time in the United States, during the 1950s, McCarthyism reigned over the political landscape of post-war America. McCarthyism was defined as a “Second Red Scare”, a time of anti-communist setiment and political repression, in which the entire organized left was almost incapacited, with its leaders jailed or driven underground, and anyone who had any pro-communist or even pro-peace sentiments “blacklisted.” In the ROK, the Rhee regime enacted its own McCarthyism era under the NSA in order to snuff out and executed thousands of suspected communists.

After the Rhee administration was overthrown in the 1961 coup d’etat, Park Chung-hee rose to power and declared martial law under the Yushin Constitution, which allowed Park to openly violate civil liberties and assume total control of the government. Under his regime, worker unions and other types of mass organizing were suppressed and thousands of union members and organizers were brutally murdered. They faced sexual assault and rape as well as other forms of police violence. Student organizers, as well as organizations deemed to be Marxist oriented, were brutally suppressed under the Park regime.

Park was assassinated in 1979 and another pro-US dictator, Chun Doo-hwan, took power. Political and civil tension culminated in the Gwangju Massacre in 1980 in which 2,000 people, including student-led activist groups and anti-government demonstrators, were murdered by the military and governmental forces. Chun remained in power until 1988. Leading up to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, the Chun government attempted to make the city more “presentable”. Park Mi writes that, “the Chun government introduced a ‘beautification of the environment’ bill, which was designed to eliminate slums and unregistered street vendors” (278). The Chun government had attempted to gentrify the city, leaving the poor and working class citizens in poverty and forced many into homelessness. All while this was happening, the US government, from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, actively supported and endorsed the brutal regimes. In the 1980s, the US sent a massive influx of capital to South Korea, and it was only during this time that the GDP of the South overtook that of the North.

At the end of WWII, the country had been transformed into one of the poorest countries in the world. The Korean War, which spanned from 1950 to 1953, economically devastated the entirety of the Korean peninsula. The US military and other allied forces fire-bombed and destroyed 22 of the 24 cities in the northern half. Thousands of people died in the war and hundreds of thousands of children become orphaned and displaced during and after the war. While the US fought under the flag of the UN, this was nothing more than a fig leaf for US imperialism. In one of the most infamous massacres to happen during the Korean war, a US cavalry regiment had opened fire on a crowd of South Korean refugees, murdering 150-300 of them. It would be known as the No Gun Ri massacre. Many years after, the US military attempted to whitewash the massacre and it still hasn’t been held accountable in its role of murdering civilians.

In her book, “From Orphan to Adoptee,” Soo-jin Pate critically analyzes the rise of militarized humanitarianism and the birth of transnational adoptions of Korean children after the Korean War. Pate writes that, “However, its location—its close proximity to the Soviet Union—made Korea extremely important to the United States” (24). Pate describes that even though the mountainous landscape of the Korean peninsula did not offer any crucial resources to the United States that they couldn’t get elsewhere, the close proximity to the Soviet Union made the Korean peninsula an important geopolitical area. This is true, but it is also important to acknowledge that Korea was and is targeted because the DPRK’s social and economic system remains antithetical to capitalism and imperialism.

Pate also writes about the conditions of post-war South Korea for orphans: “In addition, 100,000 children were left without homes and separated from their families so that by the end of the war, over 40,000 orphans resided in orphanages” (30). The devastation of the Korean war left children without parents and the orphanages that already existed were overfilled. Missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, along with American NGOs or non-governmental organizations, built more orphanages and provided materials for food and other necessities. Under the backdrop of the US military occupation and the Korean War, this type of humanitarianism became militarized. Pate also echoes this sentiment: “Militarism and humanitarianism became conflated through programs such as Armed Forces Assistance to Korea and Korean Civil Assistance Command, which produced what I call militarized humanitarianism” (34). Also under this backdrop of militarized humanitarianism, NGOs such as Holt International became frontrunners in the transnational adoptions of Korean orphans. With this, American families flocked to adopt children under the guise of “saving”. This type of savior complex often drove the NGOs like Holt International to be one of the most profitable companies in adoption of children. By contrast, orphans in the DPRK remained in the country, and the government provided them with excellent shelter, education, health care, and other resources. In the DPRK, war orphans were something like national heroes.

Images of “cold, hungry, and threadbare” children filling their stomachs with food donated by American and other Western countries inflated the image of the US military and others as saviors to war-torn children. A lot of these Korean orphans were exploited by public relations in the military in order to further conflate this trope. Images of children smiling and interacting with American servicemen became the poster for militarized humanitarianism. American media campaigns started to funnel money and editorials, describing the orphans as “victims of communism.”

With this mass campaign, American NGOs and other organizations donated immense resources. The influx of media attention and campaigns became the driving force of Korean adoptions. Pate describes the conditions of adoptions as follows: “The geopolitics of the Cold War and the discourse of Cold War Orientalism created a particular set of conditions that made the bodies of Korean children highly desirable” (87). She also writes that, “These children were highly desirable because they were perceived as exotic and cute and because they were perhaps the least threatening group of Asians that the United States had ever encountered” (87). Because of the anti-communist sentiment that plagued American society and Cold War politics, this made Korean children highly sought after for international adoption

 Korean children were seen as non-threatening because many of them were extremely young—infants and toddlers—so assimilation into American society would be easier than it would be with older children. Orientalism also played a part in the tropes of Korean children being more submissive towards assimilation tactics and being perceived as non-enemies. The fetishization of Korean girls had to do with similar orientalist tropes of East Asian women as docile and hyper-feminized. Pate describes the phenomenon this way: “the Oriental doll connotes femininity, exoticness, delicateness, silence, and docility, these very descriptions become assigned to the Korean female orphan” (94). This commodification of Korean women, in other words, relied on the racist, misogynistic, and imperialist view of Korean women as “doll-like”. As Pate writes, the interaction of Korean women with US military servicemen was used as a bargaining chip and to help maintain friendly relations between the US and South Korea.

Korean women and young female orphans were often forcibly recruited into sex work for the US military. These types of “camptowns” became a hotbed of sexual assault and rape. This form of exploitation towards Korean women echoes the brutal sexual violence that was forced upon Korean women by Japanese imperialists during the colonization of Korea and WWII. Soojin Pate wrote that, “the United States adopted a ‘boys will be boys’ policy toward camptown prostitution in South Korea. They were able to justify this policy by linking military prostitution to issues of national security. Citing a 1965 study on troop–community relations conducted by the Eighth U.S. Army” (58). The US military, as Pate argues, adopted a more “turning a blind eye” policy toward camptown and military prostitution. Sexual exploitation as US imperialism had evolved into the misogynistic sex industry.

Park Chung-hee had encouraged this sort of sexual exploitation as it fueled the South Korean economy. The Cold War era had turned South Korea into a neoliberal and capitalist hotspot. Even after the partial revitalization of the South Korean economy in the 1960s, political and inequitable economic woes dominated the geopolitical landscape of South Korea for decades. With the birth of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s, South Korea’s economy was boosted by technological companies, such as Samsung and Hyundai, primarily trading with its neo-colonial ally, the United States. Social issues such as high rates of suicide have been a consequence of the overbearing demands of production with little to no compensation for the workers themselves. As J. Sul wrote in an article for Anti-Imperialism.org, “I cannot state all the suicidal cases here, but note well that the suicide rate in South Korea is in the top among the OECD nations” (Sul). Toward the beginning of the 2000s, anti-American sentiment began in full swing in South Korea as two events, the 2002 Yangju highway incident where two Korean schoolgirls were fatally killed by a US military vehicle and the murder of Yun Geum-i in 1992 where a bartender was murdered by a US military private. These two events brought up the question of the USFK’s (United States Forces Korea) continued presence in Korea.

These are just some of the ways that US imperialism and neocolonialism manifest on the Korean Peninsula, and why the US’s presence in South Korea is detrimental and has only led to the division and exploitation of the ROK. However, the puppet regimes had also committed violence and murder with the full support of its neo-colonial ally. The US military occupation of South Korea remains the primary obstacle to peace and reunification of our homeland.  The United States needs to end its military occupation in South Korea and dismantle all of its military bases and facilities, paying reparations to all the peoples of Korea.

