Debunking Myths About Venezuela: What's Really Going On?

[Photo Credit: MIGUEL GUTIERREZ/EPA/Shutterstock]

By Eli Morey

Republished from Liberation Center.

Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela’s socialist movement, won the July 28 Venezuela presidential election by a wide margin. In a near-repeat of 2019,  the Biden administration  immediately declared the election illegitimate and recognized their preferred—but badly defeated–candidate as the winner, Edmundo González as the winner, just as they supported Juan Guaido’s pitiful attempt to take power in 2019-2020. Similarly, the U.S. is fully supporting current right-wing violence in Venezuela to set the stage for another coup against the legitimate and widely popular government.

None of this appears in the corporate media, of course. Instead, we only encounter accusations of “corruption” and “illegitimate” elections.

What about the polls that showed Maduro losing?

Headlines in the U.S. cite polls as evidence of fraud in the 2024 elections. According to some polls, Maduro trailed the opposition by a wide margin in the lead-up to election day. A closer look reveals that these polls are not a reliable source of information about Venezuelan voter preferences. 

In fact, each of the four polls cited by Western media were run by organizations with a clear conflict of interest:

1. The Encuestadora Meganálisis poll is openly affiliated with the opposition, as their Facebook page filled with videos denouncing Madruo and the Bolivarian Revolution.

2. The Caracas-based Delphos poll is directed by Felix Seijas Rodriguez, an outspoken member of the Venezuelan opposition who has authored numerous articles attacking Maduro and even discussing U.S. military intervention against Venezuela.

3. OCR Consultores is a “consultancy” group whose Director, Oswaldo Ramirez Colina, lives in Miami, where the group is headquartered. Colina studied “Terrorism and Counterterrorism” at Georgetown University, which is notoriously cozy with the CIA. He has appeared on news segments and podcast episodes criticizing Maduro and questioning the legitimacy of Venezuela’s electoral processes.

4. Edison Research, whose exit poll claimed Maduro’s loss, has “top clients [that] include CIA-linked US government propaganda outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, all of which are operated by the US Agency for Global Media, a Washington-based organ that is used to spread disinformation against US adversaries.”

Are elections in Venezuela free and fair?

While western media consistently accuses Maduro of rigging elections, there is zero evidence to support this claim. In both the 2018 and 2024 elections, thousands of international observers were present at polling stations across Venezuela. 

In fact, even mainstream liberal organizations like the Carter foundation have praised Venezuela’s electoral system. In 2012, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said that “as a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Who are the leaders of the opposition?

Maduro’s primary opponent in the elections, Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia, was not a big figure in Venezuelan politics until this most recent election cycle. He is primarily serving as a stand-in for Maria Corina Machado, who is the true face of Venezuela’s opposition. 

Machado is on the far right. Her policies would undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty by privatizing national assets and selling off Venezuela’s oil reserves to western corporations. 

She is also a proud and open Zionist. In fact, in 2018 she wrote a letter directly to Benjamin Netanyahu asking Israel to intervene militarily in Venezuela to conduct a “regime change” operation in order to overthrow its democratically elected government. In 2020, she signed a cooperation agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud party stating that they were in agreement on “political, ideological, and social issues” and “issues related to strategy, geopolitics and security.”

The right-wing’s violence is particularly directed against Afro-Venezuelans and the indigenous populations because the Revolution has greatly benefitted the sectors of society who have historically been excluded and oppressed. In 2014, a right-wing group beat a law student named William Muñoz, and doused him in gasoline. Fortunately, an ambulance rescued Muñoz before the mob could ignite the gasoline. In 2017, the right-wing went on a rampage targeting darker-skinned Venezuelans, setting them on fire and even lynching them.

Why and how does the U.S. try to overthrow the Venezuelan government?

It is not only the domestic reactionaries that constantly threaten the Revolution. Particularly since 2005, the U.S. has deployed numerous strategies to reverse the revolutionary gains of Venezuela.

A few years after the presidential election of Hugo Chávez, representing the Fifth Republic Movement, the U.S. ruling class started openly working to destroy Venezuela’’s socialist government since the Bolivarian Revolution began with the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, who ran as the Fifth Republic Movement’s candidate.’s government. Under Chávez’s leadership, Venezuela’s democratic processes expanded quickly and rapidly. In 1999, Venezuela adopted a new constitution that created a constituent assembly, bringing the people into positions of power to pass laws in their interests. Land was redistributed and social goods like housing and education were prioritized thanks to the massive oil reserves of the country.

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What became known as the Bolivarian Revolution, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)—which formed in 2007—was a spark that set off a “pink tide” throughout Latin America. Progressive governments came to power in Brazil and Bolivia, and people’s movements surged across the continent. With state power, progressives and socialists formed new alliances to challenge U.S. domination and imperialism, including notably ALBA, or the Alliance for the People’s of Our America. Founded in 2004, ALBA enables Latin American and other countries to engage in non-exploitative trade and other inter-state projects and agreements.

Sanctions were the first tactic the U.S. deployed against the Revolution. By depriving the government of the ability to fund social programs, the intent was and is to create widespread poverty and misery to foment dissent and blaming the results of the sanctions on the policies of the Venezuelan government.

If Venezuela’s socialist government was allowed to engaged in “free trade,” they could make even more impressive advances for their people and inspire other countries to follow in their path. As a result, Venezuela is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, with over 900 unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States alone. The U.S. has actively worked for over a decade to destabilize the Venezuelan economy specifically by targeting its oil industry and its financial sector.

However, undermining the Venezuelan economy is just one element of the U.S. hybrid war on Venezuela. There have also been multiple coup attempts with links to the U.S. Here are a few:

• 2002: Socialist president Hugo Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power by military coup plotters connected to Venezuelan big business. After two days, huge protests in support of Chavez forced the coup government out of power and restored the constitutional order. Chavez was freed and returned to the presidency.

• 2019: In 2018 the opposition boycotted the elections, and as a result their candidates lost by a huge margin. In spite of this, they then declared opposition figurehead Juan Guaidó—who had not even run in the elections and won 0 votes—the new interim president of Venezuela. The United States immediately recognized Guaidó as the president of Venezuela. The following year Guaidó led a failed coup attempt against Maduro. 

• 2020: “Operation Gideon,” an armed invasion of Venezuela led by a former member of the U.S. Army special forces, was defeated by the Venezuelan military.

Why are so many immigrants leaving Venezuela?

Millions of people have left Venezuela in the last 10 years. While the U.S. media often portrays these people as political refugees fleeing a dictatorship, the reality is quite different. 

Global oil prices dropped drastically in the mid 2010s. Oil is a key component of Venezuela’s economy. This would not have been a problem if Venezuela was able to take out loans to cover shortfalls until the price of oil rebounded. Oil-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE are able to get cheap loans when oil prices decline because they are allies of the U.S. and EU. In Venezuela’s case, the U.S. did everything it could to undermine the Venezuelan economy in a moment of crisis, and prevent its economy from rebuilding in the wake of disaster. 

Most of Venezuela’s immigrants are in fact victims of the U.S’s harsh sanctions regime, which has damaged Venezuela’s economy and prevented it from accessing key goods including food and medicine. 

Why do I see posts on social media calling Maduro a dictator?

After every election there are outspoken people who are upset about the outcome. If you were to look on social media or talk to random people on the street after the 2016 or 2020 elections in the U.S, you would certainly find people angry or confused about the results. You would probably also encounter people claiming that the election was rigged. This does not amount to evidence of election fraud. 

In the U.S. and on western social media platforms, the anti-Maduro position is over-represented because of the number of expats living in the United States. Venezuelans living here have, for the most part, left Venezuela either because they had the money to leave when the economy took a downturn, or they left out of desperation when the economy was at its lowest point. These are the segments of the population most likely to be critical of Maduro, most likely to speak English, and most likely to be on American social media pages and platforms.

Alternatively, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution is in the working class, poor, and indigenous people living in the barrios and rural villages of Venezuela. These people are significantly less likely to speak English, have smartphones, or be active on social media platforms like Instagram. Their voices are never centered in conventional media like TV and radio in the United States, which is largely run by corporations with a vested interest in demonizing socialism.

What is the Bolivarian Revolution and why do the masses support it?

Under the leadership of Chavez and later Maduro, notable achievements were made in spite of ongoing attempts by the U.S. to sabotage Venezuela’s socialist project. The main vehicles for these achievements has been the mobilization of the working class and the misiones, or “missions,” which are long-term economic and social development programs. The Bolivarian government has built over 4 million new homes for poor people living in substandard housing as part of the Misión Habitat. Over 10 million poor Venezuelans have benefited from subsidized food under a program called Misión Mercal. Another program known as Mision Barrio Adentro built thousands of clinics and community centers in an effort to provide free healthcare and dental care to Venezuela’s poorest people.

A massive literacy campaign in the 2000s helped over a million people to read and write. In spite of economic hardships due to the oil crisis and U.S. sanctions, millions of Venezuelans continue to support the Maduro government because of the tangible benefits it provides in their day-to-day lives. This is even more understandable given the ruthless nature of the racist right-wing opposition.

The Economic Consequences of the Rio Grande do Sul Floods

By Diego Viana

The southernmost state in Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, was under heavy rain and flooding for several weeks in May. The Guaíba, the most important river in the region, which flows through the capital city of Porto Alegre is usually about two meters deep. It went over five meters. More than 400 cities (out of about 480) were hit by this climate catastrophe, with over 2.1 million people affected and over 170 casualties so far. Material losses are hard to calculate at this point, but insurance companies already consider this the "worst event in our history" and the government estimates that reconstructing the Rio Grande do Sul will take several years.

The connection between the climate catastrophe and the rise of a suicidal far Right immediately becomes evident as social media in Brazil is overrun with swarms of outright lies, political accusations, and fraud. Meanwhile, intellectuals get stuck in a somewhat sterile discussion about whether one may refer to the people who have lost their homes and belongings as “climate refugees” — because it is shocking to realize that this term may refer to people other than the poorest among the poor.

Horrifying events like this have been occurring at increasingly shorter intervals, as we all know. Simultaneously with Porto Alegre, parts of Afghanistan, Kenya, Texas, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Germany and California have also been under water. Not to mention droughts, wildfires and hurricanes. But in the midst of this chaos, two lessons about our shared future stand out, which may be helpful beyond the regions directly struck, giving us a preview of how to build a future that would be different from what is being prepared right now.

Postponing an exam

The first lesson regards the possibility and requirements of large-scale planning. It so happens that the Brazilian federal government was planning a massive recruitment exam for the public service, which has been anemic after almost a decade of neoliberal rule. The tests were to take place on Sunday, May 5th, in more than 200 cities across the nation with 2.14 million candidates competing for 6,640 jobs. But then the rain came, and it turned everything upside down: how can you administer such an enormous test when many contesting for those public jobs are isolated, stranded, and homeless?

After a week of hesitation, and just two days before the tests, the government finally convened a press conference to announce what was obvious to all: the "National Unified Recruitment" was postponed and later rescheduled to August. Maybe it is just a predisposition on my part, but while I watched the conference I felt that the officials, ministers Esther Dweck (Public Management) and Paulo Pimenta (Communication), seemed somewhat astonished, maybe dismayed. Even among the journalists, there was, or so I felt, an atmosphere of disbelief.

This discomfort is not entirely surprising, though. For someone who had been planning an ambitious, country-wide operation, involving logistics, security forces, and millions of people, I can imagine that the idea of ​​having to postpone the tests didn't even cross the organizers' minds. In fact, a reporter did ask about provisions for an eventual postponement of the exam. There were none.

The federal government placed this initiative at the top of its priorities. It is boasted as an innovation in public sector recruitment, which it is indeed. But it is also an expensive and risky undertaking that had to be stopped in a hurry because nobody considered the intervention of natural forces. Even the decision-making process hints at the impasse the authorities were put in due to the floods. When the press was summoned, dozens of lives had already been lost, and entire municipalities were almost unreachable. It was clear that the "gaucho" (residents of Rio Grande do Sul) candidates were excluded from the test. If communication to the general public only occurred on Friday afternoon, it is because demobilizing this colossal apparatus is almost as hard as assembling it. I suppose that even the budget law will need to be amended.

The postponement made painfully and pathetically clear that in times of global connectivity and interdependence, an episode such as a natural disaster is never “only itself.” It is not limited to its immediate causes and direct effects, where it happens, nor is it limited to its own regime of existence. In a world of complexity, every system and every event spreads and contaminates other aspects of reality, other systems. The eruption of the concrete, palpable, real, into the universe of planning, abstraction and bureaucracy perfectly illustrates the reality we are entering.

I want to draw attention to the meaningful difference between this catastrophe's domino effect and two other consequences of the flooding. First: Rio Grande do Sul is an important producer of rice, wheat and cattle. It is clear by now that the output of these commodities will be compromised, putting pressure on prices. This has led the federal government to announce that it will resort to the international market. Shock waves can also reach interest rate decisions and, with a spike in inflation, unpleasant political consequences are not out of sight, with the far right constantly on stakeout.

Second: the fact that, per the insurance companies, the destruction of cities and plantations in Rio Grande do Sul is the “worst event in the history of Brazil.” The costs incurred could sap some of these institutions and is likely to lead to a significant reallocation of resources, which would weaken other public policies. As for insurance, as has been predicted for some time, we can expect a progressive and heavy increase in premiums, making investments of all types more expensive, especially the most ambitious and expensive ones, such as infrastructure.

In both cases, we are dealing with long-term issues, but mostly already advanced and priced. It is common to hear from economists and managers, but also from some scientists dedicated to complex systems, that the global interconnection of logistical, financial and economic systems makes it possible to overcome ruptures and failures that eventually appear in some part, guaranteeing the stability of the whole. The reference usually evoked is the initial 1966 Arpanet project, the embryo of the internet: decentralized and increasingly numerous connections are almost impossible to take down.

