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The two last decades of the XXth century have constituted, one may already assume without much risk, one of the darkest eras of reaction in the history of capitalism. To the expansionist period of the immediate postwar, with its social democrat compromise, followed stagnation and structural crisis from the beginnings of the decade of 70 on. For the bourgeoisie, the restoration of more comfortable margins of profit was urgent, or the reproduction of the system could be at risk. Therefore the general and continued assault launched by great capital, symbolically inaugurated by the pair Reagan/Thatcher (with the important precedent of Pinochet’s Chile, assisted by the school of Chicago) which still continues today, on its essential lines. The workers’ organizations with some remains of combativity have been jammed, dispersed or neutralized, opening the way to a generalized regression of labor incomes. The notion of res-publica was mocked and trampled on. An age of looting, pilfering and systematic parasitism of the collective patrimony begun, glorifying the predatory spirit of homo lupus hominis. The armaments race was sped up. The whole is composed with prescriptions of the purest liberal orthodoxy: opening to external investment, competitive exchange rates, lower taxes (particularly for the highest levels of income), desmantling of the public apparatus of social welfare, opening and liberalization of the financial markets, deregulation of the economic activities, etc..
The defeat and implosion of the Soviet Union and its allied geopolitical block was already in part a result of this bourgeois offensive. On the other hand, they have themselves created new conditions for its acceleration and deepening. The ideological and political effects of this unraveling have been deeper than many had foreseen initially. It has spread incredulity and loss of heart even among wide layers of proletarian opinion that were not even minimally attached to the model of “really existing socialism”. The discredit of the ideia of a global alternative to the capitalist system was generalized, which removed all the offensive capacity from the workers’ side. The bargaining position and perspectives of struggle for labour have thus deteriorated enormously.
The fall of the house of Moscow, terms of exchange ever more unfavorable in the world markets, plus the trap of indebtedness incurred since the 70’s (under promises of rapid “development”) have also provoked the defeat of the nationalist project for progressive emancipation of the peoples of the former colonies and semi-colonies. In a growing number of these former colonies and semi-colonies the imperialist squeeze is so unbearable as to make impracticable the organization and maintenance of a stable political organization, dumping its peoples in a sate of often violent chaos. Thus the option of a recolonization offensive is opened for the imperialists, masked in tones of humanitarian generosity.
In the domain of ideas, it is now common to denominate these times as the era of the triumph of neo-liberalism. In a more geographic image, it has also been called the time of globalization. As with all epochs of pure reaction, this one is also characterized by a hardening of the dictatorship of the ruling class. And this must be understood in a double sense.
In the first place, there is a tightening of the social block in power around the high industrial and financial bourgeoisie with its immediate executive coadjutors. In the whole world of developed capitalism, the peasantry (small, average or big) and the traditional petty bourgeoisie are now residual classes. Since the definitive repudiation of the social democratic compromise (in the 80’s), the leading layers of the laboring aristocracy, the new technical professions and the intermediate administrative cadre have all ceased to be part of the block in power. Of course they can still fulfill a function of shock absorbers and ultimate guarantees of the “good” social order. The bourgeoisie is obviously interested in bribing and accomodating a vast clientele to cushion off the “dangerous” classes. But these intermediate layers no longer have any power or influence in the decision of fundamental social trends.
On the other hand, there has been a hardening of the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois State, as well as of its apparatus of ideological socialization and conditioning. The barrage of lies in the mass media it is so thick, unanimous and unrelenting that one has the impression of living in the suffocating environment described by the negative utopias of Orwell, Huxley or Bradbury. The “West” has lost its pluralist tradition, now being submitted to a regime of official truth, wooden language and generalized hypocrisy. Constitutional rights, freedoms and guarantees of firmly established tradition in the demo-liberal civilization are now routinely overruled and put in question. The ideological sewer of the bourgeoisie, with all the pavlovo-reptilian instincts that it had already become accustomed to dissimulate as best as it could - racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, unbridled greed, canine subservience for the powerful, hatred for the weak, homicidal rage against non conforming voices – is now again running openly, in all its fetid candour.
The very routines of representative political democracy have become an empty shell. No real alternative is offered to the electorate - in terms of different models of social organization and economic development – and even the purely cosmetic variations that are put to effective choice are ever more insignificant. Not to mention the honesty of the proposals. In these conditions, the electoral ritual serves only for periodic legitimation of the status quo. We are moving towards what many now call “friendly fascism” or “low intensity democracy”.