“For a colonized people: the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”

― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1960)

Riley Bove (Seungyoon Park) is a student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition in Indianapolis.

References

Fanon, Franz. Les damnés de la terre. A verba futuroruM, 2016

Soh, Chunghee Sarah. “The Korean ‘Comfort Women’: Movement for Redress.” Asian Survey, vol. 36, no. 12, 1996, pp. 1226–1240., www.jstor.org/stable/2645577.

Moon, Katharine H. S. “South Korea-U.S. Relations.” Asian Perspective, vol. 28, no. 4, 2004, pp. 39–61. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42704478.   

Pate, SooJin. From Orphan to Adoptee: US Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption. U of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Strong, Anna Louise. In North Korea: First Eye-Witness Report. Prism Key Press, 2011.

Sul, J. “Neoliberalism in South Korea: Financial Crisis, Fascism, and the Rise of Precarious Work.” Anti-Imperialism.org, 1 July 2015, https://anti-imperialism.org/2015/01/12/neoliberalism-in-south-korea-financial-crisis-fascism-and-the-rise-of-precarious-work/.

Mi, P. (2005). Organizing dissent against authoritarianism: The South Korean student movement in the 1980s. Korea Journal. 45. 261-288.

The Importance of Political Education and Class Analysis in the Struggle for Black Liberation

By Erica Caines

This piece was originally published at Hood Communist.

What does organizing look like when Black radicals are being pushed out of spaces for ‘progressiveness’ that makes uncontested room for the centrist, right-wing and fascist narratives driving most platforms?  When examining the conflicts between those fighting oppression under capitalism and the capitalist state’s ruling class alongside those who subscribe to “success” and riches obtained at the expense of the oppressed, few things strike me as obvious disconnects and contradictions.

I am often asked about my relationship with the analytical science of Marxism-Leninism as it pertains to my studies, teachings, and praxis because it’s somehow shocking that a Black woman would align herself with a political ideology that’s been presented as predominantly white and male. I once used these moments as opportunities to flex my knowledge on the historical relationship between socialism/ communism and Black people (particularly Black women) as if I were a fact sheet. While it is important to highlight how many of those we’ve come to know as simply “civil rights activists” were politically and ideologically aligned with socialism/communism, what does that mean? Furthermore, why is that important? 

“Knowledge is power” is a familiar mantra. The Marxist Theory of Knowledge describes knowledge, or the idea of it, as socially constructed. Karl Marx details “power” (economic, intellectual and political) as something that stems from the ownership of the means of production. Simply put, a lot of what we *know* is predicated on the interests of the ruling class. It is in this country’s best interest to keep us ignorant. 

One way we combat ignorance is through active study and dialogue. One of the more frustrating things is the way reading is discussed as a pastime of the elite. That, in itself, highlights how comfortably ahistorical we’ve all become. We discuss accessibility and ability to study —-and by extension, obtain knowledge—- in bad faith. We fail to admit to our own intellectual laziness. It also highlights a misunderstanding of how knowledge and education should be used. 

Marx’s Dialectics of Theory and Practice assumes that none of us are “all-knowing”, but the practice of becoming politically educated, both understanding theories and using them in praxis to better conditions, ultimately improve and transform our conditions. One of the more famous examples of having done this can be found by studying members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. 

The BPP implemented collective actions that not only included providing much-needed resources but, more importantly, a political education. They believed in active study and debate and with that belief, went on to educate others enough to advocate for themselves. 

When communities advocate for themselves through breakfast programs, liberation schools and providing healthcare (the more prominent examples of the BPP’s work), ‘the group’ is prioritized over the individual. These small actions that result in transforming realities (material conditions) are what the practice and principle of collectivism are rooted in.

This differs from individualism, which is dependent solely on the best interest of the individual. Black people, in mass, seem to be engulfed in a state of individualism. Many have actively disconnected from our history of collectivism (and other tenets of socialism/ communism). This is made obvious with ‘celebrity culture’, the fixation on Black Capitalism as liberation and blatant misrepresentations of our “ancestors wildest dreams”. 

The lack of implementing class analysis (recognizing the significance of class) to understand our material conditions are major factors of the collective distortion of our material realities. I am not speaking on the problematic and dangerous ways white leftists ignore “whiteness” as a class issue to generically state “race and class” and ignore their innate racial prejudices. I am speaking on how our confrontations with racism, as Black people, have disallowed us to interrogate the Black people that exist within different class statuses. 

We live in a white supremacist capitalist imperialist patriarchy so Black people are, undoubtedly, confronted with how oppressions manifest, particularly racism. Unfortunately, we do not leave room to have any introspection on how oppressions manifest through class. All Black people may experience racism, but not all Black people experience poverty. When overwhelming many experience poverty, combatting racism, solely, causes us to turn a blind eye to capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.That “blind eye” results in a failure to [not want to] understand or implement a class analysis.

The purpose of class analysis is to clarify the agendas between classes. When we discuss the class structure of capitalism in Marxist theory, the capitalist stage of production consists of two main classes: the bourgeoisie (the capitalists who own the means of production) and the proletariat ( the working class who must sell their own labor power). If we are applying class analysis to our material conditions we are acknowledging how these class groups work and function within our realities. When applying it to our communities it is evident that the [almost non-existent] middle class would much rather align with the bourgeoisie (the rich) than the working class. This presents huge contradictions. Not just in organizing, but the way that we view liberation. 

In order for the bourgeois class to thrive, there must be an oppressed working class to exploit. If there are Black people who would much rather align with the rich, what does that mean for the Black people under the thumb of economic oppression? How does that manifest when we are talking about Black political power? 

Capitalist state ruling classes resist change. They disguise their arbitrary privileges and power behind lies, dogma, half-truths, and fallacies. This is most evident through the use of celebrity-driven and identity reductionist activism that uses “socialist” rhetoric to push neoliberal agendas that don’t seek to transform realities but make them easier to digest and not disrupt the status quo. 

In a society plagued by communities of individualists, how can we approach collectivism in substantial ways? We must have a principled commitment to political education, cooperation, and concern for the welfare of each other. 

Workers Unite. 

The Ballot and the Bullet: Building Socialism in ‘America’s Backyard’

By Matthew Dolezal

When faced with momentous external challenges — be they Spanish colonialism, American imperialism, or devastating hurricanes — the Cuban people have consistently risen to the occasion. In response to ongoing internal challenges, the popular new Cuban constitution (which took effect in April) entrenches the solid Marxist-Leninist foundation of the island’s socialist state while updating the 1976 constitution to better reflect the modern post-Cold War period.

Under the new constitution, each presidential term is five years, with a limit of two consecutive terms in office for those who serve. In addition, the role of Head of State is divided between the president and the newly established office of prime minister.

Other new rights and policies include the presumption of innocence in criminal cases, the right to legal counsel, and the (heavily regulated) use of private property and foreign investment to stimulate the economy (particularly to offset the revenue lost as a result of the continued U.S. blockade).

Despite the many exciting modernizations articulated by this fresh new document, much remains the same. Cuba’s Communist Party is still in only political party legally allowed to operate, and the state continues to control the land and means of production. The news media cannot be privatized, and, according to the new Magna Carta, Cuba will never return to the exploitative, pre-revolutionary capitalist system.

Bourgeois historians and pundits often glibly frame successful socialist governments as “authoritarian.” But from a materialist perspective, the vanguard party serves to protect the achievements of the proletarian revolution — including universal healthcare, education, housing, subsidized food, and land reform — from reactionary and imperialist threats (such as the CIA-backed coup Ernesto “Che” Guevara witnessed in Guatemala prior to the Cuban Revolution). In addition to the Communist Party’s general success, apologists for Western capitalism now have to grapple with the fact that significant democratic processes are occurring within Cuba’s one-party system.