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Nonetheless, other scientists linked to complexity also warn that these ultra-complex systems, although resilient, are vulnerable. This means that they can resist deformation and remain stable, but if a particular disturbance, small as it may be, turns out to be capable of compromising the system, it will collapse completely and suddenly. In a dangerous but not absurd analogy: this is what happens in the death of an organism, for example, or the collapse of an ecosystem. To return to the Arpanet reference: the problem is not always in preventing transmissions from being interrupted. It may lie in the transmission itself. This is what Edgar Morin had in mind back in the 1990s, when he coined the term “polycrisis,” now taken up by historian Adam Tooze and theorized by the Canadian think tank Cascade Institute.

The postponed exam is suggestive of the increasing difficulty we will have in planning and articulating large-scale projects and programs. Without taking into account the climate factor, which is less and less “imponderable,” the government wanted to carry out a broad and solid initiative — and discovered that it was fragile. It won't be the last time something like this happens. This is at the core of what we have come to call "the new normal": from now on, the norm will be that all planning will be subject to failure for reasons that will fall from the sky or emerge from the depths, not without warning, far from it, but with warnings we may not be able or willing to hear.

Solidarity, distribution and economy

What then? — I thought, as I completed the previous section. Do we simply sit and cry, waiting for the moment when a calamity reaches us too? What does all this, the coming crisis of planning, imply for workers, proletarians, the wretched of the earth, and international solidarity in general?

This brings me to my second point. There has been a remarkable outpouring of solidarity in Brazil since the magnitude of the catastrophe became clear. Of course solidarity always emerges when one of these disasters occurs, and there have been many in various regions of the country: landslides in the Southwest, droughts in the North, fires in the Amazon and the Pantanal region, floods all over. But this time there is something different due to the sheer magnitude of the event.

No previous environmental disaster affected the infrastructure of modern life so deeply in Brazil. Airports closed, with runways sometimes inaccessible even for the planes carrying vital aid. There are broken dams, isolated cities and neighborhoods, roads cut, and power, telephone and internet networks down. The distribution of food, medicines and clothing in this scenario can be a daunting challenge. And it has indeed mobilized organizations from all around the country, in the form of donations, logistic networks and information centers.

While this parallel economy was taking shape, representatives of the private sector and the State governor Eduardo Leite himself were more preoccupied with the possibility that donations would have a deleterious impact on local commerce. I mention this not because I want to smear Mr. Leite as someone insensitive to his people's suffering — though one must admit he is indeed responsible for withholding funds marked for preventing floods — but because it presents us with a pulsating contrast between different kinds of economic logic. And this contrast is likely to intensify in the near future, suggesting what may amount to a paradigm shift.

I am thinking about a distinction that Karl Polanyi, the Austrian-Hungarian socialist political economist, makes in his masterpiece The Great Transformation, published in 1944. According to Polanyi, in the history of human societies, there have been three major principles of economic practice, in the sense of the production and distribution of the means of livelihood. These are: householding, which accounts for a mostly autarkic existence; redistribution, in which a central instance, such as the Mesopotamian empires, amasses the goods produced by the collective as a whole and redistributes them according to its own criteria; and reciprocity, of which trade is a particular case, and designates a system where different parties exchange their productions either through a price mechanism or a gift system.

Polanyi argues that a central element in the emergence of capitalism is the dominance of market exchanges over all the other systems. He says the market economy is disembedded from society in general. There is still some room for householding, as the nuclear family is responsible for many activities that are crucial for economic life, particularly the reproductive and unpaid labor ascribed to women. From the institutionalist perspective, the capitalist firm also absorbs a chunk of what would fall into the category of householding. Redistribution still exists too, especially under the form of grants, by both the state and the corporate sector. And non-market forms of reciprocity can be found all over, including gifts, favors, and the occasional barter. But they are all subjected to the general logic of monetary trade, their worth is calculated according to their link to markets, their position in economic life is below secondary.

Very well, what does this have to do with the disaster in Brazil and the solidarity that has been manifested since it began? The answer is, I believe, that the initiative to organize donations, which will become progressively more common as the climate crisis unfolds, contains the seed of a future recomposition of the three economic logics. When a breach in the regular market distribution of goods and services leads to a surge of solidarity, alternative economic circuits emerge spontaneously, simply because they must. This has been the case in emergency situations that had nothing to do with the climate, such as the Argentinian collapse in 2001, wartime scenarios, and the fall of the Soviet Union. Forms of householding, with families tending to their own needs; redistribution, with central committees organizing rations; and forms of non-monetary reciprocity, or alternatively monetary reciprocity, such as the “trueque,” came to life.

In all of these cases, the relative stabilization that succeeded the trauma reestablished the market mechanisms, and these other forms died down. The same happens with every environmental calamity in Brazil and elsewhere: circuits of donations and redistribution arise and dissolve just as quickly. But this time the scale is much higher, the needs more urgent, and the response is proportionally more ostensible. Makeshift centers for collection, transportation and distribution of aid packages are set up overnight, with a remarkable capacity of coordination. Online platforms dedicated to identifying particular needs and connecting them to donors have been created. Volunteers flock to the affected areas, but given the magnitude of the destruction, can only actually act when coordinated with other groups with better knowledge of the region.

Of course these initiatives also tend to wane as the situation improves. But we must take some things into account. To begin with, we are so used, at least since the Communist Manifesto, to think of capitalism as infinitely resourceful, ruthless, and awe-inspiring, that we can forget it has its own internal fragilities. While it may be easier to imagine an end to the world than to capitalism, as Fredric Jameson once said, capitalism still needs the world to be in place, and relatively stable. Disaster capitalism, in Naomi Klein's words, may bloom with the occasional landslide or earthquake, but if people lose the capacity to sell their workforce and purchase their livelihood, the market becomes groundless.

Also, the experience of those who engage in these distributive acts of solidarity represents a valuable acquisition of knowhow and habit. In time, the practice of non-market economic logics may very well solidify, at least from the side of distribution, if not production. As the environmental calamities unfold, as they are expected to do, on the one hand the capacity for large scale planning, corporate or governmental, will be shaken. But on the other hand, it is predictable that the recourse to alternative arrangements will lose its alternative character and constitute a permanent response. Of course, this will require further learning and the development of intellectual tools and strategies.

It is obviously sad to realize that the perspective of non-capitalist arrangements becomes realistic due to the accelerated degradation of the conditions of life on Earth as we know it. The mere fact that we have reached such a stage is a testimony to our incapacity to build large-scale and long-lasting alternatives to the radical capitalism of the last half-century. We should be clear about the fact that the environmental crisis is not an opportunity for change; instead, change is the only way out of the calamities that come with the degraded environment. But it requires careful work of construction, from the ground up. And this is why we can look for inspiration in the spontaneous emergence of solidary economic arrangements in Southern Brazil.

Diego Viana is a Brazilian economic journalist. He earned his PhD in political philosophy from the University of São Paulo and covers Brazilian politics, economy, and social conflict.

Origins of Modern Greed

By Steve Johnson

Greed is a strong and excessive desire for wealth, possessions, or power, often accompanied by an unwillingness to share or give to others. It is a trait characterized by an insatiable desire for more, often at the expense of ethical considerations or the well-being of others.

Dissecting the meaning of greed in the same manner that a word would be dissected in a legal document reveals that the entire definition is full of terrible human qualities that all point to an individual's choice to value their own life above all life. When we look at history, it’s important to remember that people have been capable of complex thought, compassion, empathy, and love for thousands of years. Early people were not hateful, fearful savages. They were as we are, but with different struggles and different technologies.

The Origin of Modern Greed, a Proletarian Theory

In an attempt to understand the origins of greed, I first looked at which civilizations have spread without pause and conquered the most throughout the previous 500 years of world history. It is easy to ascertain based on historical documents that it was the following nations: England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Next, I looked at what these nations have in common: harsh winters, some of the earliest archaeological evidence of widespread cannibalism, reduced sun exposure due to latitude, and limited landmass and resources as populations grew. I will now attempt to guide you through my thought process that greed is not a basic human trait that exists in us all, but instead developed as a means of survival during the most desperate of times in human history. I propose that the early civilizations of Northern Europe suffered resource scarcity, limited sun exposure, and cannibalism as a way of ensuring individual survival above all else which would later foster a culture of materialism and greed. Jared Diamond has touched on many of these topics in his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. We will also look at Cannibalism by Bill Schutt to explore the long-lasting psychological trauma that cannibalism can have on a population. World history and general psychology references are common knowledge and can be verified by a multitude of sources at the reader’s convenience.

Survival of the Warmest

When I was four, my family moved from sunny Florida to beautiful Michigan. The changing of the seasons is something magical, however, winters in Michigan caused me to be very aware that there are different needs for survival depending on geographical location and season. There are unique challenges of a harsh winter that are not present in a place like Florida. Needing wood for heat during the winter and ensuring adequate food supply to last the season are top priorities. The need for winter clothing to stay comfortable in colder climates is a distinctive feature of civilizations accustomed to frigid temperatures.  There is less exposure to the sun, resulting in a loss of vitamin D and serotonin. That alone has a hugely negative impact on the human psyche. Winter is harsh, and it can leave a lasting toll on populations forced to endure such a climate. Everything about lasting through winter involves having more than you need to ensure survival, a fact of life missing from the more temperate climates of Earth, with year-round sun and milder season transitions. You simply need less when the outside world is more forgiving.

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The more you have going into winter, the more likely you are to survive. Over time, the strong or desperate survive and the weak die, resulting in more resources for the survivors. After winter, the more you have remaining, the more you can trade for other goods and services to prepare for the inevitable coming of the following Winter. This simple exchange based on supply and demand is the basis of materialism that develops into capitalism. Greed developed as a means of individual and communal survival in a time of limited resources that ensured the wealthiest and most powerful would survive. Over an extended historical timeframe, the accumulation of sufficient wealth could elevate an individual to the status of a chief, king, or ruler. Fast forward through all of the muddied conflicts of kings and kingdoms in Europe up to 1500 CE, and now we look again at who the primary conquering nations of indigenous people of the world were. England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain claimed much of South America, North America, Africa, and portions of Asia. No other nations have overrun so much of the Earth at one time. Survival of the fittest would be false, but survival of the wealthiest, cruelest, and most immune would be true, which the longest surviving families would be the pinnacle of. It is these lineages that lead the populations and determine where to invade, for the betterment of themselves and their strongest supporters. “It is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it.” (Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond p166)

Survival of the Maddest

The latitude that the majority of the conquering nations exist at directly implies a lack of sun exposure throughout the winter. This will result in a vitamin D deficiency, which in turn leads to a weakened immune system, reduced bone strength, mood disorders, and sleep problems. This could translate into much of the Northern European population being tired, crabby, depressed, sore, and malnourished. It is not difficult to imagine that early Northern Europeans may have turned on each other during the course of a harsh winter to survive. The extent to which they may have turned on each other could theoretically be evident in archaeological sites around Europe and even in Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America founded in 1607. Many human remains featured butchery marks that “were identical to the damage found on the bones of non-human animals that had presumably been used as food.” (Schutt, Cannibalism p 159) 

It may seem like quite the jump that I looked into the archaeological evidence of cannibalism in reference to greed. This stems from the knowledge of horrifically true stories of survival such as the Donner Party, the cruise ship Mignonette, and Flight 571. Nothing screams desperation to survive and valuing your own life above all else more than consuming your fellow man. A common theme in all of these scenarios is resource scarcity, harsh conditions, and desperation. Settings not unlike that which early civilizations of Northern Europe may have  been faced with in any given Winter.  This heinous act is often portrayed as very primitive, and usually is only referenced when it pertains to indigenous peoples, not caucasians. However, the vast majority of evidence of cannibalism discovered so far, has taken place in England and “many cultures share the belief that consuming another human is the worst (or close to the worst) behavior that a person can undertake.”(Schutt, Cannibalism p12)  For further reading on the history of cannibalism in Europe, I recommend Sarah Everts’ article here.

Survival of the Fittest Immune

During the time of Western conquest around the world, populations were surging in England, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. There was a lack of “food production, a major determinant of local population size and societal complexity —hence an ultimate factor behind the conquest.”(Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel) Much of Europe had taken to farming, while the populations in undiscovered lands were living in harmony with the earth as hunter/gatherer societies. The impact of Western colonization and imperialism on indigenous peoples worldwide was intense and devastating. Dispossession of land, loss of cultural heritage, introduction of diseases, violence, forced labor, and cultural assimilation were all common and terrible themes. Genocide, slavery, ecological damage were also prevalent. Indigenous people were no match for the diseases that farmers of Europe brought to the world. “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis*malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are paradoxically now almost confined to humans.”( Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel p196-197)

Survival of the Richest

If I could tell the entire world one thing, it would be this: Greed is an antiquated negative trait that arose out of a need for survival. By definition, it is only utilized to ensure the survivability of one’s self over others. We now live in a world of plentiful resources, deep philosophy, amazing technology, and a world population that craves peace, happiness, comfort, and autonomy above all else. Now is not only the time to ensure humanity’s survival, but also to allow humanity to truly thrive. To do so, we must turn away from the tragedies of the past and look to the future. We need to exchange our mirrors for windows, and look outside to our neighbors and offer assistance where needed. Continuing to hold more resources than any one person or family could use in multiple lifetimes is a luminous beacon to the world that you value your own life above all other life on this planet. The upper echelon view themselves as gods amongst men. But, the truth is, we have all survived equally and are here together, now.

Steve Johnson is a retired saltwater fisherman who has exchanged his rod and reel for pen and paper. His stories and articles range from observations of the world to fiction and back again. He enjoys spending time with his wife, kids, and grandkids in their hometown in Maine. Seeing the world through the eyes of children has added life and purpose to his writing.

Big Government is the Answer

By Sudip Bhattacharya

Having been on Medicaid, I understand that state power is not inherently unjust. Government overreach does exist and must always be countered. Yet the notion that state power can only be a vehicle of repression and violence is an extremely conservative one, even when uttered by those of us on the Left. It is politically naïve and reductive.  

Not only has government power been a positive for many oppressed and marginalized groups, including working people; its ability to use force and coercion has been a necessary tool in shifting power away from the entrenched few. Taxing the rich, regulating major corporations, and redistributing land are all necessary forms of government coercion to raise living standards for the masses. These are all things that government has done in the United States and elsewhere.

In Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic work examining the Reconstruction era following the demise of chattel slavery in America, Du Bois wrote of federal government intervention in the former Confederacy and its benefits. Through its direct military occupation of the South, the federal government created space for civic and political groups organized by white progressives and African Americans for the first time in the region’s modern history. There was also the creation of federal bureaucracies, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, that Du Bois cited as being historic. For the first time, a majority of African Americans and poor whites were finally being provided free universal schooling and healthcare.

“The Freedmen’s Bureau was the most extraordinary and far-reaching institution of social uplift that America has ever attempted,” Du Bois stated. “It was a government guardianship for the relief and guidance of white and black labor from a feudal agrarianism to modern farming and industry.”

Du Bois himself published his work on Reconstruction politics while living through the New Deal, another era that saw the federal government playing a greater role in providing resources and rights for a larger share of the American populace. It was under the New Deal that social welfare programs were finally created to offset the precarity that people faced existing in a so-called free market world where companies could hire and fire whomever and whenever they wanted. It was also through the New Deal that the right to unionize was protected against corporate zealotry and overreach.

Social security and unemployment insurance were created, followed by a more emboldened Internal Revenue Service focusing on corporate returns. Not to mention the federal government decades later, pushed by grassroots efforts, to take a more serious interventionist role in protecting the rights and freedoms of African Americans and other marginalized groups against white terror. One could argue more coercive means should’ve been used, with more Klansmen being arrested and disappeared, as well as white supremacists who chose to wear suits rather than robes to their meetings. The prison system should’ve been filled with racists and their sympathizers.

Why is it so important to have this broader view of government power and its benefits? Because this view enriches us, providing a clearer analysis of how to generate power and change for the working masses. It also reminds us that the era we’re in remains an era of narrowed political interests and horizons. Biden or Trump, government functions as a vehicle for private capitalist interests to grow fat and ever more looming over the rest of society.

The Biden administration has been more open to ideas such as the right to unionize, and yet, it still resists any real attempts at utilizing government institutions, which it could, to seize more power from the major capitalists that render our society a swamp for their own profit motive and greed. In a capitalist society such as ours, state power includes that of capitalist institutions, along with civic associations and groups. Government competes with capitalists who concentrate the distribution of goods and services within their grasp. After all, when wanting more housing or healthcare, where do we turn to? The government? Perhaps when we need some kind of reprieve. But usually, we are dependent upon the private insurance company or landlord for our salvation, for what we need to live. We depend on a job to access scraps and crumbs.

As Kevin Young, Michael Schwartz, and Tarun Banerjee state, “Capitalists routinely exert leverage over governments by withholding the resources — jobs, credit, goods, and services — upon which society depends.” During the Obama administration, even when tepid reforms and regulations were pushed ahead, major businesses responded by withholding critical investments that would cause the economy to become far more precarious for a growing segment of the population because they had the power to do so. “The ‘capital strike’ might take the form of layoffs, offshoring jobs and money, denying loans, or just a credible threat to do those things, along with a promise to relent once government delivers the desired policy changes,” Young, Schwartz, and Bannerjee add.

When COVID became our enduring reality, the medical industry had been caught flat-footed. In a saner society, not one dominated by profit-hungry entities called companies, there would’ve been a stockpile of masks and other medical resources in case of emergency, especially as pandemics become more commonplace.

However, most major companies were uninterested in having an excess of masks, depreciating assets whose value was only speculative. Money is far more important than saving lives, of course.

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“But executives in the medical supply industry said that while they are rushing to accelerate their output of face masks, it could take months to ramp up,” it was reported at the time, as body bags lined the streets of Manhattan, as the medical industry staggered through the crisis to meet critical demand at basically the last second, leading to countless needless infections and deaths. Imagine if the healthcare industry was not an industry at all but rather part of a national system. Imagine the experts who could’ve predicted the need for a stockpile of masks. Imagine that stockpile being available the moment people start feeling their chests get muddy, their breathing cut short.

As Donald Cohen and Aillen Mikaelian note in their dissection of neoliberal privatization, the government, especially at the federal level, could and should step in, not just in terms of regulating major industries but providing an actual public option of many goods and services that people need. Why keep such important goods, like housing and health, in the supposed care of a select few major corporations, and landlords? These are things that all people need, not the same as choosing between what cereal or TV show to purchase/binge.

“If we take back control of our public goods — if we reject what political philosopher Michael Sandel calls ‘a market society’ — we will gain an incredible opportunity to build instead a society based on public values and a commitment to ensuring that public goods are available to all,” they explain in The Privatization of Everything, adding, “We’re all better off when we limit privatization and market competition over things we all need — things including public health, key infrastructure, water, education, and democracy itself.”

After the Russian Civil War, which saw an army of proto-fascists and fanatics unleashed onto the Russian working classes and peasantry, Vladimir Lenin, the great theoretician of the “state,” believed that having some level of government bureaucracy was necessary in forging the transition from a country ruined by war and capitalism toward something more oriented toward the needs and interests of the masses. Of course, the government bureaucrats would be accountable to the various levels of revolutionary pressure, from the Bolshevik party to members of the working class and peasantry who understood their historic role inside the country.

Nevertheless, much like Du Bois, Lenin embraced the realpolitik of government institutions being capable and willing to coerce the ruling elite and to forge a society that finally abolished class distinctions itself.  There was much work to be done, according to him.

“Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rails,” he stated in an essay collected in The Day after the Revolution, “The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say ‘state’ we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class.”

People can certainly exist in a future society in which they care for each other and check in on those around them in terms of what neighbors might need. People have that capacity to perform mutual aid. However, none of that individual or hyper-local level of care negate the fact that a society still needs major institutions to function for people to truly feel liberated, from the maintenance of hospitals (no longer run for profit) to schooling (also free and universal) to, of course, such institutions filled with a level of expertise, whether its medical or educational or the ability to maintain the traffic lights at the nearest intersection, that not everyone should be expected to have. Is it really a liberated society in which everyone, regardless of their interests or capacity, is expected to produce and provide asthma inhalers and other types of medicine for those around them? Is it liberation for everyone to have to spend every day gathering food and other resources so that everyone can survive?

This is where Big Government intervenes, cultivating people and institutions that respond to our needs so that we’re truly free and less burdened overall. Or, as Jodi Dean has said regarding the masses and the party form, channeling and developing peoples’ skills and energies far higher than simply being obsessed with the extremely local. We need a world that’s free. We are against capitalist forces imposing their nightmare upon us — a nightmare that’s global in reach.

Now, questions do remain of how to create that government we so desperately need. One could argue somehow that all we must do is run candidates, possibly independent of major parties, and for them to simply “take over” existing institutions. To some degree, this is indeed important — at least in the short term when it means providing and tweaking policies that could improve peoples’ lives, such as appointing officials sympathetic to labor to the NLRB or hiring more IRS officials to pursue white-collar tax dodging, or at a more visceral level, providing free money to people during a pandemic.

And yet, Lenin’s insight that the state or particularly government power doesn’t automatically change simply because there’s an immediate changing of the guard also holds true. In the United States, even as the government is reoriented to be more perhaps, “sympathetic”, toward interests beyond the elite, it remains a network of institutions situated to sustain capitalism, and other forms of oppression. Even the New Deal itself, as much as it curried favor and improved peoples’ lives tremendously, was itself a “compromise” between workers and their employes, and hence, sought a friendlier version of capitalism, well-regulated of course, to survive, which it did until more extremist elements of the capitalist class demanded more in terms of government largesse and power.

There will need to be a dramatic break with how government is currently oriented to truly meet the political aspirations and dreams of most people. It will be a government that does more than just tax the wealthy but abolishes them. It will be a government that does more than create programs to achieve balance but rather completely redistributes land and wealth, completely addresses historical wrongs from the dispossession of indigenous groups to the ghosts of enslavement, to paying money and making amends to the recent victims of the War on Drugs, and militarized policing.

This break necessitates revolution, always. There still is a need for a revolutionary party to break through the white noise of our status quo politics, and gather our forces to confront and challenge, and reinvent. There is still that need for more than just simply running candidates for re-election, no matter how radical platforms may seem.

But one can’t sustain without the other. Shorter-term needs get met, and longer-term horizons expand. People become emboldened as they win, not when they lose everything, including their sense of self and sanity.

Whatever the path toward political synergy might be, it cannot be wedded to an analysis of government and state power that is not only reductive, but stinks of political immaturity and a form of libertarian analysis that only sees government as somehow oppressive and all forms of “independence” from it as liberatory.“One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair,” Du Bois had written regarding the violent defeat and the shutting down of progress at the tail end of the Reconstruction period. Similarly, as much as people are being immiserated and, in some instances, compelled to take on a more radical opposition or critique, we also have seen a rise in rightwing violence and a predilection amongst the capitalist classes to express antipathy and throwing obstacles against any form of progressive reform even. Both the Democratic and Republican parties, with different levels of intensity, are very much against the cries of the oppressed and the dreams of the politically voiceless. The working classes who envision a socialist world have no real political home, let alone political momentum at this point.  

Crises beget more crises, which beget the oppressed and exploited being overwhelmed and politically confused. Big Government is an answer, and yet, who or what will spread the gospel and make it heaven on earth before the waters rise above our knees?

On the Development of Political Consciousness

By Peter S. Baron

Political consciousness involves understanding how our lives are shaped by social, economic, and political systems, particularly within the framework of capitalism. By developing political consciousness, we can recognize how the capitalist system perpetuates everyday issues like poverty and inequality. Doing so, we can explore ways to work together towards a fairer, more cooperative society.

To develop political consciousness, we must understand that regardless of our class—whether lower, middle, or upper—we are part of the general population. We are not part of the small group who holds real power regarding how society is organized. Since we lack significant power to influence decisions that shape the structure of our society, it's crucial to recognize that our capitalist and hierarchical systems, which impose economic inequality, social stratification, and power imbalances, are not inherent to "human nature." These structures are artificially constructed—man-made—and therefore, they can be reimagined and changed.

Social ills like poverty, war, crime, poor health, long working hours, and job dissatisfaction are intrinsic to the capitalist system, designed to maximize profits and reinforce the power of the wealthy few. Capitalism thrives on inequality, ensuring a steady supply of cheap labor by maintaining poverty. Wars, driven by capitalist competition for resources and markets, not only benefit the elite through military-industrial profits but also open new markets, force rebellious countries into the capitalist world order, and dominate natural resources. Economic disparities lead to crime, which keeps people scared of each other instead of the capitalists producing these conditions and creates a perceived need for police, who are necessary to suppress social movements that threaten capitalism. The for-profit healthcare system locks out the poor, keeping them sick, irritable, and in pain, leading to more social problems in their communities and hurting their chances for upward mobility. Employers push for long hours and monotonous jobs to numb people's minds, conditioning them to accept an unfulfilling existence while draining them of the energy to resist. These issues are not accidental but are systematically perpetuated to maintain elite control and economic dominance, highlighting the need for systemic change.

We have the technology and resources to meet everyone's basic needs and more. However, within the capitalist system, owners of essential resources deliberately keep them scarce to boost their profits and maintain socioeconomic and political control over society. This enforced scarcity compels us to compete for money, which we need to purchase these essential resources. We compete by vying for jobs or by selling goods and services.

Remember, money doesn’t materialize out of thin air; it comes from our pockets, circulating among individuals and businesses, continuously moving from one person to another. Think of it this way: when you pay rent, your hard-earned cash goes straight into the landlord's bank account. The landlord then uses that money to pay for services, transferring the money to other workers and businesses. This cycle repeats in countless ways: your grocery store purchase goes to the store owner, who then pays employees and suppliers. This constant flow of money among us shows how our economic system is interconnected, continuously shifting money from one person to another. Each transaction becomes a competition for businesses and individuals to maximize their earnings at the expense of others. This pits us against each other, making us competitors rather than collaborators, and ultimately making it harder to work together for our common good.

The ruling elite (owners) maintain this system because it keeps us preoccupied with our own survival, ensuring that we don't challenge their power. By keeping us competing for resources, they maintain their control over society. We need to see through this manipulation and understand that cooperation, rather than competition, can help meet everyone's needs. Instead of competing, we can support and create systems where resources are shared fairly, like community food banks or cooperative housing projects.

Currently, we find ourselves competing with each other over slivers of wealth and power—small salary increases, slightly better apartments, marginally better schools for our kids, and slightly more powerful positions at work—while the corporate community and ruling elite hoard vast wealth and control. We undermine and exploit each other while competing for the limited resources distributed by the ruling elite, yet we often don’t even stop to think about it! By perpetuating these systems, we reinforce power structures that serve a select few at our collective expense.

Recognizing and Challenging the Capitalist System

We can live better lives without capitalism. We should question why we must compete. Wouldn't we rather work together to improve our quality of life? We have the power to choose to cooperate. It is a fool’s errand to continue upholding these oppressive structures when we can create a society based on mutual aid and cooperation, where everyone has access to what they need and the freedom to pursue their desires without harming others.

Importantly, such questioning requires a recognition that we, the people, have been conscripted to willingly, and often enthusiastically, do the rulers' bidding of perpetuating systems that serve ruling interests. We do exactly as they wish by competing with each other over shavings of wealth and power. How much longer will we allow ourselves to be driven by the spiritually bankrupt belief that accumulating wealth and power equates to a better quality of life?

At our core, we are all humans—essentially apes who share 99.5% of our DNA with chimpanzees—sharing the same planet (which capitalism is currently ravaging…). None of us are inherently superior to one another, regardless of the social constructs or values we use to measure each other. While intelligence tests, work performance, and other criteria may create the illusion of ranking and comparison, these are merely human-made constructs. They do not reflect the fundamental reality that we are all essentially the same. As humans, there is no true measure of being better at being human; these constructs fail to capture our shared essence and humanity. Ultimately, we are all just apes, and these rankings do not define our worth or existence. How can we look at someone struggling under capitalism and tell them they deserve this suffering? How can we be so cruel as to shame them into believing they are inferior because of mistakes, factors beyond their control, or simply losing in this ruthless, competitive society?