To this neoliberal offensive - which is an economic and political movement of pure class aggression (of the ones from above to the ones bellow) - is somehow associated the current restructuring of productive organization, according to the parameters of what is called “lean production”. It’s true that this reorganization is concretely supported by a wave of scientific and technical innovations: industrial use of computers, integrated circuits, robots and digital machine-tools. Although these two processes have thus become practically very difficult to distinguish, it is nonetheless very important to clarify that they are historically autonomous phenomena. In fact, this new model of productive organization, with all its basic characteristics - downsizing of laboring staff, polyvalence and flexibility, acceleration of the cadences, loyal and “creative” collaboration of the workers in the search of excellence in production, massive outsourcing of tasks, instant adjustment of production to demand – is a mere generalization of the “toyotist model”. This model is current in Japan since at least the late 1950’s, as the result of an historical defeat of the japanese workers in the period of intense social struggles that followed WWII. It is therefore not an inevitable product of any specific technical advances (as some naïve technological determinists assume) but the result of a concrete correlation of forces in the class struggle.
Supervening in an age of unbridled imperialist expansion (after the fall of the Soviet Union), this neoliberal bourgeois offensive has managed to use as cover and mythical justification another ideological hat trick: the now (in)famous globalization. It is leaning on this misty concept that the bourgeoisies of the whole world can say, with a straight face, that it is unwillingly that they despoil and vex us workers ever more and more. This compulsory behaviour would be caused by irresistible external competitive pressures, coming from all around. They are mortified by it… but they just cannot do otherwise. There is no alternative, said the baroness. It is the myth of globalization as a kind of irresistible, blind and impersonal historical fury, without any known origin or human design.
It’s true that, from the point of view of the individual capitalist, the competitive pressures are real enough. They force him to try to widen his profit margins by all means available, or face the possibility of being put out of action by his rivals. A powerful trend therefore emerges leading to the ascending perequation of the exploitation rates, acting with all the rigour and relentlesness of an objective law. But whoever defends and takes benefit from this economic and social system has to assume as being of his or her own free will everything that results necessarily from its objective functioning. Here also, freedom lies in the acceptance of necessity. Of this particular necessity, that one thus accepts and endorses as one’s own.
In fact, the invocation of “globalization” is just a clumsy gesture trying to hide the hand that keeps pressing on our necks. In terms of the general trends in international commerce and investment - particularly of the direction and intensity of its flows - nothing extraordinary has happened in the last decades of the XXth century. One may perhaps remark the emergence of some very aggressive forms of capitalist concentration and an unprecedented explosion of financial speculation. Otherwise, it’s just business as usual in the expansionist and predatory practices of great capital.
What is effectively new is the politics of universal military diktat – a. k. a. “new world order” - in place since the Gulf War of 1991 and that has now turned into a state of permanent war, following the attacks of 9/11. An infinite war waged by the U. S. Pentagon against all the rebels, the unruly and the restive on the face of the planet. That’s the real globalization we have up and running: tomahawk, napalm, cluster-bombs, MOAB, tactical nukes – in god we trust.
It is thus becoming ever more plain that the “invisible hand” of the market is no more than a diaphanous mantle, hardly managing to hide the crude nudity of plunder and armed assault in which the system ultimately rests and to which it doesn’t even hesitate to appeal directly, whenever it sees fit. It is after all in terms of pure relations of force, of untrammeled and massive violence – lethal, if necessary - that we have to analyze neoliberal globalization. Within or across borders, this trend represents nothing other than the occurrence of a gigantic rupture in the frontline of the class struggle at a world-wide scale. As such, it is fraught with all the normal episodes of these circumstances: blind and uncontrollable runnings, panic, treason, mass surrenders, disbandment, demoralization.
There are no clear boundaries between the fields of military, political, social and economic struggle. The impotence of my union faced with a new imposition from the bosses can ultimately be traced back to the approval of a new increase in the Defense budget of the U.S.A.. And the reverse trajectory is no less real: the increased fraction of the surplus-value produced by me that gets to be appropriated by my employer (as a consequence of the previous defeat) is one more small rivulet that, along with many, many others, flows into the giant pool of an increased repressive apparatus and the bloated military-industrial complexes of the major imperialist powers. And so the cycle takes off again, with a social polarization exponentially increased and setting free, in regular outbursts, as a necessary by-product, all the cyclopean bestiality of the system: the purple hairs of anger and the stench of corpses in decomposition.