The process to draft a new constitution began in August of 2018 and included the input of millions of Cuban citizens. Assemblies throughout the island were established, and thousands of “standard proposals” were debated for three months. In all, the old constitution faced 760 modifications. The proposed constitution was then featured in a referendum that took place on February 24, 2019. With massive voter turnout, the new constitution was easily passed when more than 85% voted “yes.”

Based on the long-standing solidarity between Cuba and its Latin American ally Venezuela, this recent constitutional process undertaken by the Caribbean nation may have been inspired by Venezuela’s ongoing Bolivarian Revolution. After the 1998 election of the popular Venezuelan revolutionary Hugo Chávez, the formerly discarded masses were not only lifted out of poverty, but politically empowered through a nation-wide upsurge in grassroots democracy.

As historian Greg Grandin wrote in 2013,

“Chávez’s social base was diverse and heterodox, what social scientists in the 1990s began to celebrate as ‘new social movements,’ distinct from established trade unions and peasant organizations vertically linked to — and subordinated to — political parties or populist leaders: neighborhood councils; urban and rural homesteaders, feminists, gay and lesbian rights organizations, economic justice activists, environmental coalitions; breakaway unions and the like. It’s these organizations, in Venezuela and elsewhere throughout the region, that have over the last few decades done heroic work in democratizing society, in giving citizens venues to survive the extremes of neoliberalism and to fight against further depredations, turning Latin America into one of the last global bastion of the Enlightenment left.”

Shortly after Chávez was inaugurated, Venezuelan citizens voted to replace their 1961 constitution with a new document that “expanded the rights of all Venezuelans, formally recognized the rights and privileges of historically marginalized groups, reorganized government institutions and powers, and highlighted the government’s responsibility in working towards participatory democracy and social justice.” This Bolivarian constitution includes mechanisms by which the document can be revised by the people through nation-wide participatory democracy. In 2007, for example, a series of constitutional reforms were debated for 47 days at more than 9,000 public events before a referendum finally took place.

At the height of the American civil rights movement, charismatic black liberation leader Malcolm X issued a powerful ultimatum — “the ballot or the bullet” — in his famous 1964 speech. The metaphor of the proverbial “ballot” and “bullet” can be useful in recognizing both the political and the physical dimensions of socialist struggle. A historical example of these two seemingly disparate themes merging was the short-lived alliance between Chile (“the ballot”) and Cuba (“the bullet”) in the early 1970s, iconically symbolized when revolutionary leader Fidel Castro gifted a personalized AK-47 to democratically-elected socialist president Salvador Allende.

But movements do not have to choose between these two options exclusively. Broadly speaking, Venezuela’s revolution emerged through the ballot box and was later protected through armed defense, whereas Cuba’s revolution was itself an armed struggle that would later evolve through ballot initiatives and grassroots democracy.

The ongoing Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions are impressive enough by themselves, but the material conditions they arose from and the hardships they have endured make them utterly awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, socialism doesn’t develop in a vacuum. It doesn’t grow in a petri dish. Building international socialism brings with it the baggage of constant imperialist assaults aimed at exploiting labor and extracting resources on behalf of global capital.

Now a spectre is haunting Washington — the spectre of the Monroe Doctrine. In its belligerent re-imagining of the 19th century foreign policy staple, the Trump administration has demonized and attacked the sovereignty of both Cuba and Venezuela. In conjunction with a new round of economic sanctions against the so-called “troika of tyranny”, former National Security Advisor and Bush-era war criminal John Bolton claimed last April that the “Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”

Bolton also announced that the U.S. would reintroduce the Helms-Burton Act — a 1996 law that allows American citizens to file claims related to properties that were nationalized after the Cuban Revolution. However, as Dr. Arturo Lopez-Levy opined, “It is not the United States government’s responsibility or place to force the […] Cuban government to prioritize compensating Cuban right-wing exiles over demands for other reparations, such as for slavery or any of the many other abuses committed in Cuban history before or after 1959.” Furthermore, as author Saul Landau observed, “By 1991, […] the Castro government had settled claims with most of the nations whose properties it had confiscated and offered terms to U.S. companies as well.”

In addition, the Trump administration began restricting U.S. travel to the island in June and revived the half-century-long economic blockade that was briefly loosened under the Obama administration. These Cold War-inspired policies are certainly draconian, but it seems the American regime’s primary target is Cuba’s oil-rich ally across the Caribbean Sea. As John Bolton himself admitted, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

After winning the Venezuelan presidential election in May of 2018, Nicolás Maduro was sworn in on January 10, 2019 to begin his second term in office. Then, on January 22, Juan Guaidó — a man whom 81% of Venezuelans had never heard of — suddenly declared himself “interim president.” Although Guaidó did not run in any presidential election, American politicians and pundits quickly praised this brazen U.S.-backed coup attempt, some even insisting “this is our backyard!” Washington’s latest regime-change effort in the Bolivarian Republic has thus far failed, but the Trump administration’s brutal economic sanctions have killed an estimated 40,000 Venezuelans in just one year.

Despite this rampant imperialism, there have been notable solidarity efforts — both between Cuba and Venezuela as well as internationally. However, in its overall capacity for both relevant material analysis and tangible solidarity, the American Left has gone astray. Steve Stiffler contends that the U.S. Left’s failure to properly frame Chavismo allowed right-wing propaganda to gain control of the narrative. This defeat in the realm of discourse led not only to the empowerment of far-right forces on the ground in Venezuela, but to a diminishment of the socialist support from within the empire that was once reliable.

An indispensable historical model we should look to for guidance is the Venceremos Brigade. In 1969, a group of young American radicals volunteered their manual labor to assist with Cuba’s sugar harvest in the wake of the crippling U.S. embargo. This primary delegation to the island included 216 brigadistas who helped cut sugar cane for six weeks. Since then, the Venceremos (“we shall overcome”) Brigade spearheaded solidarity efforts between Americans and Cubans, bringing in more than 10,000 people to engage in agricultural work, construction, and other projects. Former brigadista Diana Block recently recounted, “I had traveled to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade in 1977. At that time many radical U.S. political organizations looked to Cuba, and other global anti-colonial struggles, for inspiration and direction. Following Cuba’s lead, international solidarity was recognized as a key organizing principle.”

During my brief trip to Havana last summer I toured Museo de la Revolución, which was still a work in progress. A sizable mural of Fidel speaking to a crowd rested against a banister as workers on scaffolds renovated the neighboring room. After examining the intriguing exhibits, I browsed the items in the gift shop and came across a concise booklet entitled Notes on Che Guevara’s Ideas on Pedagogy by Linda Martí, Ph.D. In it, Martí emphasized the role of a humanistic philosophy in socialist society:

“Is humanism present in every daily decision made by every citizen of our country? Is this concept of a humanist conscience the basis of every analysis made of services, production, or education? Collectivism, as a new personality trait and an expression of humanism in interpersonal relations, was the object of study, inquiry, and experimentation of Che’s theory and praxis.”

Humanism — in an internationalist sense — can motivate the more privileged Western leftists among us to stand in solidarity with independent socialist projects of the Global South and denounce the neo-colonialist tendencies of the ruling classes. Our struggle, after all, is global. Whether utilizing the ballot, the bullet, or both, we should work toward the liberation of all people and consign Eurocentric rubbish like the Monroe Doctrine to the dustbin of history.

“The Neoliberal Project Is Alive But Has Lost Its Legitimacy”: An Interview with David Harvey

By Jipson John and Jitheesh P. M.

British scholar David Harvey is one of the most renowned Marxist scholars in the world today. His course on Karl Marx's Capital is highly popular and has even been turned into a series on YouTube. Harvey is known for his support of student activism, community and labour movements.

In an interview with The Wire, he talks about the problems arising out of the neo-liberal project, the resulting surge of populist politics and right-wing movements. He also talks about the relevance of Marx's critique of capitalism in the present context and the threat to labour from automation.

The interview has been edited slightly for style and clarity.