While some argue that individual agency, effort, and personal responsibility, measured through intelligence tests and work performance, drive personal and societal progress by incentivizing innovation, hard work, and excellence, this perspective overlooks a crucial aspect of human nature. Humans are inherently innovative and social beings who thrive on helping each other. We don't need money to drive our creativity. The wheel wasn't invented for profit, and Nikola Tesla pursued his groundbreaking work out of passion, not for financial gain. When we create a society where people can take risks without the fear of homelessness or destitution, we unleash a greater potential for innovation. Moreover, imagine a world where our inventors and entrepreneurs innovate out of pure passion and a genuine desire to help others. It's disheartening to think that self-interest alone should drive innovation, as this often warps the true potential and purpose of their creations. Isn't it far more inspiring to envision a society where the love for one's work and the commitment to collective well-being fuel our greatest advancements? By fostering a culture of mutual support and cooperation, we can inspire more people to contribute their ideas and talents for the collective good, leading to a more prosperous and innovative society for all.

The real culprit here is the capitalist system that warps humanity to such an extent that people commit inhumane acts. This system creates conditions of scarcity, competition, and alienation, driving individuals to extreme behaviors as they struggle to survive and succeed. When we encounter individuals who are “lazy,” “irresponsible,” or “antagonistic,” it's easy to overlook that these behaviors often stem from systemic pressures and the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. Similarly, when we see extreme cases like murderers or Nazis, we must remember that their actions are also the result of systemic traumas and distortions created by the same flawed system.

Mother Teresa’s compassion and service were commendable, but her worth wasn’t greater than anyone else's. I’m positive she would say the same. As Carl Jung reminds us, we must acknowledge our “collective shadow”—the parts of society that we’d rather ignore or vilify. Instead of scapegoating individuals, we need to dismantle the system that perpetuates these cycles of harm.

By understanding that harmful behaviors are symptoms of a deeply flawed system, we can shift our focus from blaming individuals to transforming society. This means fighting for a world where resources are shared, and where everyone has the opportunity to live with dignity and purpose. It’s not about excusing wrongdoings but recognizing that our collective liberation depends on changing the conditions that lead to such acts in the first place. Only then can we truly honor our shared humanity and work together for the common good.

The capitalist system continues because we support it daily, despite its burdens. We  must understand that the capitalist system inherently creates inequality and suffering, which pushes all of us into the position where we may either contribute to the problem or work towards solutions. We have the power to create a society where communities and individuals possess meaningful control over their own lives. We do not have to live according to the dictates of corporate overlords who shape the material conditions we must live within, forcing us to compete for marginally better status in a fundamentally oppressive system. We can build communities that work together, share resources fairly, and make decisions together. By focusing on mutual aid and cooperation instead of competition, we can make sure everyone has what they need.

But this, what we are doing today, is crazy! Look at how we treat each other. Our society is based on all of us competing with each other over money and power to determine how we allocate basic necessities like where we live, what we eat, and the quality of our healthcare. What kind of society plays such a sadistic game where “losing” or refusing to submit to ruthless competition results in a poor quality of life? It’s certainly not a “civilized” society. Yet, we continue to perpetuate these exploitative systems, harming each other for what? The benefit of a small elite who couldn’t care less about our well-being. This is ridiculous. This relentless competition is a brutal and dehumanizing way to organize our lives, and it's time we see it for what it is.

So, what do we do? How do we help each other realize these truths? We should help each other develop our political consciousness. We should understand the flaws of the current order while simultaneously envisioning a cooperative society. By living in ways that emphasize cooperation, without hierarchy, profit, or commodified life, we can experience the benefits of a non-exploitative system firsthand. This lived experience is crucial in fostering a deeper political consciousness.

Thus, the development of political consciousness and the building of a cooperative society go hand in hand. As we disengage from the capitalist system and start creating alternatives, we strengthen our awareness and commitment to a more equitable future. In this sense, helping each other reach political consciousness is not just a step toward revolution—it is the revolution itself.

Awakening

The journey towards political consciousness requires a profound psychological transformation that we undergo together. It's a process where we collectively change how we see the world and our place within it. This transformation involves several key stages, each marked by significant shifts in our awareness, understanding, and emotional responses.

Initially, many of us exist in a state of false consciousness; that is, a state in which we don’t realize our true interests as a collective group and instead accept things as they are. In this stage, we often internalize the dominant capitalist ideology, accepting the status quo as natural and unchangeable, perhaps even good for us. We might attribute our socio-economic conditions to personal success or failings, believing in meritocracy, which asserts the harder and more productive we are as workers, the more we deserve to receive. This way of thinking is kept alive by the promotion of “rags-to-riches” stories, media narratives, and education systems that hide the truth about class oppression and exploitation.

Envision working tirelessly, dedicating yourself fully, yet seeing your socio-economic status remain stagnant or even deteriorate. Imagine doing everything you were told to do growing up, graduating from college, only to enter a workforce that offers survival-rate salaries and benefits. Your employer piles on intense pressure for you to consistently meet targets to avoid demotions or termination. Your work feels mind-numbing, your apartment is a tiny, overpriced box, and you’re scrambling to make ends meet while drowning in a mountain of student loan debt that grows faster than your paycheck. When you complain, your friends and family tell you “That’s life, work harder.” 

The first psychological shift happens when we start to experience cognitive dissonance, a deep sense of unease born from the glaring contradictions between our lived experiences and the dominant ideology. This realization hits hard, maybe making you question everything you've been taught. It's a jarring wake-up call, filled with confusion and frustration, leading to a budding skepticism of the status quo.

In this stage, we often begin to look for things to blame. Demagogues will try to exploit this confusion, urging us to scapegoat minority groups like immigrants, claiming they are driving down wages. But this is where we must stand together and help each other see the truth. The real culprit isn't the migrant who traveled vast distances seeking a better life for their family, only to be exploited even more harshly than we are. The responsibility lies with the exploitative systems and the wealthy elites who perpetuate them, pitting us against each other to maintain their power and control. But let's be clear: these systems would collapse without our participation. We, the people, are the ones shouldering the burden and perpetuating these oppressive structures. It's time we recognize our power and refuse to uphold a system that exploits and divides us.

Spiral Dynamics of Political consciousness

From here, it’s helpful to conceptualize the development of political consciousness through the lens of “Spiral Dynamics,” as articulated by psychologists Don Beck and Christopher Cowan and explained eloquently by Ken Wilber in his book “A Theory of Everything.” Spiral Dynamics offers a framework for understanding human development and societal evolution through a series of stages. The journey towards political consciousness can be viewed as an ascent through various stages of the spiral, each characterized by a distinct way of understanding and addressing social issues.

Within the Spiral Dynamics framework, we can visualize two main tiers of consciousness development. Stages 1-3 make up the first tier, while stages 4 and 5 belong to the second tier. Completing the third stage prepares individuals to make a significant leap into second-tier consciousness.

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At this higher tier, individuals can appreciate the entire range of political consciousness development, recognizing that each stage is crucial for the validity of the overall spiral. Understanding the validity of the spiral means recognizing that every stage, even the lower ones, plays an essential role in the growth and development of human consciousness. We all have to start at the beginning. Each stage provides foundational insights and experiences that are necessary for progressing to more advanced levels of understanding.

In other words, in second-tier consciousness, people understand that earlier stages are not just obstacles to be overcome but integral parts of a holistic system. For instance, while stages 1-3 involve more basic levels of awareness and critique, they are necessary steps that lay the groundwork for more complex and integrated thinking. This perspective allows individuals to see the value in every stage, fostering empathy and reducing animosity towards those at different levels of consciousness, ensuring that no one is left behind and that the transformation process is grounded in a deep understanding of human development. This stands in opposition to those at the lower stages of consciousness (1-3) who often believe their perspective is the only correct one and may react negatively when challenged.

So, what exactly are the stages in the spiral dynamics of political consciousness? (Note: the stages described below are original and presented in broad strokes to provide a general overview for the purpose of this article.)

Stage 1: Viewing Individual Political Personalities as the Cause of Social Issues

At the first stage of political consciousness, individuals may attribute social problems to specific political figures, believing that changing leaders will resolve these issues. This perspective, heavily influenced by media portrayals, focuses on authority and order, viewing strong leadership as essential for stability. For example, liberals may blame Donald Trump or the GOP for various social ills, while conservatives target figures like Joe Biden or blame the liberal “establishment”, seeing them as symbols of corruption.

Individuals at this stage are often attracted to simplistic solutions, such as believing that removing certain leaders will resolve systemic problems (e.g., “If only the democrats could control all three branches”). Although this is the lowest stage on the spiral, it is widely perceived as the only valid perspective because media narratives, driven by corporate interests, emphasize personalities and scandals over substantive policy discussions.

This focus on individuals distracts from the systemic nature of issues such as capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. It perpetuates the illusion that we simply have the wrong leaders, but if we vote for the “good ones” they can bring about meaningful change. However, this perspective misses the point that simply changing leaders, especially when we are forced to choose from options essentially handpicked by the corporate elite, is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. While it might appear to offer temporary relief, it does nothing to address the underlying problem. Additionally, this stage fosters divisive politics, weakening collective action and solidarity among the working class.

Thus, this stage represents a superficial understanding of societal issues, justifying its placement at the bottom of the hierarchy. It upholds the existing political and economic systems by implying they can function justly with the "right" people in charge. Ignoring the fundamental issue of power—the flawed belief that any leader should have the authority to make decisions for us—overlooks the inherent potential for abuse and denies individuals their inherent right to have a meaningful say in decisions that affect their lives.

To progress, individuals must engage in political education to understand systemic power dynamics, build solidarity among diverse groups, and develop a critical approach to media consumption.

Stage 2: Blaming Greedy Billionaires and Individual Corporations for Social Issues

At the second stage of political consciousness, individuals move beyond blaming political figures and start identifying greedy billionaires and individual corporations as the main culprits of social issues. People in this stage may target figures like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg for their immense wealth and exploitative practices. Corporations like Amazon, Facebook, and ExxonMobil are criticized for contributing to income inequality, data privacy violations, and environmental degradation. Solutions at this stage often include calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, stricter antitrust laws, and stronger labor protections to curb corporate excesses.

This sort of thinking is (sometimes) championed by people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While this stage is a step forward from blaming political leaders, it remains incomplete. Focusing on the greed and unethical behavior of billionaires and corporations still personalizes systemic issues, attributing problems to individual actions rather than recognizing these behaviors as inherent to capitalism itself. The pursuit of profit at any cost, driven by competition and the need to maximize shareholder value, is a fundamental feature of capitalism, not a deviation.

The proposed reforms, such as regulatory measures and higher taxes, do not fundamentally challenge the capitalist system. They might temporarily mitigate some of the worst excesses, but they leave the underlying structures of capitalism intact, allowing exploitation to evolve and continue in different, often stealthier, forms.

Notably, these reforms necessitate the existence of a powerful centralized government, which itself can become an instrument of oppression and control. True liberation requires dismantling these systems entirely, rejecting the illusion of top-down solutions, and embracing grassroots, decentralized approaches that empower individuals and communities to create a just and equitable society from the ground up.

Stage 3: Recognizing Capitalism's Inherent Inequalities

At the third stage of political consciousness, individuals move beyond blaming specific people or organizations and recognize capitalism itself as the root cause of social issues. Individuals at this stage, engage in a systemic critique of capitalism, understanding that issues like inequality, exploitation, and environmental degradation are inherent to a system based on year over year profit growth. They understand how capitalism alienates workers by separating them from the products of their labor, stripping away their sense of humanity, and isolating them from each other. They also see how capitalism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as racism and gender inequality, creating a complex web of inequality.

While this stage marks significant progress in political consciousness, it still overlooks a critical element: understanding the deeper psychological and existential factors that drive human behavior. It misses the crucial realization that it is us, the people, who enable the rulers to maintain the capitalist system.

Individuals at this stage often face the difficult challenge of balancing their anger at capitalism with the necessary effort to understand why people act and believe as they do, including those who perpetuate the system like billionaires and corporate leaders, as well as the managerial white-collar workers who comprise most of upper-middle class. This stage may still portray figures like Jeff Bezos as simply evil or greedy without considering the complex motivations and fears that drive such behavior.

The problem lies in failing to recognize the existential fears and psychological mechanisms that influence everyone. This includes understanding how fear of insecurity, mortality, and existential anxiety can shape beliefs and actions. Without this deeper understanding, the critique remains superficial, failing to address why people cling to harmful systems or resist change.

Stage 4: Recognizing Our Own Fear of Insecurity and Uncertainty as Holding Us Back

At this advanced, second-tier stage of political consciousness, individuals transcend systemic critique and develop deep self-awareness, recognizing that our fear of insecurity and uncertainty fundamentally impedes social progress. This stage integrates systemic thinking with holistic understanding, emphasizing the psychological insights of Ernest Becker's book "The Denial of Death" and Om Søren Kierkegaard's concept of the "automatic cultural man."

Capitalism not only exploits materially but also conditions people to internalize feelings of powerlessness and dependency. Becker argues that human behavior is profoundly influenced by our fear of death. To cope with this fear, we create "cultural systems"—the shared beliefs, values, norms, and practices of our society—that give our lives a sense of meaning. These cultural systems offer a symbolic form of immortality by allowing us to feel part of something enduring and larger than ourselves, thus providing psychological protection against our innate fear of mortality. The denial of our mortality thus often results in our irrational adherence to oppressive systems like capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Kierkegaard describes individuals who conform to societal norms to avoid existential anxiety as “automatic cultural men.” These "automatic cultural men" uncritically accept systems such as consumerism, competition, and hierarchical structures, seeking security in conformity rather than challenging the status quo.

Ultimately, this fear of death is a fear of life itself. Many people prefer the manufactured security of societal norms and the capitalist status quo because it helps them avoid facing the harsh reality that nothing in this world can provide true security. Many of us advocating for social change hold onto the belief in gradual reforms and working within the system to bring about change for the same psychological comfort, driven by a fear of uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability in a ruthless world.

Yet, we are vulnerable beings on a ruthless planet, subjected to various dangers, including dangers from each other. There’s no escaping this reality. However, acknowledging this truth can be liberating. Accepting our vulnerability allows us to confront life head-on. Instead of each person seeking false comfort in societal norms and the capitalist system, which turn us into the “automatons” Kierkegaard describes, we can embrace our collective strength. Through solidarity, we can support one another and create a more secure and fulfilling existence.