We are faced with the prospect of a complete civilizational collapse. The only effective defense we have is to urgently repair, in all its extension, this rupture of the world-wide frontline of the class struggle. We need to consolidate those lines again and then to look forward for the right point on which to create a breach in the enemy camp. It so happens that, in this war, the forces in confrontation are not symmetrical. The ones from bellow, due to their inferior organization and coordination of movements, may still lose other battles ahead, but they have in their favour a depth of field that assures them they will never lose the war. Those from above have their very survival at stake in each new major confrontation.
The social and economic results of the neoliberal offensive are no doubt effective, but not exempt from ambiguity. It’s true there has been a clear recovery of the profit rates (due in a large extent to the rehabilitation of the archaic method of increasing the absolute surplus-value), but they are nonetheless very far from the levels attained in the 50’s and early 60’s. On the other hand, the increase of the profit rates did not translate into economic growth or into an increment in the accumulation of new productive capacity. In fact, among the three great imperialist centers, the U.S.A was the only one to show a solid growth during the 1990’s, but even here this was due mainly to purely parasitic revenues that it perceives specifically due to its militarily hegemonic position: the world-wide course of the North American dollar and acceptance of U.S. Treasury bonds; Wall Street’s quality of “refuge” of maximum security for international “investors”; extortion of particularly unbalanced terms of commerce and investment; a lionesque participation in the great international agiotage, etc..
Productive investment continues to give alarming signs of chronic fatigue, with enormous masses of idle capital taking shelter in the bubbles created by an unbridled financial speculation. In 1997-8, a serious crisis of overproduction created havoc in the financial markets of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea), with sequels following in Russia and Brazil. Later it was the collapse of Argentina. Coerced by the orthodox prescriptions imposed by the I.M.F. (but in reality dictated by the Treasury of the U.S.A.), these countries have seen important resources of theirs coarsely appropriated by “vulture” international capital, mainly North American, while their laborious populations dive still deeper into misery and destitution. By the turn of the millenium, recession had a firm grip in all three poles of the imperialist triad.
Bigger profits, zero growth. To this paradox yet another - historically very significant - one was added: in any period or economy where any measure of “recovery” does occur, this doesn’t bring in any new offer of jobs. On the contrary, we have now arrived, in the developed capitalist countries, to the age of “job loss recovery”. The existing levels of real unemployment – around or over 20% - are structural and consolidated, regardless of the phases in the economic cycle. This new reality generates an extreme pauperization, marginalization and criminalization of very wide segments of the population. From now on it is definitively taken as a given that, for this economic and social system, a growing fraction of humanity is… excedentary.
The nullity of the results of this offensive of the bourgeoisie - in terms of the promised dinamization of the economy and growth of jobs - exposed its character of pure terrorist rapine, by a sort of inverted Robin Hood. Despite the enormous ideological confusion and the disenchantment with the proposals of the so-called “left”, the realization that great capital was simply looking for an increase of its slice in a cake of stagnated growth begun to impose itself among great masses of wage-earners. For the first time since the postwar period, the prospects for the young are now to live worse, with less comfort, less security, less dignity and self-esteem than their own progenitors. This realization has quickly spread through all pores of society like a deaf rumor, a rudely swallowed injury, a foretelling of storms to come.
The first major social shock to detonate was the massive strike movement of the French public sector in the Winter of 1995. There has since been a shy and limited reawakening of unionism and labour activism in the U.S.A, Europe and certain countries of the so-called Third World. The zapatista insurgency in the Mexican state of Chiapas - from 1994 to 1997 - as well as the important meetings and initiatives promoted by the rebels, have enboldened the imagination of many people. An international civic mobilization for its denunciation remarkably succeeded in derailing the villanous project for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). This was in late 1998 and marked the first serious defeat of the “globalizators” in the field of international economic diplomacy. The tenacious resistance of the Cuban people to the imperialist blockade and permanent aggression were also, as always, a source of stimulus and exaltation.