Could you trace the origin of neo-liberalism? What were the structural reasons for its emergence?

The idealist interpretation of liberalism rests on a utopian vision of a world of individual freedom and liberty for all guaranteed by an economy based on private property rights, self-regulating free markets and free trade, designed to foster technological progress and rising labour productivity to satisfy the wants and needs of all.

In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of neoliberal freedoms.

These liberal and neo-liberal utopian visions have long been critiqued as inadequate because as Marx so clearly shows in practice, they both support a world in which the rich get richer at the expense of the well-being and exploited labour of the mass of the population.

Keynesian policies and the redistributive state after 1945 proposed an alternative utopian vision that rested on the increasing empowerment of the working classes without challenging the power of private property. In the 1970s, a counter-revolutionary movement arose in Europe and the Americas organised by the large corporations and the capitalist classes to overthrow the Keynesian system and to replace it with a neo-liberal model (along with all its ideological baggage) as a means for the capitalist class to recuperate its waning economic strength and its fading political power.

This is what [Margaret] Thatcher, [Ronald] Reagan, [Augusto] Pinochet, the Argentinian generals etc did throughout the 1980s. It is continuing today. The result has been rising economic and political inequality and increasing environmental degradation across the globe.

You describe accumulation by dispossession as one of the most important characteristics of neoliberalism. How does it work and what are its structural consequences?

Capital can accumulate in two ways. Labour can be exploited in production to create the surplus value that lies at the basis of the profit appropriated by capital. Capital can also accumulate by thievery, robbery, usury, commercial cheating and scams of all sorts.

In the theory of primitive accumulation, Marx points out how so much of the original accumulation of capital was based on such practices. These practices continue but have now been supplemented by a mass of new strategies.

In the foreclosure crisis in the USA of 2007-8 maybe 6-7 million people lost the asset values of their homes while Wall Street bonuses soared. Speculation in asset values (land and property for example) provides a non-productive avenue for accumulation.

Bankruptcy moves by major corporations (e.g. airlines) deprives employees of their pension and heath care rights. Monopoly pricing in pharmaceuticals, in telecommunications, in health care insurance in the USA provide lucrative avenues for profiteering. Increasing extraction of wealth through indebtedness is evident. Rentier extractions based on accumulation by dispossession (e.g. acquiring land or mineral resources illegally or at cut rates) have become more common because the rising mass of global capital is finding increasing difficulty in procuring productive uses for surplus capital.

Even during Marx's time, there were several critiques of capitalism. How do you differentiate Marx's critique from these strands?

Many of the critiques of capitalism were based on moral categories (evil and greedy capitalists versus impoverished and badly treated workers or more recently, environmentally callous capitalists versus the ecologists). Marx's critique is systemic. Moral and ethical objections remain, but Marx treats them as secondary to the systemic problem of why and how to replace the capitalist mode of production and its disastrous laws of motion by some other way of meeting human wants and needs.

Do you think capitalism has reached a dead end, especially in context of the 2008 crisis? Can capital recover?

Capital is not at a dead end. The neo-liberal project is alive and well. Jair Bolsanaro, recently elected in Brazil, proposes to repeat what Pinochet did in Chile after 1973.

The problem is that neo-liberalism no longer commands the consent of the mass of the population. It has lost its legitimacy. I already pointed out in The Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) that neo-liberalism could not survive without entering into an alliance with state authoritarianism. It now is moving towards an alliance with neo-fascism, because as we see from all the protest movements around the world, everyone now sees neo-liberalism is about lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of the people (this was not so evident in the 1980s and early 1990s).

Marx believed that capitalism would die out due to its internal contradictions. You don't agree with this. Why?

Marx sometimes makes it seem as if capital is destined to self-destruct. But in most instances, he looks on crises as moments of reconstruction for capital rather than of collapse. "[C]rises are never more than momentary, violent solutions for the existing contradictions, violent eruptions that re-establish the balance that has been disturbed," as he says in Volume 3 of Capital.

Where he does see capital ending, it is because of a class movement. I believe my position is in agreement with Marx. Capitalism will not end of its own accord. It will have to be pushed, overthrown, abolished. I disagree with those who think all we have to do is wait for it to self-destruct. That is not, in my view, Marx's position.

You consistently argue that Marx talked not just about value at the production level but also the arena of realisation. Could you elaborate this in the present context?

In the first chapter of Capital, Marx recognises that value is created in production and realised in the market. If there is no market, then there is no value. So value is dependent upon the contradictory unity between production and realisation. Realisation depends upon the wants, needs and desires of a population backed by the ability to pay.

The history of capitalism has been about the production of new wants, needs and desires (e.g. consumerism of various sorts and the production of daily forms of life to which we must conform in order to live reasonably such as automobiles and suburban living). I now teach an audience where everyone has a cell phone (which did not exist twenty years ago). To live in most US cities, you need an automobile which pollutes.

Marxists have paid a lot of attention to production, but have neglected issues of realisation. In my view, it is the contradictory unity of the two (which Marx mentions as crucial but does not elaborate upon) that should be the focus of our attention. Extraction and appropriation of value (often via dispossession) at the point of realisation is a political focus of struggle as are the qualities of daily life.

German socio-economist Wolfgang Streeck has identified five problems of capitalism in his How will Capitalism End. Instead, you identified 17 contradictions, not problems, of contemporary capitalism. What is the difference between problems and contradictions regarding the crisis of capitalism?

Problems have solutions. Contradictions do not: they always remain latent. They can only be managed and as Marx points out, crises arise when antagonisms are heightened into absolute contradictions. The contradiction between productive forces and social relations cannot be solved. It will always be with us. The contradiction between production and realisation will always be with us, etc.

I listed seventeen contradictions in order to emphasise that crises can arise in many different ways and that we need to develop a theory of crises which understands their multiple sources so we can get away from the "single bullet" theory that too often haunts Marxist thinking.

Under capitalism, automation causes significant job loss all over the world. Even the World Bank has raised concerns regarding automation. What is the challenge of automation under capitalism? What effect will it have on working class politics?

The parallel with automation in manufacturing and AI in services is useful. In manufacturing, labour was disempowered by tech change. Plus, offshoring with tech change is much more important. But manufacturing did not disappear. It continued to expand in different ways (e.g. fast food restaurants that produce hamburgers rather than factories that produce automobiles).

We will see much the same thing in services (we check ourselves in or out in supermarkets and airlines now). The left lost the battle against automation in manufacturing and is in danger of repeating its dismal record in services. We should welcome AI in services and promote it, but try to find a path towards a socialist alternative. AI will create new jobs as well as displace some. We need to adapt to that.

What do you mean by 'new imperialism'? What is its basic characteristic? How is it qualitatively different from classical imperialism?

I called it "the new imperiliasm" since it was an explicit theory advanced by the neo-conservatives in the US in the run up to the Iraq war. I wanted to critique that, not to get back to Lenin's theory, but to point out that the neo-liberal world order was sucking out value in all kinds of ways from all manner of places (e.g. through commodity chains). This was, of course, the topic of Brief History of Neoliberalism, which followed on from The New Imperialism. The two books should be read together.

There is an argument and belief, even among left intellectuals in the West, that the global south delinking from globalisation will result in a return to pre-modernity. What is your take on this? What should constitute the development agenda of the global south?

I think the idea of a total delinking would be disastrous. But I think selective delinking and the search for autonomous regionalities though bioregionalism is a good idea. The idea is to build alternative geographies of interrelations, but the global perspective (e.g. on global warming) is critical.

Study on cities is one of your areas of interest. You analyse cities as spaces of surplus appropriation. How does this work, especially in the context of neo-liberal cities? What is the importance of the right to city?

Urbanisation and capital accumulation go hand in hand and that is one of the aspects of Marxist thought that has been historically underdeveloped. Now half of the world's populations live in cities. So questions of daily life in environments constructed for purposes of capital accumulation is a big issue and a source of contradiction and conflict. This is emphasised politically by the pursuit of the right to the city: e.g. class struggle in and over the qualities of urban life. Many of the major social movements in recent decades have been over such questions (e.g Gezi Park in Istanbul).