Those in stage 4 understand it is important to recognize that billionaires, too, are "automatic cultural men," bound by a life philosophy that sees cold-blooded success in capitalism and the accumulation of wealth as the ultimate goal. They are held captive by this belief. Recognizing this, individuals at Stage 4 understand that everyone, including billionaires, must break free from these psychological constraints. However, the primary focus remains on the broader populace, particularly the most downtrodden and oppressed, since our liberation does not hinge on the billionaires awakening.

In the spirit of Rousseau's cry that "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains," it is evident that our innate drive for power, which Nietzsche identified as the driving force of all life in his concept of the "will to power," is being grotesquely misdirected. In our current predicament, instead of channeling this “will to power” towards individually and collectively conquering life's challenges and mastering our own existence, we tragically seek to dominate each other.

We are social beings born with the potential to cooperate and help each other confront life’s obstacles directly. Yet, we elect to willingly rush headlong into the chains of capitalist cultural systems that confine us, blinding ourselves to our tremendous collective capacity. These systems, which we so readily accept, serve as deceptive sanctuaries, allowing us to hide from the profound realities of life and death. They seduce us into maintaining power structures that channel our energy for justice into judgmental and oppressive avenues, putting a smile on the face of our rulers.

We must unchain ourselves, reject the comfort of our accepted systems, and collectively confront life with the raw, untamed will to power Nietzsche envisioned. Only then can we realize the freedom Rousseau proclaimed was our birthright, casting off the chains that bind us and standing unflinchingly in the face of life's ultimate truths.

At stage 4, individuals realize these truths, understanding that overcoming the fear of insecurity and uncertainty is crucial for genuine social transformation. Addressing these fears unlocks human potential for empathy, creativity, and collective action. Recognizing that we psychologically and philosophically seek comfort and security to protect us from our fear of death, individuals begin to see that the only way out of the suffocating society we have constructed lies in enabling individual creativity and diversity to flourish freely.

Stage 5: Integrating All Stages with Negative Capability and the Perennial Philosophy

At the highest stage of political consciousness, individuals not only integrate the insights from earlier stages but also embody John Keats' concept of "negative capability" and Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy. This stage, characterized by a holistic, global, and transcendent perspective, represents a profound understanding of interconnectedness and a deep commitment to creating a just and equitable world. Here, individuals transcend ego and personal desires in favor of collective well-being.

In this stage, we move beyond simply recognizing the need for individuals and communities to flourish creatively and autonomously. We understand that such flourishing is only possible through mutual aid. This realization is grounded in the Perennial Philosophy, which posits that all existence is interconnected.

Picture a vibrant community where people actively support each other's growth and well-being. Artists collaborate on public murals, transforming blank walls into colorful expressions of collective creativity. Farmers share their harvests at local markets, ensuring everyone has access to fresh, healthy food. Neighbors form childcare co-ops, allowing parents to pursue their passions while knowing their children are cared for by trusted friends. Volunteers organize educational workshops where knowledge and skills are freely exchanged, empowering everyone to reach their potential.

In this interconnected community, self-interest and the interests of others are seamlessly intertwined. The success of one person directly contributes to the success of all, fostering an environment where everyone can thrive. This tapestry of mutual aid shows that our well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of others—including all people, other living beings, and the Earth itself. This interconnectedness reveals that our interests are not separate, highlighting that mutual aid is essential for our collective flourishing.

Negative capability is a term coined by the Romantic poet John Keats in a letter written in 1817. It refers to the ability to remain comfortable with ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt without the need to seek concrete answers or rational explanations. Keats believed that this capability allowed poets and artists to fully embrace the complexity and mystery of life, creating works that captured the depth of human experience. Negative capability is characterized by openness to multiple interpretations and the acceptance that not all questions have definitive answers. It contrasts with the drive for resolution and certainty, emphasizing the value of intuition and imagination in understanding the world.

Embracing negative capability, individuals at this stage navigate the uncertainties of creating this new form of social organization described above without clinging to rigid ideologies. They understand they cannot perfectly plan the future but must start building it by embracing ambiguity with confidence. They embrace the inherent uncertainties and complexities of dismantling existing structures without seeking immediate, definitive solutions. This openness to ambiguity fosters creativity and adaptability, enabling us to envision and implement more fluid and organic forms of social organization. This mindset asserts the means are the ends. It prompts action with the understanding that maintaining a holistic and integrative perspective will lead us to our goals. In fact, those in stage 5 realize that every moment they practice this mindset, they are already achieving their goals.

Ultimately, Stage 5 calls for a profound internal and external transformation. By understanding and addressing the psychological and existential factors driving human behavior, individuals adopt a compassionate, holistic approach to political consciousness.

Creating a just society requires taking a bold leap into the unknown. After all, let’s reflect on why so many idolize America's founding fathers. It’s certainly not because they were paragons of virtue. These men owned hundreds of slaves, were consumed by the pursuit of profit, and stood as the wealthiest individuals in the nation. Despite their deeply flawed characters, they are revered because they dared to take a leap of faith, striving to create a new nation in the face of brutal opposition from the British crown and resistance from their own countrymen. They exhibited undeniable courage.

We must channel their bravery into a new direction. Instead of perpetuating a system designed to protect capital and profit, we must harness our collective courage to create a system that truly facilitates human flourishing. It’s time to transcend the flawed ideals of the past and build a society rooted in equity, compassion, and the well-being of all its members. The true revolution lies not in defending the interests of the few but in uplifting the humanity of everyone.

This movement requires facing our basic vulnerability as animals on a dangerous planet and recognizing that no “cultural system” we manufacture can fully protect us. Fear will never totally leave us; we must learn to live in spite of it. There’s nowhere to run. We must begin embracing the uncertainty that is inherent in life, doing so with poise and confidence. Crucially, we must do so together. Life can be ruthless, but through solidarity, we can provide each other security.

We can overpower our innate fears as a collective. By embracing our vulnerability, we see that the unknown is precisely what makes life so beautiful. Embracing our vulnerability through decentralized mutual aid systems and maintaining a constant skepticism of power enables us to take risks, be adventurous, and pursue our creativity, all with the support of friends and community. Isn’t that what it means to be human?

But right now, we are shrinking in the face of life. We must stand up to life, and we must stand up together! We cannot allow fear to deter us. We must face it and realize that what we truly fear is our own potential—a potential so great it is impossible to imagine the forms it will take. By taking the leap to collectively reorganize society, we will unlock this potential and transform our world. The time to act is now; together, we can help each develop political consciousness and build a future where everyone thrives.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Ultra-Processed Food: The Profitable Filth Capitalism Feeds Us

By Ezra Ellis

Republished from In Defence of Marxism.

Capitalism is polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the very food we eat: all in the name of profit. Further evidence of this comes from a review published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on 28 February, evaluating the best available research on the effect of ‘ultra-processed food’ (UPF) on our health. This review included 45 studies and almost 10 million participants, and crucially did not include any research funded by the big food companies. The findings are categorical.

The review found that consumption of UPF was linked to a substantially increased risk of at least 32 harmful health outcomes including all-cause mortality, cancer, diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and mental health problems. This review confirms what UCL doctor and health researcher, Chris van Tulleken, argued in his book Ultra Processed People (published 2023): the food we eat is making us sick.

In general, the discussion around diet today is a monotonous sermon. From the newspaper columns to the television studios, the problem, we are told, begins and ends with the individual. The root cause of the global nutrition epidemic is boiled down to a lack of will to exercise, a lack of discipline to resist unhealthy snacks, and a lack of intelligence or capacity to teach oneself how to cook and prepare varied meals.

In this stale atmosphere, van Tulleken’s book, Ultra Processed People comes as a breath of fresh air. He puts forward a rigorous materialist analysis of the effect of the capitalist system on both the global food system and human diet.

Using a wide range of research data and interviews, van Tulleken challenges the consensus that humans have just become lazy and greedy.

Instead, he proposes the leading cause of growing levels of obesity is the drastic change in our modern diet that has come with the introduction and proliferation of UPF, pushed for profit over all else. UPF now constitutes more than half our diet in the UK, US, Canada and Australia but the big food companies are trying (successfully) to make it the staple across the globe.

UPF: not really food

UPF is a scientific definition for a category of food, originally drawn up by Carlos Monteiro, a Brazilian nutrition researcher. The hallmarks of UPF are the addition of stabilisers, emulsifiers, gums, lecithin and obscure oils you’ll never find in a supermarket or ordinary kitchen. What these ingredients have in common is they save corporations money, as they reduce the need for real ingredients in the food.

Not all scientists are in agreement that UPF is the problem. There have been many to speak out in defence of UPF, some even arguing that it can be good for you. However, a closer inspection shows that these scientists defending UPF have ties to the big food corporations manufacturing UPF such as Mcdonald's, Nestle and Coke.

UPF and Overeating

By analysing the past 100 years of research, the book demonstrates that it's neither fat, sugar, nor lack of exercise that has fundamentally led to the obesity crisis and increase in metabolic disorders. Instead, it is the nature of UPF itself that results in weight gain and poor health, as these foods are designed to encourage overeating.

UPF is soft and low in fibre making it faster to eat and digest, leaving you less full, and the flavour additives in it rarely correlate to the nutritional content interfering with our bodies' hormonal appetite regulation. UPF is engineered to keep you eating, and studies have found it can activate the brain in the same way as alcohol and drugs.

Van Tulleken references a study that demonstrated UPF leads to overeating and associated weight gain. The researchers fed two groups a diet identical in nutritional content, one 80 percent UPF and the other UPF-free, and swapped the groups over after two weeks. The same individuals ate an average of 500 calories more a day on the UPF diet.

This overconsumption of food has become a global health epidemic. Since 2017, more people in the world have been obese than underweight. Obesity is paradoxically beginning to be understood as a form of malnutrition, as UPF is high in calories but low in nutritional content.

In some places, this transformation has happened over just a few years, as multinational food companies like Nestle extend their reach into the developing world and swamp the local markets with UPF. The consequences for people in low-income and developing countries can be devastating as they have no access to dentistry or healthcare to address the problems UPF consumption causes, like tooth decay and diabetes.

You can’t ‘run off’ UPF

The proposed solution to overeating is exercise. This is often pu forward by the same multinationals causing the crisis. For example, Coke funded the ‘Exercise is Medicine’ programme, and funded many studies to ‘prove’ that the cause of the obesity crisis is lack of exercise, not Coke consumption.

However, Ultra Processed People examines the evidence and demonstrates that increasing exercise will not increase our bodies' expenditure of calories.

The book uses a study of the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania, and discovered they burned the same amount of calories as an American office worker. This isn’t to say Van Tulleken believes we should stop exercising. Exercise is good for your health – both physical and mental. However, diet is the crucial factor.

UPF is often the only option

Despite the effect UPF has on our bodies, the domination of the big food monopolies means that, for many, UPF is the only option.

23.5 million Americans live in food deserts, where fresh food isn’t available. 3 million people in the UK don't have a shop selling raw ingredients within 15 minutes of their home by public transport. Almost a million people in the UK don’t have a fridge, 2 million have no cooker, 3 million have no freezer, and the cost of energy now means many who do have it, can’t use it. UPF is consequently indispensable.

Deprived areas of England have more than twice as many fast food outlets (per capita) as more affluent areas. Teenagers are swamped with UPF, their bus tickets contain McDonald’s vouchers and fast food restaurants are often the only place they can hang out after school given the closure of youth clubs and community centres.

In the developing world, the situation is even worse. Coke is often cheaper than water, and as the influx of cheap UPF squeezes local farmers out of the market, UPF quickly becomes the only option. Globally 75 percent of our diet today consists of only 12 plants and five animals, UPF has replaced traditional foods.

To see the depravity of the capitalists you need look no further than the baby formula monopolies, like Nestle. They have aggressively pushed their products in countries where it was impossible to access safe drinking water, leading to 80,000 preventable infant deaths a year.

Why companies can’t stop selling it

What Ultra Processed People makes clear is that we can’t just change UPF and make it healthier. The products that are most addictive will sell best and do best on the market.

The book gives the example of ice cream. This is most often made using emulsifiers as an egg substitute, as it is cheaper and easier to store and transport. The reason companies are driven to experiment with the ingredients is that there is no room left to reduce costs in other areas. Capitalism drives companies to cut costs in production wherever possible, and UPF is cheaper to make, easier to store and transport, and has a much longer shelf life.

The evidence of the dangers of UPF, as found by the BMJ, falls on deaf ears for the capitalists, who respond with more processing: adding probiotics to ‘counteract’ their microbiome-damaging emulsifiers, adding artificial sweeteners, adding vitamins and minerals after all the original ones have been bleached out.

However they reformulate their products, their ultimate priority will always be to make profit, to sell as much as possible, and therefore to drive excess consumption.

The reason for the proliferation of UPF, despite these detrimental effects on nearly every aspect of human health is straightforward economics: a food that people consume more is food that sells more. This comes with the double benefit that you can sell a gym plan, “weight loss” branded UPF, or private healthcare membership as solutions to add even more revenue.

It is no coincidence that our diets are killing us – it is part and parcel of the capitalist profit-seeking system.

Why we need a revolution

What Ultra Processed People demonstrates is that consumers are largely powerless to cut out UPF, as we eat what we can afford. Companies are almost equally powerless to change things as they must produce the most profitable commodities, and rubbish that we can’t stop eating is a gold mine for them.

The main shortcoming of Van Tulleken’s book is that, having drawn these conclusions, he calls for government reform as the solution. In reality the government – through campaign funding, outright bribes and lucrative ‘job’ opportunities for MPs – is bought off by the food companies. And capitalists trying to cut their costs by feeding us rubbish is as old as capitalism itself; Marx was talking about the adulteration of bread going back to the beginning of the 18th century.

If we want to imagine a world without UPF, which is possible, we have to imagine a world without capitalism.

UPF has become indispensable, because the living and working conditions of the working class are so poor. Even before the cost of living crisis, British people spent 8 percent of their household budget on food. If the poorest 50 percent of households wanted to eat a diet that adhered to current healthy living guidelines they would need to spend 30 percent of their budget on food. The reason we spend so little? Because everything else (rent, utilities, transport) costs so much.