Your condition of post-modernity looks into its material base. On a philosophical level, what is the larger influence of post-modernism on social life? What about the idea of post-truth?

Like many other broad-based, and to some degree incoherent cultural movements, the post-modern turn created positive openings along with absurdities and retrogressive impacts. I liked the fact that it opened up perspectivism and emphasized space, but I could see no reason why this would be antagonistic to Marxism, since in my own work, I emphasize how to integrate space, geographies and perspectivism into Marxism.

At the end of the day, as Eagleton pointed out at the time, the movement went too far in seeing "no difference between truth, authority and rhetorical seductiveness" such that "he who has the smoothest tongue and the raciest story has the power." It "junked history, refused argumentation, aestheticized politics and staked all on the charisma of those who told the stories." Donald Trump is a product of this post-modern excess.

In the initial stage, we thought internet as the great liberating force. But over the course of time, big monopolies emerged, profiting from the digital space. Cases like Cambridge Analytica reveal how personal data is being manipulated by these monopolies. What is the danger it poses? How to liberate internet as a public utility?

There is no such thing as a good and emancipatory technology that cannot be co-opted and perverted into a power of capital. And so it is in this case.

How do you locate the emergence of Donald Trump? How can the rise of populism in different parts of the world be addressed?

He is a post-modern president of universal alienation.

Does the growing popularity of Bernie Sanders and Jermy Corbyn in the U.S. and UK elections respectively make you hopeful? Were they just election mobilisations? What should be the form and content of present day socialist politics?

There is a big difference between mobilisation and organisation. Only now, we are beginning to see elements on the left that see that building an organisation is crucial to gaining and holding political power.

In the British case, the rise of momentum alongside a resurgence of party building provides hopeful signs, as does the manifesto for bringing key elements of the economy into the public domain (which is different from nationalisation) as a political strategy. But the problem is that many in the parliamentary Labour party are as yet unsupportive. As yet, we do not see enough of this sort of thing in the U.S.

There is surge of right-wing politics across the world. The latest is example is the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Is the world moving towards fascism, similar to the 1930s and 40s? What is the political economy behind the sudden rise of ultra right-wing politicians like Bolsonaro in a Latin American country which was famous for left politics?

Alienation produced by neo-liberalism managed by the Workers Party, coupled with widespread corruption, produces a mass base prone to be exploited by neo-fascist delusions. The left failed to organise and now has to do so in the face of repressions.

Your course on Marx and Marxism has been very popular worldwide. How relevant is Marxism today? What do you think are Marx's contributions?

Marx wrote the beginnings of a stunningly perceptive analysis of how capital works as a mode of production. Capital was developed in Marx's time in only one minor part of the world. But it is now everywhere, so Marx's analysis is far more relevant now than it was in his time. Everyone who studies Marx carefully recognises this, which in some ways, explains why political power is so desperate to repress this mode of thought.

There exist significant despair and dissatisfaction among the common masses under neo-liberal capitalism. Where does the hope for a better world lie? What sustains your hope?

In spite of all the attempts at repression, people are increasingly seeing that there is something wrong with not only neo-liberalism, but also capitalism. It plainly does not and cannot deliver on it promises and the need for some other form of political-economic organisation is becoming ever more obvious.

This interview originally appeared at The Wire .

India's Dowry System and Social Reproduction Theory

By Valerie Reynoso

The practice of paying dowries is rooted in ancient tradition. It began as a Hindu religious requirement in the Manusmriti, a text from around 1500 BC that dictated the way of life and laws for Hindus. Ancient Hindus would gift each other during a wedding as a cultural requirement. Fathers were obligated to gift expensive clothes and jewelry to their daughters and to gift a cow and a bull to the family of the bride. When a woman moved in with her husband, she was provided with money, jewelry and property to secure her financial independence after marriage.[1] Over time, the dowry system has developed into a fully-formed, patriarchal, capitalist mechanism in which Indian women are reduced to being socially-reproductive providers.

In modern-day India, dowry has shifted from financial independence for brides to a system of groom prices in which women have virtually no control over their finances within a marriage. Dowry prices are negotiated verbally between the families of the groom and the bride. The settled price is paid to the family of the groom once married; however, there is often further demand for more money once the bride moves in with the husband. When these new demands are not met, it can have fatal consequences for the bride. [2].

The social reproduction and commodification of women's bodies, as well as the enforcement of private property under capitalism, has resulted in women being rendered as tools for patriarchal exploitation. Social reproduction refers to the work that goes into producing workers who then have their labor exploited in the name of capitalism by the upper class. Social reproduction relates to feminism and gender power dynamics because women are socialized to carry the burden of housework, childcare, and socially reproducing their husbands who then go off to work. In the case of the dowry system and the Indian women subject to it, this dynamic is further intensified due to the demands for dowry and increased patriarchal violence when this demand is not met. Social reproduction theory is the understanding of the "production of goods and services and the production of life are part of one integrated process."[3] It is a historical-materialist analysis which builds on the premise that race, gender, and class oppressions are connected and occur simultaneously under capitalism. This theory explores the relationship between oppression and exploitation.

These oppressive systems have turned dowry culture from one rooted in ancestral tradition where women are socioeconomically uplifted to one where women are socioeconomically exploited, abused, and killed in the name of money and patriarchy. This deviation of the connotation dowry has also signifies how gender is informed by organizational violence, through which the submission of underclass women is maintained by means of financial, physical and psychological abuse. Indian women are seen as assets to elevate the hierarchical status of the men they marry through the forced provision of dowry.

The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 outlawed people from demanding or giving dowry as a pre-condition for marriage. Section 498a of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) states that any female death within the first seven years of a marriage will be automatically concluded to have been a result of dowry harassment. Section 304b IPC refers to cruelty against brides. These laws were designated preventative measures but they have evidently not been effective in implementation, as it is difficult for many dowry victims to make time to go to court in order to get help. [4]

According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, 8,233 dowry deaths were reported in 2012, a rate that equals one victim every 60 minutes. This statistic does not include unreported dowry deaths, since women are discouraged from reporting abuses. Some ways women are abused in demands for dowry is by being blackmailed, beaten, burned alive, threats of having their children taken away, and murder. The National Crime Records Bureau also reported that police throughout India have charged around 93% of accused in dowry deaths and only 34% of them have resulted in convictions. In 2017 the Hindustan Times reported that there had been 15 dowry deaths in the capital of India alone between 2012-2017, but none of these cases resulted in conviction. There are approximately 27 million total pending cases in the Indian legal system, which delays the dowry cases of women even up to 20 years[5]

It is considered a stigma for women to return to their parents' home after marriage. Social norms enforce the "sanctity" of marriage along with a lack of financial independence, all of which prevent rural women from telling the truth about abuses over dowry. Many survivors of burnings are coerced to lie and say it was an accident or attempted suicide out of fear of further abuses by their husbands.[6]

Under the current Dowry system, women are seen as a burden to their families. It is common for families to save money for the future marriages of their daughters from birth, such as taking out loans, selling land, and going in debt in order to save for the daughter's dowry. Infanticides are rampant given that many girls are killed at birth because of the financial burden of dowry. Other families also perform sex-selective abortions if the baby is determined to be a girl. For girls who are not aborted or killed at birth, they typically live a life of poor nutrition, abuse, and illiteracy in rural areas of India particularly. Girls are starved in preference of their brothers and are also discouraged from pursuing an education because they are usually married off at a very young age in order for the family to collect, give, and solicit dowry. As a result, girls become financially dependent on their husbands at a young age. Even when doctors note that the burn patterns on women do not match their claims of self-infliction, they are not expected to report it and usually do not. In court, doctors are only asked to say whether or not the woman was fully conscious and able to make a statement to the police. Sometimes police harass women who report dowry abuse and discourage the women from reporting. [7]

The repression of women and girls under the current dowry system represents the relationship between the processes of producing human labor power and the processes of producing value, as indicated by the concepts defined by social reproduction theory.[8] Indian girls living a life of abuse and negligence, for the direct material benefit of their male counterparts, is similar to how capitalists need human labor power in order to extract profit from the value production they do not produce themselves .[9] Indian women are the bearers of the labor power it takes in order to socially reproduce financially dependent men, such that Indian girls are starved and denied education and job opportunities in the name of dowry, so that boys may take advantage of these instead. The dowry system provides Indian men with socioeconomic power that is derived from the physical exploitation of Indian women, who are controlled by financial subordination and sexist gender roles that limit them to the home. This cycle of social reproduction is continued when Indian girls are married off by their families to a husband to whom they will owe a life of servitude and financial dependence. Seeing that marrying off Indian girls at a young age is driven by the collection and solicitation of dowry, their bodies are being commodified as a vessel through which their families can accumulate capital. This happens until the woman is severely abused or murdered when demands for more dowry can no longer be satisfied.

Moreover, the price of dowry varies per one's socioeconomic status. Underclass grooms typically demand smaller dowries but it is still a financial burden for poor families who do not have the means of paying it. Parents will raise money for the dowry by selling land or going bankrupt after the marriage. Lower castes of India, such as the Dalit, obtain money for their daughters' weddings by leasing their sons into bonded labor. Many cotton farmers who have committed suicide in large numbers due to failing crops also did so due to the increased price of dowry, which also increased their debt to unmanageable levels. [10]

Solutions for the human rights epidemic surged by the current dowry system have been posed. In 2006, web entrepreneur Satya Naresh had created the first dowry-free matrimonial site in India and in 12 years only 5,399 men had registered. Naresh stated that not many people have registered for it due to greed - in many cases, even when a man does not want a dowry his parents will still want it and force him to undergo it. World Bank lead economist Dr. Vijayendra Rao stated that a substantial shift in gender norms is required in order to end dowry violence, such as reducing gender discrimination, and increasing female education and socioeconomic independence, in addition to further legal reforms[11].

Ultimately, dowry is a means of enacting socially reproduced violence against women in India through socioeconomic repression and misogyny. The elimination of socioeconomic disparities and gendered oppression, as well as a structural challenge to capitalist modes of production, are needed. This is the only path where Indian women may enjoy equal rights and protection.

Notes

[1] "A Broken Promise; Dowry Violence In India," Pulitzer Center, February 9th, 2019, https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/broken-promise-dowry-violence-india

[2] Ibid.

[3] Tithi Bhattacharya, Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2017).

[4] Ibid.

[5] "'Death by dowry' claim by bereaved family in India, The Guardian, accessed February 9th, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jul/18/death-by-dowry-claim-by-bereaved-family-in-india

[6] "A Broken Promise; Dowry Violence In India," Pulitzer Center, February 9th, 2019, https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/broken-promise-dowry-violence-india

[7] Ibid.

[8] Tithi Bhattacharya, Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2017).

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] "'Death by dowry' claim by bereaved family in India, The Guardian, accessed February 9th, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jul/18/death-by-dowry-claim-by-bereaved-family-in-india

The Nature of the Left: On the Question of Human Nature

By Corinne Hummel

There seems to be a shared cynicism among some members of the Left and the ideologues of liberal democracy: that sexism and racism belong to human nature. While the liberal may use this assertion to justify and necessitate the state, the anarchist may hold this assertion alongside a rejection of the state. In either case, the possible organization of society is restricted by the assumption of innate characteristics. It is unscientific to attribute these products of consciousness to biological determinism, and the implication in this attempt to apply positivism to the human lifeworld is cynical; where potential is limited by subjective observations of the anathema. Recognizing that such cynicism is incompatible with scientific socialism, I aim to explore the ideological genealogy of the Left, along with the topic of human nature. Because there have been many contributors to these theories, I will only name those necessary for the purpose of this discussion.

Beginning with Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations was such an apt observation of the activity of economic life that it catalyzed dozens of 19th -century successors in the realm of political and economic philosophy. Smith presented capitalism as moral and natural, and asserted that the state should not interfere in the liberty of the individual in the market. Hegel thereafter presented an ontological wedge between Smith's work and its influence, theorizing that liberty is achieved when the rational and universal principles of the self-determination of the individual become objectified in the laws of the state. Influenced by both Smith and Hegel, Proudhon became the "father of anarchism" as he argued for collective ownership of the means of production and insisted that individuals should have a right to the full product of their individual labor. He imagined a market society constituted of free-associating collectives, with the state reformed into a "regulating society" with the sole purpose of supporting this activity. As an associate of Proudhon, Bakunin rejected the idea of a reformed state, and instead advocated for a syndicalism which would end the state, as he declared the state to be inherently oppressive.

Bakunin's communist contemporary, Karl Marx, developed his theories of social phenomena and political economy through critique of Smith and Hegel. Marx noticed that Smith's depiction of capitalism as "natural" was scientifically unwarranted. Smith's methodology was teleological: he neglected to critically explain how capitalism emerged, as his "invisible hand" was expressly providential. And where Hegel concluded the human experience is decided by our consciousness, Marx added that our consciousness is informed by our material relations, an idea known as "dialectical materialism." Bakunin promoted collective ownership of the means of production, but disagreed with Marx over collective control of the means of production, as he believed that would result in oppressive hierarchies. Bakunin betrays himself in his declaration that Marxist communism would lead to a "parasitic Jewish nation." Marx was deeply critical of Bakunin, and the two were positioned as adversaries. An interesting turn occurred in Italy where Cafiero, a young advocate of Marxism, joined the more popular Bakuninist side, bringing with him significant influence from Marx. In 1880, Cafiero and his associates made a formal declaration that the individual appropriation of the products of individual labor leads to wealth accumulation based on merit, and that the state becomes necessitated and reinforced by this condition of inequality. So, the Italian Bakuninists, influenced by Marx, shifted the ideas of collectivist anarchists toward what became known as anarcho-communism.

Kropotkin, a naturalist, made significant theoretical contributions to anarcho-communism when he published a series of essays in 1890, which were later combined under the title "mutual aid: a factor in evolution." In these works, Kropotkin used examples from the animal kingdom to argue against survival of the fittest. Inspired by Darwin, he used the methodology of evolutionary biology to claim that cooperation is naturally selected for, as a consciousness. This means that anything not considered cooperation, such as violence, is an expression of consciousness belonging to an unfavorable evolution. Kropotkin faults the earliest formations of centralized states for enchanting humanity toward authority. The crux of this theory is that in the presence of hierarchies, biological tendencies for cooperation are suppressed in an alteration of consciousness. Kropotkin stated that it is only when all individuals' needs are met that the individual can be free, creatively, and for all individuals' needs to be met, there must be cooperation. According to his hypothesis, such cooperation prerequisites a higher consciousness. Kropotkin's empiricist methodology, when applied to sociology, was not immune to subjective idealism. He claimed to be logically outside the realm of metaphysics, yet he demonstrated Hegel's one-way dialectic in which consciousness decides existence. His conception of the naturally evolved consciousness presents a very agreeable outlook on the nonviolent potential of humanity, but it becomes overshadowed by a cynicism that collective consciousness cannot transcend its subjective perceptions of hierarchies.