Even if you can afford to buy healthier real food, most people don’t have the time or energy after work to cook three meals from scratch every day. Many other people are completely dependent on ready meals because they are unable, through disability or illness, to cook for themselves.

Despite the industrialisation of agriculture, and the production of 2.6 times the food that humanity needs to feed itself, at least 2.3 billion people lack secure access to healthy and nutritious food. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Through a socialist plan of production, we could easily produce enough real food to meet everyone’s needs. With the creation of public canteens serving healthy and delicious food, we could socialise the domestic labour of cooking, which is currently primarily the burden of women. We could enable people to engage socially at mealtimes, rather than the lonely reality many face today of returning from a long day at work to eat a ready meal in front of the television.

This is all possible and it is the only way we can free ourselves from dependence on UPF. But it requires abandoning the profit motive and recreating our society at every level for the benefit of the working class – the overwhelming majority of the population.

Menace on the Menu: The Financialization of Farmland and the War on Food

By Colin Todhunter

Republished from Countercurrents.

Between 2008 and 2022, land prices nearly doubled throughout the world and tripled in Central-Eastern Europe. In the UK, an influx of investment from pension funds and private wealth contributed to a doubling of farmland prices from 2010-2015. Land prices in the US agricultural heartlands of Iowa quadrupled between 2002 and 2020.  

Agricultural investment funds rose ten-fold between 2005 and 2018 and now regularly include farmland as a stand-alone asset class, with US investors having doubled their stakes in farmland since 2020.  

Meanwhile, agricultural commodity traders are speculating on farmland through their own private equity subsidiaries, while new financial derivatives are allowing speculators to accrue land parcels and lease them back to struggling farmers, driving steep and sustained land price inflation. 

Top-down ‘green grabs’ now account for 20% of large-scale land deals. Government pledges for land-based carbon removals alone add up to almost 1.2 billion hectares, equivalent to total global cropland. Carbon offset markets are expected to quadruple in the next seven years. 

These are some of the findings published in the new report ‘Land Squeeze’ by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES), a non-profit thinktank headquartered in Brussels. 

The report says that agricultural land is increasingly being turned into a financial asset at the expense of small- and medium-scale farming. The COVID-19 event and the conflict in Ukraine helped promote the ‘feed the world’ panic narrative, prompting agribusiness and investors to secure land for export commodity production and urging governments to deregulate land markets and adopt pro-investor policies.  

However, despite sky-rocketing food prices, there was, according to the IPES in 2022, sufficient food and no risk of global food supply shortages. Despite the self-serving narrative pushed by big agribusiness and land investors, there has been no food shortage. The increased prices were due to speculation on food commodities, corporate profiteering and a heavy reliance on food imports.  

At the same time, carbon and biodiversity offset markets are facilitating massive land transactions, bringing major polluters into land markets. The IPES notes that Shell has set aside more than $450 million for offsetting projects. Land is also being appropriated for biofuels and green energy production, including water-intensive ‘green hydrogen’ projects that pose risks to local food production. 

In addition, much-needed agricultural land is being repurposed for extractive industries and mega-developments. For example, urbanisation and mega-infrastructure developments in Asia and Africa are claiming prime farmland.   

According to the IPES report, between 2000 and 2030, up to 3.3 million hectares of the world’s farmland will have been swallowed up by expanding megacities.  Some 80% of land loss to urbanisation is occurring in Asia and Africa. In India, 1.5 million hectares are estimated to have been lost to urban growth between 1955 and1985, a further 800,000 hectares lost between 1985 and 2000, with steady ongoing losses to this day.  

In a December 2016 paper on urban land expansion, it was projected that by 2030, globally, urban areas will have tripled in size, expanding into cropland. Around 60% of the world’s cropland lies on the outskirts of cities, and this land is, on average, twice as productive as land elsewhere on the globe.  

This means that, as cities expand, millions of small-scale farmers are being displaced. These farmers produce the majority of food in developing countries and are key to global food security.  In their place, we are seeing the aggregation of land into large-scale farms and the spread of industrial agriculture and all it brings, including poor food and diets, illness, environmental devastation and the destruction of rural communities.  

Funds tend to invest for between 10 and 15 years and can leave a trail of long-term environmental and social devastation and serve to undermine local and regional food security. Returns on investments trump any notions of healthy food, food security or human need. 

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The IPES notes that, globally, just 1% of the world’s largest farms now control 70% of the world’s farmland. These tend to be input-intensive, industrial-scale farms that the IPES says are straining resources, rapidly degrading farmland and further squeezing out smallholders. Moreover, agribusiness giants are pursuing monopolistic practices that drive up costs for farmers. These dynamics are creating systematic economic precarity for farmers, effectively forcing them to ‘get big or get out’. 

Factor in land degradation, much of which is attributable to modern chemical-intensive farming practices, and we have a recipe for global food insecurity. In India, more than 70% of its arable land is affected by one or more forms of land degradation. 

Also consider that the Indian government has sanctioned 50 solar parks, covering one million hectares in seven states. More than 74% of solar is on land of agricultural (67%) or natural ecosystem value (7%), causing potential food security and biodiversity conflicts. The IPES report notes that since 2017 there have been more than 15 instances of conflict in India linked with these projects. 

Nettie Wiebe, from the IPES, says: 

“Imagine trying to start a farm when 70% of farmland is already controlled by just 1% of the largest farms – and when land prices have risen for 20 years in a row, like in North America. That’s the stark reality young farmers face today. Farmland is increasingly owned not by farmers but by speculators, pension funds and big agribusinesses looking to cash in. Land prices have skyrocketed so high it’s becoming impossible to make a living from farming. This is reaching a tipping point – small and medium scale farming is simply being squeezed out.” 

Susan Chomba, also from the IPES, says that soaring land prices and land grabs are driving an unprecedented ‘land squeeze’, accelerating inequality and threatening food production. Moreover, the rush for dubious carbon projects, tree planting schemes, clean fuels and speculative buying is displacing not only small-scale farmers but also indigenous peoples. 

Huge swathes of farmland are being acquired by governments and corporations for these ‘green grabs’, despite little evidence of climate benefits. This issue is particularly affecting Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The IPES notes that some 25 million hectares of land have been snapped up for carbon projects by a single ‘environmental asset creation’ firm, UAE-based ‘Blue Carbon’, through agreements with the governments of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia and Liberia. 

According to the IPES, the ‘land squeeze’ is leading to farmer revolts, rural exodus, rural poverty and food insecurity. With global farmland prices having doubled in 15 years, farmers, peasants, and indigenous peoples are losing their land (or forced to downsize), while young farmers face significant barriers in accessing land to farm. 

The IPES calls for action to halt green grabs and remove speculative investment from land markets and establish integrated governance for land, environment and food systems to ensure a just transition. It also calls for support for collective ownership of farms and innovative financing for farmers to access land and wants a new deal for farmers and rural areas, and that includes a new generation of land and agrarian reforms. 

Capital accumulation based on the financialisation of farmland accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis. However, financialisation of the economy in general goes back to the 1970s and 1980s when we witnessed a deceleration of economic growth based on industrial production. The response was to compensate via financial capitalism and financial intermediation.  

Professor John Bellamy Foster, writing in 2010, not long after the 2008 crisis, states: 

“Lacking an outlet in production, capital took refuge in speculation in debt-leveraged finance (a bewildering array of options, futures, derivatives, swaps, etc.).”  

The neoliberal agenda was the political expression of capital’s response to the stagnation and involved four mechanisms: the raiding and sacking of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, frenzied financial speculation and militarism. 

With the engine of capital accumulation via production no longer firing on all cylinders, the emergency backup of financial expansion took over. Foster notes that we have seen a shift from real capital formation in many Western economies, which increases overall economic output, towards the appreciation of financial assets, which increases wealth claims but not output.  

Farmland is being transformed from a resource supporting food production and rural stability to a financial asset and speculative commodity. An asset class where wealthy investors can park their capital to further profit from inflated asset prices. The net-zero green agenda also has to be seen in this context: when capital struggles to make sufficient profit, productive wealth (capital) over accumulates and depreciates; to avoid crisis, constant growth and fresh investment opportunities are required.  

The IPES report notes that nearly 45% of all farmland investments in 2018, worth roughly $15 billion, came from pension funds and insurance companies. Based on workers’ contributions, pension fund investments in farmland are promoting land speculation, industrial agriculture and the interests of big agribusiness at the expense of smallholder farmers. Workers’ futures are tied to pension funds, which are supporting the growth and power of global finance and the degradation of other workers (in this case, cultivators).   

Sofía Monsalve Suárez, from the IPES, states: 

“It’s time decision-makers stop shirking their responsibility and start to tackle rural decline. The financialisation and liberalisation of land markets is ruining livelihoods and threatening the right to food. Instead of opening the floodgates to speculative capital, governments need to take concrete steps to halt bogus ‘green grabs’ and invest in rural development, sustainable farming and community-led conservation.” 

Unfortunately, ordinary people cannot depend on ‘decision-makers’ and governments to bring about such change. Ordinary people themselves have always had to struggle for change and improvements to their lives. Groups across the world are fighting back, and the IPES report provides some inspiring examples of their achievements. 

Readers can read the IPES report here. 

The author specializes in food, agriculture and development issues and his two recent books on the global food system can be read here.

Crisis in the Carolinas: The Lowcountry and Climate

By Erica Veal and Karl Malone

Republished from Hood Communist.

Africans are largely left out of conversations about environmentalism, despite the fact that we suffer from the triple threat of climatic, environmental and human rights crises. Our communities bear the brunt of the climate catastrophe, and this is especially true in the South Carolina Lowcountry where sea level rise threatens to wash away our Gullah Geechee homelands. Our relationship to environmental racism stretches back to the emergence of the local phosphate mining industry in the 1860’s and manifests today in the disproportionate exposure of Black and low income residents to environmental hazards. Today, Gullah Geechee communities disproportionately neighbor hazardous waste sites like landfills, sewage plants, incinerators and manufacturing facilities. Add to this gaping racial disparities rooted in the region’s history of chattel slavery, and it becomes clear why Black people should be the vanguard of the environmental movement.

Cooperation Jackson and the Black Environmentalist Movement

When people think about environmentalists, stereotypes about white, tree-hugging hippies come to mind. For Black environmentalist Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi, it is important for Black people to challenge these stereotypes by taking charge of the environmental movement. As someone who has closely followed the climate crisis, he calls attention to the fact that by 2050 the large portions of the Black Belt will be underwater if the predictions of environmental scientists are accurate. The Black Belt refers to the crescent shaped strip of fertile land in the Southeastern United States which has historically been home to an almost unbroken chain of majority (or near majority) Black counties stretching from Virginia to East Texas. It is the historic homeland of Africans trafficked to North America to build the wealth of this nation during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and where the majority of their descendants still live today. According to Akuno, the land millions of Africans in North America currently occupy is some of the most vulnerable to climate change and, as such, Black people are most likely to be displaced as a result of climate change induced natural disasters. The rising costs of housing means finding new homelands for ourselves may prove an insurmountable task, which is why our stake in the environmental movement is so high.

Sitting less than 20 feet above sea level, Charleston, South Carolina is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. For Gullah Geechee residents, the constant flooding, brought about by regular storms and unusually high tides, exacerbate the racial disparities we face. Flooding causes transportation delays and can mean missing work. It also causes property damage for residents whose homes flood constantly, as is the case for several public housing projects across the Charleston peninsula. Wading through flood waters can mean exposure to raw sewage, which can lead to adverse medical outcomes, medical expenses and the list goes on. For Black residents on fixed incomes, many of whom live below the poverty line, flooding is a constant nuisance and it’s only getting worse.

In the few weeks of lockdown we experienced during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic we saw how quickly the environment regenerated albeit temporarily. Industrial emissions dropped, the air became cleaner, as did waterways, migratory patterns of wildlife improved, and the list goes on. We saw that change is possible, but we live in a capitalist system that puts profits before people and the planet. We cannot afford to be silent and sit idly by while billionaires and private corporations continue to pollute our world and the people living on it to enrich themselves. Akuno says we’ve already surpassed the worst case scenario according to many climate models. Therefore to “curb ecological destruction,” Black people have a compound responsibility to organize against the systems that oppress us and take climate change seriously.

Learning from Cuba’s Fight Against Climate Change

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel in our effort to fight the climate crisis. We can learn from places like Cuba, a majority African, island nation in the Caribbean, that is largely the most sustainable country in the world. Cuba has embraced environmentalism like no nation has. It is the only country to meet the World Wildlife Fund’s definition of sustainable development. Its government has implemented policies to reduce the waste of natural resources and minimize its carbon footprint in the form of a successful 100 year plan to combat climate change called Tarea Vida (Life Task). Tarea Vida includes a ban on new home construction in potential flood zones, the introduction of heat-tolerant crops to cushion food supplies from droughts, and the restoration of Cuba’s sandy beaches to help protect the country against coastal erosion. Cuba is a leader in the environmental movement and all while struggling under an unjust and deadly 60+ year economic blockade imposed by the United States government.

Cuba underwent a successful, largely Black-led socialist revolution in the 1950’s, freed itself from the imperialist exploitation of the United States and naturalized its resources. In addition to leading the environmental movement, Cuba leads in medicine (sending doctors all over the world), has eradicated illiteracy, subsidized housing and food, has universal education from pre-K to PhD and is a shining example of what the world could be if we put people before profits. Although socialism in Cuba poses no threat to the United States, the government has kept the blockade in place and caused shortages in food, medicine, gas and other essential items at the expense of the Cuban people. Most recently, under the Trump administration, Cuba was added to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list, further exacerbating shortages on the island.

In the face of all this, there are many parallels around the climate crisis between Cuba and Gullah Geechee communities in the South Carolina Lowcountry, e.g. soil erosion and sea level rise are clear. Additionally, when considering the racial disparities faced by Gullah Geechee people (and the entire Black Belt region), it is as if we, too, are living under a form of economic blockade. Africans in North America are more likely to face food and housing insecurities and less likely to have access to quality schools, day care, health services, and a living wage. We are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards that expose us to adverse health outcomes and all of this is a direct result of the choices made by our bought and paid for government officials, both democrats and republicans alike. Yet, Cuba, the socialist capital of the western world, has shown us things do not have to be this way. For these reasons and more we should actively organize against the US economic blockade and the removal of Cuba from the SSOT list. The future of Gullah Geechee communities may literally depend on our ability to learn from Cuba’s people centered policies and innovations in environmental science.