Looking at non-human species to interpret human sociobiology will produce a variety of contradictory examples, until it becomes a pseudoscientific double-edged sword. Our view of ourselves as we see it in the world around us is subject to the most determined of biases. The reactionary cites the behavior of lobsters to justify class society, while the leftist claims that white supremacy is congenital. In a study of apes, all were given a banana except for one, and that one reacted violently. When looking at human history, we see those with accumulated wealth enacting violence, as conditions of perceived resource scarcity threatened the reproduction of wealth. Homo Sapiens have existed for roughly 200,000 years while capitalism has existed for no more than 700 years (including its precursors). Capitalism is distinct from the trading activities of ancient civilizations, just as you would not call primitive nomadic peoples "colonizers." The birth of capitalism is marked by the expropriation of the means of production, which was preceded by wealth accumulation. Natural disasters, presenting resource scarcity, were likely causes of the transferring of the commons into private ownership. In the work of Carl Nicolai Starcke, we learn that the emergence of patriarchy, first instituted within the family, was preceded by the establishment of private property. Patriarchy first emerged in those primitive societies which uniquely had a gendered division of labor in which private property became solely undertaken by men. Property, at this point in history, was the means of production: animals or land necessary for reproducing existence. This particular development depended on geography. In the harsh climate of Northern Europe, primitive societies were more dependent on herding animals than growing crops, and in these cases there was a gendered division of labor for biological reasons. Men came to inherit the herds because pregnant women could not care for the herds. The subordination of women occurred after their separation from the means of production, as it became the private property of men, but the original separation was not itself subordinating. Similarly, slavery in the Roman Empire was not based on race: the accumulation of wealth, requiring reproduction and protection, caused the state apparatus to develop a market for human labor as property. As capitalist production expanded, sexism and racism became ideological constructions, institutionalized in the service of entrenching support for continued expropriation of the means of production. The witch hunts and colonialism appearing in the late 15th century occurred 100 years after feudal crises had developed pre-modern capitalism.

Compelled by the lack of technical rigor in Wealth of Nations, Marx investigated what is unique to capitalism in its influence on human behavior. In addition to wealth accumulation and perceived resource scarcity, he theorizes that there is alienation occurring in the mode of production. The mode of production is the way in which society reproduces its existence: it is the material and social relations of labor. In capitalism, the instruments of labor, and the products of labor, do not belong to the laborer. To understand Marx's theory of alienation requires his concept of "base and superstructure" wherein the base is the mode of production; the relations of which are reproduced into the superstructure as societal norms and institutions. In the capitalist mode of production, the worker is estranged from the value of their labor while the capitalist is estranged from the labor of the value they extract. Performing these mechanistic roles alienates the individual from the self: from rationally knowing the fulfillment of need, as the only need becomes wages or profits. Marx was inspired by Darwin as well, in conceiving of history as a complex, yet quotidian, process of change and the response to change. Alienation is what the individual experiences when reality contradicts the rational motivation of the species-being: when the individual's labor is not for the self-determination of the individual, which is simultaneously unique and universal, as a being of a social species. This alienation is reproduced outwardly because material (social) relations inform consciousness, from which behavior cannot be isolated. In capitalism, the behavioral response precipitates evidence of humanity's spirit, though as a broken one, and the empiricist unjustly casts these behaviors as both irrational and belonging to human nature. It is from this cynical perspective that the ideologues of liberal democracy necessitate the utilitarian state to ensure civilization progresses. But for Marx, the ills of society are products of contractual agreements in which can be no real consent. The norms and institutions of the superstructure reinforce, through violence and ideological mystification, that which produces them.

For Kropotkin, capitalism is a byproduct of the state. For Marx, the state is a reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. Marx understood the historical emergence of the capitalist mode of production as preconditioned by rational responses to perceived resource scarcity in stateless primitive societies. The theories of Marxism and anarcho-communism were developed through distinctly different methodologies. When the mode of reproducing existence is not accounted for as an objective material reality of consciousness, observations will be subject to an idealism in which it is possible to misknow reality. For this reason, agreements found among leftists may only superficially bridge an epistemic divide. Marx said, "Proudhon does not know that all of history is nothing but a continuous transformation of human nature." He meant that one simply cannot say what is innate: behavior is the response to a changing material reality transmuted by the subjective consciousness. Marx contended that we should consider humanity apart from our conceptions of nature because history cannot be explained in the non-human natural world. Marxism is scientific socialism because of dialectical materialism: a process philosophy which overcomes the limitations of empiricism, rationalism, and subjective idealism. It is a more complete theory of social phenomena. By this method, the institution of science can be understood to be oppressive due to it being ideologically reinforced as a reproduction of the oppression in the base of society. When it is recognized, by the historical application of dialectical materialism, that capitalism is responsible for the environmental plunder of colonialism, it is possible to conclude that our societal conception of "nature" has been white supremacist. I conclude with the suggestion that the cynical perception of "human nature" is the result of ideological mystification producing an epistemic impasse.

"Ideology does not exist in the 'world of ideas' conceived as a 'spiritual world.' Ideology exists in institutions and the practices specific to them. Ideology represents individuals' imaginary relation to their real conditions of existence. Ideology has a material existence. There is no practice whatsoever except by and under an ideology. There is no ideology except by the subject and for the subjects. Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects."

- Louis Althusser

The Capitalist Coup Called Neoliberalism: How and Why It Went Down

By Colin Jenkins

Rich people have always had class consciousness because... they want to stay rich. This collective consciousness led the "founding fathers" of the United States to set up systems of governance that would, first and foremost, protect them (the wealthy, landowning minority) from the landless, working majority (slaves, indentured servants, laborers). Since then, the rich have had undue influence on every aspect of US life: housing, food production and distribution, education, media, and politics. As capitalism has developed well into its late stages, this has led to large concentrations in wealth and power, and thus influence.

In order to maintain control, the rich have learned over time that minimal concessions must be given to the working class to avoid societal unrest. Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci and Nicos Poulantzas described this process as using the state to steady the "unstable equilibrium." This instability is produced by capitalism's tendency to pool wealth at the top while dispossessing the majority. For much of the 20th century, capitalists in the US were successful in maintaining an internal equilibrium, mainly due to their ravaging of the so-called "third world" through colonialism and imperialism. With this massive theft of resources throughout the global South (Africa and Latin America), a robust "middle class" was carved out from a mostly white sector of the US working class. This "middle class" consisted of workers who were provided a greater share of the stolen loot than their class peers, and thus awarded the "American Dream" that was widely advertised.

The US "middle class" was a crucial development for the rich because it provided a buffer between them and the masses. Due to the relative comfort they were allowed, "middle-class" workers were more likely to support and collaborate with capitalists, even at the expense of their fellow workers who were left struggling for scraps from below. After all, for there to be a middle class, there must be a lower class. Under capitalism, the lower class is the invisible majority by design. The capitalist class shapes dominant culture from above, the middle class serves as the standard bearer of this culture, and the lower class clings to survival mode in the shadows of society. The key for the rich is to keep the invisible majority in check. The "middle class" has always played a crucial role in this.

Despite this balancing act that was maintained for decades, capitalism's internal contradictions became predictably volatile heading into the latter part of the century, culminating into what economist Michael Roberts refers to as the profitability crisis of the 1970s . As the capitalist system was approaching this crisis, US society had already begun confronting social ills stemming from systemic white supremacy, patriarchy, and the Vietnam war. Naturally, this moved into the economic sphere, as workers and students began to successfully tie together the array of social injustices to the widespread economic injustice created by the capitalist system. The existence of an invisible majority, the victims of capitalism and its corollary systems of oppression, was uncovered. This scared the rich, enough to where they felt the need to fortify their previously unshakable privileges. After the groundswell of liberation movements that formed during the 60s, which was fueled by a wave of (working) class consciousness from below, the rich decided to organize and weaponize their own (capitalist) class consciousness to protect their assets, collectively, from the threat of democracy.

In examining what had gone wrong in the 60s and why so many people had the audacity to demand more self-determination, the notorious Trilateral Commission convened in 1973, bringing together economic and political elites from North America, Europe, and Japan. The Commission, as described by Encyclopedia Britannica , "reflects powerful commercial and political interests committed to private enterprise and stronger collective management of global problems. Its members (more than 400 in the early 21st century) are influential politicians; banking and business executives; media, civic, and intellectual leaders."

In 1975, Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki published a report for the Commission, titled: "The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies." In assessing the various movements that gained momentum in the 60s (racial justice, economic justice, anti-war, etc.), the report determined that these "problems" stemmed from an "excess of democracy." Huntington specifically noted that, "the vitality of democracy in the United States in the 1960s produced a substantial increase in governmental activity and a substantial decrease in governmental authority." The solution to this, according to the report, was to reverse direction - decrease "governmental activity" and increase "governmental authority" to restrict democratic impulses from the masses and maintain the capitalist power structure internally, while retaining "hegemonic power" internationally. In other words, rather than government serving people and regulating capitalists, government should serve capitalists and regulate people.