Environmental Racism in North Charleston

The socio-economic state of the Gullah Geechee people is daunting and stretches back to the era of slavery. Africans in North America were never meant to be anything more than a source of cheap labor for Europeans to exploit. We were kidnapped, enslaved and trafficked here for our knowledge of rice agriculture and we transformed the landscape of the Southeast Atlantic coast from a vast expanse of Bottomland Hardwood Forests to a seemingly never ending complex of rice fields working in some of the harshest conditions as chattel slaves. As a result, Charleston became the richest city in colonial America and with the the largest slave port on the continent.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, phosphate mining became the most successful form of industry in the Lowcountry, replacing the major agricultural and textiles industries that could no longer be sustained due to the loss of the free labor of enslaved Africans. Since calcium phosphate was discovered in the beds of the Ashley River, it provided former the enslavers who owned this land an opportunity to “recoup some of their financial losses after the Civil War” by either selling their land, leasing it out to mining companies that began forming everywhere, or establishing mining companies of their own. The increasing demand for labor was quickly filled by newly “freed” Gullah Geechee people, who dominated this industry due to their being locally available and accustomed to working in the sub tropical Lowcountry climate.

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Though the rise and fall of the phosphate industry in South Carolina lasted roughly 20 years, the long term damage to the environment is still being felt today. This period marked the beginning of a long history of environmental racism in the Gullah Geechee community. Studies show that “exposure to these harmful conditions results in negative health outcomes, stressed communities, and reduction in quality of life and neighborhood sustainability.” The Environmental Protection Agency has identified many of these old mining and processing locations as hazardous waste sites. One such waterfront site in North Charleston, could potentially be developed into another heavy industrial boat manufacturing facility, but Black residents are actively fighting against this.

In 2015, the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC) acquired the former Baker Hospital site off Azalea Drive in North Charleston with the intention of developing the 57 acre property into a waterfront park. It has since leased 11 acres to a local company called Sea Fox Boats. According to an online petition circulated in March 2024, although “The City of North Charleston has zoning in place that will keep industrial uses off of the park property,” CCPRC applied to change the zoning to either heavy or light industrial to accommodate their new lease agreement. CCPRC claims profits from the tenant will fund the environmental cleanup and development of the remaining 46 acres park site while representatives for Sea Fox claim the manufacturing plant will bring jobs to the community. Black residents like KJ Kearney, from communities surrounding the proposed park site, are pushing back on this saying they already have jobs and this segment of North Charleston has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the area. Others have said they don’t need or want heavy industry in their communities, particularly on a site that is already contaminated because of decades of industrial use. Jobs won’t matter if residents are sick from exposure to contaminants and they don’t want jobs that will lead to the death and destruction of the environment.

While North Charleston’s city planning commission voted to deny CCPRC’s recommendation to rezone the site in March, the ultimate decision is up to city council. On Thursday, April 18th, 2024, Black residents again voiced their concerns at a public meeting saying they felt left out of the decision making process. Yes, residents want a waterfront park in that area of North Charleston, but not at the expense of exacerbating environmental conditions and hazards. The controversy surrounding the Baker Hospital site is an example of environmental racism at its best. While proponents of Sea Fox push the narrative of job creation, Kearney says, “the community is not against jobs” rather they are against the idea that “the only value historically Black communities have to their city is as a labor force.” He went on to talk about how the plant will produce tons of hazardous air pollutants and that, for a community which ranks” in the 95 percentile for asthma,” that is a risk they cannot afford to take. He suggested that the paternalistic framing of the situation by Sea Fox supporters is clear– Black people should be grateful for the opportunity to work for a rich white man who wants to invest in their communities and simply ignore the impact of the plant on their quality of life. After a long and heated meeting, the council voted to postpone making a decision on the rezoning for another 60 days so the council can gather more information, but the people who live in this area have made their position clear.

While the city council in North Charleston is mostly Black and so is the new mayor, that is not enough to ensure the will of the people is carried out. The masses of Africans in the Lowcountry must continue to actively organize against this type of blatant environmental injustice to mitigate damage to our communities and the environment. We already suffer tremendously under the crushing weight of capitalism and its partners in crime (racism, white supremacy, sexism, gender bias, etc.), but this isn’t just about us. We know the success of our liberation struggles benefit all oppressed people. If we don’t act, the climate crisis will be the death knell that marks the permanent destruction of our communities. None of us will be free until all of us are free, but what use is freedom on a dead planet?

The authors represent the Lowcountry Action Committee, a Black led grassroots organization dedicated to Black liberation through service, political education, and collective action in the Lowcountry.

Sources

1. Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi, edited by Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya

2. “Is Pollution Poisoning Charleston’s African American and Low Income Communities?” https://charlestoncitypaper.com/2016/03/09/is-pollution-poisoning-charlestons-african-american-and-low-income-communities/

3. “Free the Land w/ Kali Akuno” Hood Communist Radio https://open.spotify.com/episode/789OXvt1LdjEJ5e8pFCMUp

4. The Black Belt Thesis: A Reader by the Black Belt Thesis Study Group

5. “Flooding Intensifies Charleston Region’s Racial and Wealth Inequalities” https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/flooding-intensifies-charleston-regions-racial-and-wealth-inequities

6. Could Covid lockdown have helped save the planet? https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/could-covid-lockdown-have-helped-save-the-planet

7. Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change documentary by Helen Yaffe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APN6N45Q6iU

8. “Consequences of a Blockade of Cuba” 23 April 1962 Central Intelligence Agency https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R00904A000800020016-7.pdf

9. “The State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, South Carolina, 2000–2015” https://avery.charleston.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-State-of-Racial-Disparities-in-Charleston-County-SC-Rev.-11-14.pdf

10. History of the Corridor: Industry https://ashleyriverhistoriccorridor.org/history/industry/#:~:text=In%201883%20over%203%2C000%20African,well%20as%20state%20convict%20labor

11. History of the Corridor: Bulow/Long Savannah https://ashleyriverhistoriccorridor.org/sites/long-savannahbulow-plantation/

12. “A History of the Phosphate Mining Industry in the South Carolina Lowcountry” http://nationalregister.sc.gov/SurveyReports/hyphosphatesindustryLowcountry2SM.pdf

13. “Baker Hospital site to become a new county park” https://www.postandcourier.com/archives/baker-hospital-site-to-become-a-new-county-park/article_0630e058-999d-5de4-9319-5addea566537.html

14. “Public input process to start this winter for Charleston County Parks’ North Charleston Ashley River Site” https://www.ccprc.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/1423

15. “Preserve the Former Baker Hospital as a Park” https://www.change.org/p/preserve-the-former-baker-hospital-site-as-a-park?original_footer_petition_id=35513102&algorithm=promoted&source_location=petition_footer&grid_position=15&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uAEWcQgIAAAAAZe1wynNJJ%2BAxMzdmNTMxMQ%3D%3D

16. “N. Charleston argues plans for former Baker Hospital site, fate in council hands” https://www.live5news.com/2024/03/12/n-charleston-argues-plans-former-baker-hospital-site-fate-council-hands/

17. “Delay in North Charleston zoning decision fuels frustration over old Baker Hospital site” https://abcnews4.com/news/local/delay-in-north-charleston-zoning-decision-fuels-frustration-over-old-baker-hospital-site-south-carolina-wciv-news-4

The Exploitative Alliance: How Corporate Strategies and Union Investments Undermine Worker Security

[ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX NABAUM]

By Peter S. Baron

A major obstacle to the collective well-being of workers is how corporate employers connect retirement funds to the stock market. This linking means that workers bear the brunt, as publicly traded companies aim to maximize profitability through cost-cutting measures that negatively impact their wages, job security, and working conditions. Similarly, labor unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW) channel membership dues into investment funds that often hold stocks in the very companies they may confront or negotiate with.

Recent history has witnessed a significant transformation in the structure of labor's retirement portfolios; they are now primarily sustained by individual contributions, with companies only occasionally offering modest matching contributions. Individuals now shoulder the entire risk, while corporations benefit from reduced financial liabilities and greater predictability in managing retirement expenses. Insidiously, as corporations have shifted financial risk onto individuals, they have also directed these investments toward financial management behemoths. These entities hold control over each individual investor’s voting rights, effectively seizing the collective power of working-class retirement funds. This power is then leveraged to amplify the relentless profit-driven mechanisms at the core of capitalism. Running parallel, organized labor’s advocacy power has been undermined by union bureaucrats who have chosen to tether the union's financial health to the success of the same corporate giants it should be challenging, effectively making the union a complacent, and likely complicit, partner in the very corporate strategies that exploit its members. 

These financial realities, carefully engineered by corporations and meekly accepted by labor, are riddled with contradictions that reveal the blatant exploitation at the core of the elite’s oppression of workers. They serve as stark reminders that security and well-being, let alone collective liberation, won't come from corporate investment schemes or the leadership of corporate bureaucratic puppets, but only from the solidarity and unified strength of the workforce. The power to dismantle this exploitation lies in workers rejecting the illusion of corporate benevolence and instead building unwavering unity to reclaim their future through collective action.

Background

Traditionally, workers' retirement funds were managed through Defined Benefit (DB) plans, which ensured a stable pension for retirees and placed the investment risk on employers, who shouldered the costs of employees' retirement benefits. Though these DB plans were similarly invested in the stock market, the companies themselves were responsible for ensuring that the retirement fund has enough resources to meet those guaranteed payouts, meaning the employer must cover any shortfall if investment returns do not meet expectations. These plans became seen as economically burdensome by corporate executives who aimed to maintain steadily growing profits in an era marked by rapid market shifts and increasing global competition (https://livewell.com/finance/why-have-employers-moved-from-defined-benefit-to-defined-contribution-plans/).

The transition to 401(k) and other Defined Contribution (DC) plans offloaded these risks onto employees, fundamentally transforming the nature of retirement savings. Defined Contribution plans prioritize contributions over guaranteed payouts, requiring employers and workers to allocate set amounts into individual retirement accounts. With the employer no longer liable to provide a guaranteed income, workers must now shoulder the burden of their own retirement funding, gambling their hard-earned savings in the unpredictable stock market. Though favorable returns can occur, sustained gains are elusive due to regular market crashes that occur every six years on average. This means that when the market plummets, it's the employees who bear the brunt, not the employers, exposing workers' financial security to the whims of an unstable market while leaving them vulnerable to navigating a system designed to shift the risks and costs of retirement away from corporations.

The neoliberal ideological shift that encouraged employers to search for cost-cutting measures also aligned with broader economic changes, including a shift from manufacturing to service and IT sectors, where new companies were more likely to adopt DC plans. Furthermore, legislation like the Pension Protection Act of 2006 facilitated this transition by imposing stricter funding requirements on DB plans and enhancing the attractiveness of DC plans through various incentives (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n3/v69n3p1.html).

Running parallel, the recent trend of labor unions—such as the massive United Auto Workers (UAW)—investing membership dues in the stock market, including in companies they might challenge or negotiate with, starkly illustrates how union bureaucracies are increasingly co-opted by the very corporate forces they are supposed to oppose. From the 1980s onward, the government-corporate alliance has evolved into a toxic web of aggressive market liberalization and ruthless deregulation. The calculated removal of oversight was a brazen move that handed corporations unchecked power while shredding public accountability. Worker protections were gutted, and investment returns soared on the backs of labor exploitation, as corporate greed flourished at the expense of those who toil.

The UAW, like many other unions, seized on the opportunity to increase their cash reserves and began channeling part of their dues and pension funds into the stock market. Superficially, this was a move to diversify and increase the assets available to serve and protect members. However, it effectively entangled the unions' financial interests with those of the very corporations they were meant to be monitoring and moderating, at the very least.

This alignment with corporate performance underscores a deeper ideological shift within the union bureaucracy, from champions of workers' rights to managers of complex financial portfolios. This shift has distanced the union's leadership from the everyday realities and immediate needs of their rank-and-file members, leading to decisions that favor long-term financial stability over aggressive advocacy for better wages, benefits, or working conditions.

In both scenarios, workers face a ridiculous contradiction: pursuing their true interest in collective emancipation from the exploitative capitalist class risks undermining their wages, benefits, and retirement savings.

The Paradox of Worker Investment in Corporate Profits

The transition from traditional pension plans to 401(k) plans encapsulates a critical transformation in the relationship between labor and capital, deeply embedded with ideological and material implications.

By investing their retirement savings in the stock market, workers are compelled to support, and indeed root for, the success of the very entities that exploit their labor. The corporate profits that boost their retirement funds are sourced directly from corporate strategies such as suppressing wages, reducing workforce sizes, and demanding increased productivity. This is effectively a transfer of wealth from workers to the rulers, who assume the title of “shareholders” and “executives.” Yet, this extraction of wealth is cleverly disguised as a harmless, or more often, benign, retirement savings scheme, misleading workers into passively acquiescing to their own exploitation.

Under the oppressive gears of capitalism, driven by the relentless hunger for perpetual growth, these savings plans don't just subtly coerce workers into endorsing their own exploitation—they force them to champion an ever-escalating cycle of exploitation. This vicious spiral is demanded by a system addicted to ceaseless profit increases year after year, chaining workers to a fate where they root for deeper cuts into their own flesh. Essentially, through these defined contribution plans, workers unwittingly empower their rulers to repeatedly enact the very cost-cutting measures that threaten their jobs, deny them raises, and increase their workload and hours.

Relinquishing Control

A troubling feature of 401(k) plans is the significant loss of control they impose on workers, who must hand over their financial decision-making to corporate giants like Vanguard, Blackrock, or State Street. Workers are compelled to hand over their retirement funds to corporations like Vanguard, Blackrock, or State Street because these financial goliaths contract with employers to manage 401(k) plans, effectively controlling the investment options and strategies available to employees. These management companies administer 401(k) plans, offering workers only a limited selection of investment options that are chosen to serve corporate goals rather than the financial needs or preferences of the employees themselves. This limited selection gives the appearance of choice, but in reality, it substantially diminishes workers' autonomy over their own retirement funds.

In other words, these managers make critical investment decisions without direct input from the workers, decisions that shape the potential growth and security of the workers' retirement savings. Consequently, workers are left on the sidelines, passive observers of their own financial destinies, reliant on the strategies and ethical considerations of entities that prioritize corporate profitability over individual security.

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Despite the fact that, collectively, the controlling stake in almost all publicly traded companies is technically "owned" by a broad base of worker-investors, the reality is starkly different. By channeling investments through entities like Vanguard, workers are stripped of any direct influence over corporate actions. When workers entrust their savings to financial behemoths like Vanguard, they effectively hand over their shareholder "voting rights," surrendering any semblance of control over the corporations their collective labor has built.

This arrangement starkly illustrates how capitalist structures co-opt workers’ assets for corporate gain, rendering them powerless in decisions that affect their own economic futures. Intermediaries like Vanguard wield our collective power to relentlessly pursue corporate profit growth, endorsing actions that ruthlessly undermine our interests as workers. They push for job cuts, relentless lobbying against fair wage laws, and environmental shortcuts—all leveraging our collective votes to bolster shareholder value at the expense of the very workforce that enables it.

The systemic channeling of worker investments into entities like Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street is not merely a feature of modern financial management; it is a cornerstone of capitalist power dynamics. This process ensures that the vast pool of capital derived from workers' savings is used not to empower those workers as shareholders, but rather to fortify the very structures that oppress them. With our collective investments holding controlling stakes in nearly all publicly traded companies, the corporate elite deliberately divert this immense power into their own hands to maintain dominance. They design this system to crush any potential worker resistance, ensuring their agendas remain unchallenged while deepening economic disparities that empower the elite at the expense of the working majority.

Blindness to Class Antagonisms

The financialization of workers' savings essentially turns their labor into a commodity. By reducing their economic agency to numbers in an investment portfolio, workers are disconnected from the real outcomes of their own economic contributions. As their hard-earned money is invested in large capitalist enterprises, it's managed under the guise of seeking growth and security. However, this management actually reinforces the power structures that limit workers' autonomy and freedom.

Investment funds serve as tools that embed workers deeper within the capitalist system, presenting their subordinate position as a necessary efficiency rather than exploitation. This makes the process seem like prudent financial management, but it's really about maintaining the status quo. This creates a cognitive and practical dissonance, where the worker’s financial planning for the future is tied up with strategies that undermine their present livelihood and working conditions.

As workers see their retirement savings—invested in volatile stock markets—potentially jeopardized by decisive labor actions, there arises a rational general reluctance to engage in or support extensive strikes or vigorous protests. This caution stems from the fear that disrupting the market, even temporarily, could diminish their financial security, despite the potential long-term benefits such actions could have on improving working conditions.

Without the backing of unorganized laborers whose retirement funds are entrenched in the stock market, organized labor faces a much tougher challenge in gaining public support for substantial changes that would shift power from the elite to the people. This dynamic introduces a significant delay in the class struggle, reducing the momentum for radical change. Thus, the capitalist class gains a buffer period to adjust and refine oppressive strategies, reinforcing the status quo and perpetuating the cycle of worker exploitation, all while maintaining a facade of empowering workers through financial participation.

The capitalist class exploits this lag, not only through overt repression but also through more subtle forms of coercion. By shaping norms and expectations—such as the prioritization of market stability over the improvement of labor conditions—they manipulate workers into accepting, and even defending, a system that fundamentally works against their interests. This ideological control helps sustain the status quo, continually diverting attention from the systemic exploitation that underpins the capitalist system and muffling the calls for transformative change that might otherwise resonate through the working class. This clever manipulation of worker priorities ensures that any potential disruptions to capitalist accumulation are blunted, securing ongoing dominance by the ruling elites.

The UAW’s Investment Strategy and Worker Conflict

Even within organized labor contexts such as unions, bureaucratic structures often paralyze workers into a passive acceptance of a system that purports to aid their financial well-being while subtly undermining their real interests, just as unorganized laborers, with their retirement funds tied to the stock market, passively support the corporate entities they should be challenging. In unions, this dynamic is replicated through bureaucratic controls that bind workers to the same detrimental financial entanglements, ensuring that even within organized frameworks, the mechanisms ostensibly designed to empower workers instead reinforce their submission to a system that undermines their genuine interests.

For example, the UAW bureaucratic apparatus derives a substantial portion of its revenue from indirect auto company subsidies and Wall Street investments. These funds have been used not just for operational costs but to swell the ranks of its high-paid staff and finance extravagant leadership conferences, from which the ordinary union member is conspicuously absent.

Dues from UAW members are funneled into various mutual funds and stocks globally, including stakes in companies whose workers are represented by the union. In essence, the auto workers' union is investing in the very companies they are negotiating with for better wages and conditions! Notably, the UAW also has investments in notorious hedge funds like Bardin Hill Investment Partners and Kohlberg Investors IX, firms infamous for harsh worker cuts, operating out of places like the Cayman Islands. Thus, the UAW is investing in both the employers that exploit their own members and in corporate entities that extract wealth from workers generally.

As a result, net spending for the UAW, excluding strike payouts, escalated dramatically from $258 million in 2022 to $318.4 million in 2023, with compensation for headquarters staff rising from $52.57 million to nearly $59 million. This investment strategy has undeniably benefitted from the stock market's recent boom, driven largely by Wall Street's aggressive undermining of the working class's social standing, particularly through widespread layoffs, wage suppression, and the denial or reduction of benefits.

Ostensibly, these vast reserves bolster the UAW's strike fund, yet strikes are rarely called and are often restricted in scope. Last year's "stand up strike" saw most auto workers continue to labor, while the employers’ revenues actually increased. The strike fund, rather than serving as a militant tool against corporate power, increasingly appears as a financial cushion for the union bureaucratic elite, not the workers it claims to represent.

This arrangement embodies a conflict: while the union fights for better wages and conditions, its financial health and the ability of its strike fund to grow are largely dependent on the prosperity of the same corporate entities they may be contesting. This interdependence complicates the union’s role and its strategies in advocating for workers' rights.

Conflict Between Worker Advocacy and Financial Interests

The financial maneuvers of the UAW, particularly its investments in the very companies its members labor under, reveal a stark betrayal orchestrated by union elites. These leaders—career unionists who have risen through the ranks—are entrenched in safeguarding their own positions, power, and privileges at the expense of the rank-and-file workers they claim to represent. These bureaucratic elites have distanced themselves from the daily struggles of the workforce, becoming gatekeepers who often suppress radical initiatives that could genuinely empower workers.

This leadership stratum, with its grip firmly on the union’s strategic levers, has consistently shunned aggressive labor actions that might jeopardize their investment portfolios and their cozy relationships with corporate powerhouses, or possibly even invite state backlash. Their risk-averse, conservative tactics dilute the potential for revolutionary changes, favoring instead incrementalistic policies that do little more than maintain the status quo. In negotiations, these leaders are quick to prioritize job security over substantial wage increases or essential adaptations to industry evolution, such as retraining for emerging technologies. This strategy goes beyond mere conservatism; it is actively complicit. It represents a deliberate choice by a self-interested bureaucratic elite to align with corporations and a co-opted state, entities that actively resist transformative changes.

Reflection

The seismic shift from defined benefit (DB) plans to defined contribution (DC) plans marks a significant transformation in the landscape of worker retirement security. This transition encapsulates a broader trend in the neoliberal economic agenda, prioritizing market solutions and individual responsibility over collective welfare and guaranteed benefits. By shifting the burden of retirement savings to individuals, workers find themselves compelled to invest in and support the very corporate systems that may undermine their job security and wage growth. The involvement of financial giants like Vanguard in managing these investments exemplifies a deep entrenchment of capitalist interests in workers' lives. These firms, by controlling vast pools of retirement funds, not only influence corporate governance but also align workers' financial futures with the health of the stock market and corporate profitability, effectively muting potential collective dissent against exploitative practices.

In parallel, the role of unions like the UAW in this financialized landscape reveals a troubling convergence of interests between union leadership and corporate power. As unions invest in the stock market, including in companies they negotiate with, there arises a conflict between advocating for robust labor rights and maintaining the financial performance of their investments. This duality suggests a corrosion of union solidarity, driven by a bureaucratic elite more attuned to the fluctuations of the market than to the struggles of the rank-and-file members. Such dynamics underscore a broader erosion of labor power, where the traditional role of unions as bulwarks against corporate excess is compromised, making them less a force for challenging the status quo and more a part of the financial systems they should be critiquing.

It's time to disengage from these capitalist structures that exploit us and instead cultivate solidarity rooted in class consciousness. Only by recognizing our collective power and prioritizing mutual welfare can we dismantle the financial machinery that subjugates workers and reclaim our future.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Union Politics: The Contradictions of a Capitalist Labor Movement

By Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso

On December 1st, 2023, the United Auto Workers (UAW) officially voiced their support for a ceasefire in Gaza, becoming the largest labor union to do so. The announcement came from the union’s director, Brandon Mancilla, during a press conference outside the White House. In announcing, the UAW added its name to a growing list of union locals, national chapters, and labor organizations that have called for an end to the genocidal violence still unfolding in the region.

On January 24th, the UAW went on to announce their endorsement of Joe Biden for president during the union’s national Community Action Program (CAP) conference. Thus, in just under two months, UAW managed to call for an end to a genocide whilst simultaneously endorsing a second presidential term for one of its most powerful proponents. And they are not alone. Of the roughly 150 organizations that have signed onto the labor movement petition calling for a ceasefire, nearly one third have also publicly endorsed — or are directly affiliated with a national chapter that has publicly endorsed — Biden for the presidency. Such a gross contradiction cannot be ignored, especially as it represents only the latest example of a broader phenomenon present in much of the American labor movement: capitalist dissonance.

The movement’s shortcomings are well-documented. Much of the labor landscape in the United States — while certainly working to win immediate material improvements for the working class — often fails to provide a more comprehensive framework for revolutionary praxis that looks to a liberated future. The Black Rose Anarchist Federation said it best in their piece ‘The State of Labor: Beyond Unions, But Not Without Them,’ when they described contemporary American unionism as a largely “bureaucratic, service-oriented form” that remains “controlled by a hierarchy of career officials who operate outside the workplace, manage the sale of labor to capital, confine union struggles to narrow and legalistic ‘bread and butter’ issues within their respective industries, and encourage members to pin their hopes to the Democratic Party.” In other words, unions in the United States exist within a heavily enclosed space, one in which their organizational structures and strategic logics, either by external force or internal conviction, do not move past the operational and theoretical limits imposed by the powers that be.

On the domestic front, this can mean a gross lack of worker militancy. Pro-establishment sensibilities make many labor unions averse to necessary direct action and militant resistance in the workplace, especially when financial and legal stability is at stake. This was the case when bureaucratized inaction kept grocery workers across the country from winning tangible post-pandemic gains with their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). It exacerbated the ever-growing division between rank-and-filers and leadership in the education sector with both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). It also prompted members of the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU) to begin a petition campaign calling on leadership to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. After all, career organizers and labor leaders are incentivized to chart the path of least resistance, forged by impotent contract negotiations and anti-strike clauses. The same can be said for international solidarity. A top-down labor union in cahoots with the US government may state their disagreement with a foreign policy decision — as many did by signing the ceasefire petition. But their entrenched incentive structures and hierarchical layout will rarely allow for a wielding of labor power that truly beats the state into submission. 

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This is because such radical resistance would put the stability of the managerial labor class at risk. Domestically, opposing a two-party candidate for the presidency means foregoing an otherwise surefire way of securing business-as-usual governance for the next four years. The third-party-facing or non-electoral implications of such opposition would produce a level of uncertainty not compatible with the otherwise predictable “bread and butter” issues, industry-specific bargaining, and established labor relations so characteristic of big unions. On the international scale, the same is true. The stability of managerial labor is feasible only if preceded by that of US capital, as downturns in economic growth and fluctuations in performance can pose a risk to corporate power -- the de facto handler of labor managers -- and radicalize workers into embracing more militant sympathies and radical action as a result. One outstanding threat to such stability is the emergence of left labor movements abroad, as such movements are often characterized by policies that harm US economic interests such as the nationalization of industries and the cutting of economic ties with Western nations. The logical conclusion of such a dynamic can be seen in institutions such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (AFL-CIO) Solidarity Center. This agency has a stated mission of “[e]mpowering workers to raise their voice for dignity on the job, justice in their communities and greater equality in the global economy.” Meanwhile, its exploits have heavily involved confrontations with leftist governments in South America, often via funding they provide to opposition groups in countries such as Venezuela.

Highlighting this unfortunate reality is hardly an all-encompassing indictment of the US labor movement. The undeniable upsurge in union activity following the COVID pandemic improved people’s lives and deserves credit. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, “the National Labor Relations Board saw a 53% increase in union election petitions, the highest single-year increase since fiscal year 2016.” The embrace of more militant leadership by unions such as the UAW and the Teamsters has yielded significant victories as well, not to mention the advances made by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild in September of last year.

But the imperative of organizers and class strugglers to reshape unions to better facilitate collective liberation remains. This can take many forms, such as bolstering organizing efforts by independent unions like (ex: Trader Joe’s United, Amazon Labor Union), supporting the ongoing work and growth of rank-and-file-oriented unions like the Industrial Workers of the World, and backing the emergence of caucuses and coalitions within established unions that either organize to push their organization in a more radical direction, or ultimately become an independent union that can subsequently hold a candle to its establishment counterpart in terms of size and resource access.

Reformist concessions at the negotiating table and rhetoric restricted to the worker-boss dichotomy do not have to be our daily bread. Worker militancy on the shop floor and a rhetoric of class warfare are more in line with the aims of a revolutionary movement. Moreover, symbolic slaps on the wrist and stern talking to’s — petition signatures, public denouncements — needn’t be the only forms of accountability when our government actively finances and endorses acts of genocide. We can do better. Acknowledging this potential will allow us to transform labor in America, liberating ourselves and each other in the process.

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso is a Colombian writer, organizer, and artist. In his writing, he seeks to interrogate the nuances of socialist thought and praxis.