Since maintaining a "middle class" had become such a fragile proposition, the capitalist class forged a new direction. Rather than rely on this historical buffer and continue the concessionary and fickle balancing act , they decided it would be more effective to simply take ownership of the legislative and judicial process. This process began when executive officers from several major corporations joined together to form private groups like the Business Roundtable, for the purpose of "promoting pro-business public policy." In other words, to make sure that the "excess of democracy" which occurred during the 60s would never return. Why? Because any such mass movement toward relinquishing power to the people is a direct threat to capitalist profit and corporate America's existence as a collection of unaccountable, authoritarian, exceptionally powerful, private entities. The Business Roundtable, which included executives from corporations like Exxon, DuPont, General Electric, Alcoa, and General Motors, gained instant access to the highest offices of the government, becoming extremely influential in pushing for corporate tax cuts and deregulation during the Reagan era.

Since the 1980s, the Business Roundtable has run roughshod over American workers by using the federal government to:

- reduce consumer protections,

- obstruct employment stimuli,

- weaken unions,

- implement "free trade" agreements that spur offshoring and tax havens,

- ease environmental protections,

- increase corporate subsidies,

- loosen rules on corporate mergers and acquisitions,

- open avenues of profit in the private healthcare system,

- privatize education and social programs,

- and block efforts to make corporate boards more accountable.[1][2][3][4] [5]

As political momentum developed within corporate America, additional players jumped aboard this strategic and highly coordinated capitalist coup. While groups like the Business Roundtable targeted legislation, the US Chamber of Commerce (CoC), a "private, business-oriented lobbying group" which had already served as a popular vehicle for turning (capitalist) class consciousness into action since 1912, shifted its focus onto the court system. Since then, the CoC has used its immense resources to influence US Supreme Court decisions that benefit big business, a tactic that has become increasingly successful for them over time. The CoC's business lobby had " a 43 percent success rate from 1981 to 1986 during the final years of Chief Justice Warren Burger's tenure," a 56 percent success rate from 1994 to 2005 (the Rehnquist Court), and boasted a 68 percent success rate (winning 60 of 88 cases) during John Roberts first seven years as Chief Justice. The CoC improved even more on its pro-corporate, anti-worker attack in 2018, winning 90 percent of its cases during the court's first term. As Kent Greenfield reported for The Atlantic ,

"One measure of the [2018 term's] business-friendly tilt is the eye-popping success rate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the self-proclaimed "Voice of Business." The Chamber filed briefs in 10 cases this term and won nine of them. The Chamber's victories limited protections for whistleblowers, forced changes in the Securities and Exchange Commission, made water pollution suits more difficult to bring, and erected additional obstacles to class action suits against businesses. Only the geekiest of Supreme Court watchers monitor such cases. But the Chamber pays attention, and it pays off."

Groups like the Trilateral Commission, Business Roundtable, and Chamber of Commerce have taken prominent roles on the front lines of the 40-year, capitalist slaughter of American workers, but if there was a single, powerful element that solidified this coup it was a memo written in 1971 by Lewis Powell. The Powell Memo, or Powell Manifesto, as it has come to be known, made its rounds among corporate, economic, and political elites during this crucial time. Powell, a corporate lawyer, board member of nearly a dozen corporations, and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice, sent the memo to the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Eugene Sydnor, Jr., as a call to action for corporate America.

Powell's memo was a diatribe against any and all elements that would dare to question capitalism. While giving mention to "Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic," the memo focused on what was viewed as the most immediate threat - the same "excess of democracy" referred to in the Trilateral Commission's report. "What now concerns us is quite new in the history of America," wrote Powell. "We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts" throughout the working class. Powell took special interest in those "from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians" whom he regarded as small in size but "the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking."

Powell's memo laid out a blueprint for the capitalist coup that is now referred to as neoliberalism , including everything from identifying and listing the enemies pushing for self-determination, criticizing the business community for its apathy and lack of urgency in recognizing this growing threat, suggestions for how business executives and the Chamber of Commerce may proceed in obstructing these democratic impulses from below, and even laying out detailed plans on how to infiltrate campuses, the public, media, the political arena, and the courts with pro-capitalist action and propaganda.

Reclaim Democracy, an activist organization based in Montana explains,

"Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy."

At a time of monumental capitalist regrouping and coalescing against the "dangerous rise" of self-determination, the influence of Powell's manifesto is difficult to underestimate. It provided ideological fuel to the birth of a substantial corporate lobbying industry, which produced immeasurable pro-business and anti-worker legislation for decades to come. The memo also served as a wake-up call to capitalists throughout corporate America, supplementing the formation of groups like the Business Roundtable and urging forceful actions from the US Chamber of Commerce. The results, according to Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, were undeniable:

"The organizational counterattack of business in the 1970s was swift and sweeping - a domestic version of Shock and Awe. The number of corporations with public affairs offices in Washington grew from 100 in 1968 to over 500 in 1978. In 1971, only 175 firms had registered lobbyists in Washington, but by 1982, nearly 2,500 did. The number of corporate PACs increased from under 300 in 1976 to over 1,200 by the middle of 1980. On every dimension of corporate political activity, the numbers reveal a dramatic, rapid mobilization of business resources in the mid-1970s." [6]

The real-life effects of this capitalist coup have been disastrous for most. US workers have experienced declining or stagnant wages since the 1970s. As a result, many must rely on credit (if lucky enough to qualify) even to obtain basic necessities, which has resulted in skyrocketing household debt across the board. The debt-to-disposable income ratio of American households more than doubled from 60% in 1980 to 133% in 2007. Meanwhile, any hope of saving money has disappeared. While the household "savings rate roughly doubled from 5% in 1949 to over 11% in 1982, it looks like a downhill ski slope since then," and registered in negative territory by 2006. Conversely, as designed, the rich have benefited immensely, to the point where income inequality has increased to pre-Great Depression levels . Those who orchestrated the coup (the top 1%) claimed about a quarter of all wealth during the 1980s, and now own over 40% of all wealth in the country. To put this in perspective , the bottom 90% of all Americans combined account for barely half of that, claiming 21% of all wealth.

And, perhaps most importantly, the coup helped fund the growth of a massive capitalist propaganda machine to convince the working class to support our own demise. This includes everything from a co-opted and recalibrated liberal media, a rise of right-wing talk radio, and the birth of the Fox News network - all designed to do one thing: "inform and enlighten" workers on the wonders of capitalism and American exceptionalism, the friendly nature of big business, and the "excessive" dangers of self-determination.

As Powell noted in 1971, "If American business devoted only 10% of its total annual advertising budget to this overall purpose (of marketing and selling the idea of capitalism), it would be a statesman-like expenditure." And statesman-like it has become, running interference and garnering " manufactured consent" for a capitalist coup that has been cemented over the course of four decades, six presidential administrations, a Wall Street run amok, and a massive transfer of generations (including future) of public revenue into private hands.

Notes

[1] "The Business Roundtable and American Labor," a report by J. C. Turner, General President International Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO (May 1979). Accessed online at http://laborrising.com/2013/07/union-organizing-and-the-business-roundtable-and-american-labor/

[2] "The Anti-Union Game Plan," Labor Notes (July 2, 2018). Accessed online at https://labornotes.org/2018/07/anti-union-game-plan

[3] Lafer, G. (October 31, 2013) "The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011-2012," Economic Policy Institute. Accessed online at https://www.epi.org/publication/attack-on-american-labor-standards/

[4] Gilbert, D. (2017) The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality (SAGE publications)

[5] Goldfield, M. (1989) The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States (University of Chicago Press), p. 192

[6] Hacker, J.S. & Pierson, P. (2011) Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Simon & Schuster)