The forced unanimism around the perenity of the demo-liberal outlook and of market economy also started to crack. Oh, so far away are now the times when the “end of History” promoted by Francis Fukuyama could still be taken seriously. Even outside the boundaries of marxism (which have expanded in the process), a large intellectual movement has come to life that some denominate as anti-capitalist, although its real stance is generally much more limited or ambiguous. The influential French monthly ‘Le Monde Diplomatique’ has seen its circulation enlarged, with an editorial line of combat to the neoliberal “pensée unique”. The late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu distinguished himself in the denunciation of the new poverty and in the combat to the mediatic totalitarianism. Academics, essayists and activists such as Michel Chossudovky, Eric Toussaint, Susan George, François Chesnais, Bernard Cassen, Michel Husson, Ralph Nader, Martin Khor, Anuradha Mittal, Vandana Shiva or Walden Bello denounce the depredations of the great multinational corporations and oppose the infamous conspiracies taking place on the side-scenes of the international negotiations for commerce and investment treaties. Best-selling authors against neoliberalism apear, such as Vivianne Forrester, George Monbiot or Naomi Klein. A dense web of civic organizations (NGO’s) was formed that monitor, denounce and combat the ravages created by neoliberal globalization. In the field of popular culture, some phenomena appeared - as exemplified by the hip hop band Rage Against the Machine, with its anti-bourgeois and revolutionary message – that contributed powerfully for the creation of new youth sub-cultures of protest and unsubmissiveness. On the Internet or by SMS the appeals for mobilizations and the hottly disputed debates are continuous.
And all of a sudden, every one of these small brooks has converged into one big singular event. On the 30th of November 1999, in the North American city of Seattle, 70,000 demonstrators have managed to disturb seriously the works of a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Emboldened by this environment, delegates from the Third World countries present there have simply refused the lionesque terms that were being imposed on them with the usual bullying tactics. The meeting ends up in total failure. After this unmitigated success, in an impressive sequence, the demonstrations of protest and street confrontations are constant, on the occasion of practically all imperialist summits and the major meetings of the areopagus of big international capital. Only mentioning here the major events, we have had Washington in April 2000; Melbourne and Prague, in September 2000; Nice, December 2000; Naples in March 2001; Buenos Aires and Quebec, in April 2001; Barcelona (meeting of the World Bank canceled) and Gotemburg, in June 2001. In July 2001, a new landmark was created with the gigantic manifestations of Genoa, on the occasion of a summit of the G7(8). After provocations and police assaults of extreme violence and viciousness (that caused the first mortal victim of the movement, the young Carlo Giuliani), the final demonstration of these days of struggle has gathered 350,000 people.
After the New York and Washington attacks of September, 11, 2001 – and all the ”anti-terrorist” hysteria that followed – the movement has seemingly lost some momentum. Nevertheless, manifestations with tens of thousand of participants have ocurred in Brussels (December 2001) and New York (February 2002). On the 16th of March 2002, 300,000 people (500,000 according to organization) have marched in Barcelona against the Europe of big capital and war. Later on, in this same year of 2002, great - sometimes huge - manifestations have occurred in Monterrey (March), Washington (April), Madrid (May), Seville (June), Johannesburg (August), Florence (November) and Copenhaguen (December). And we just cannot forget the taking of Quito, in October 31, against the threat of the proposed Area of Free Trade for the Americas (AFTA).
The journeys of February, 15, 2003, against the imperialist aggression and looting of Iraq, then on its final preparations, are a towering moment in contemporary history. About 15 million people took to the streets in civic denunciation and protest against this dirty crime and its cynically staged justification. An immense planetary “ola” unfolded, starting in New Zealand and covering all the hour zones in the East-West sense, with high points in London, Rome and Madrid. Since then, it’s been a known fact that there is another globalization, not only possible, but already in march. Besides many other specifically anti-war manifestations, there have been again great mobilizations against neoliberal globalization in Geneva/Lausanne, Salonika (June, 2003), Cancun (September), Rome (October) and Paris (November).
Beyond the protests and manifestations, the so-called anti-globalization movement has created its own institutional headquarters. The annual reunion of the World Social Forum (W.S.F.) has taken place, for three straight years now, in the Brazilian southern city of Porto Alegre. The first reunion of the W.S.F. took place there in January 2001, having had about 20,000 participants (4,700 delegates). The following edition - 1-5 February, 2002 - was much more concurred, with around 50,000 participants (12,274 delegates). The declaration of objectives (Call of Social Movements) approved in this II Forum is a flabby, moderate and defensive reform platform. The only political document until now actually approved by this movement, it is an invertebrate and purposely non-systematic programatic text. You can find in it the miraculous Tobin tax, of course; abolition of the Third World debt; no to fiscal paradises; no to war, militarism and military bases in foreign countries; no to labour flexibilization, outsourcing and mass dismissals; a proposal of international labour regulations and international collective contracts for jobs in the multinational corporations; for public and free education; against conscript military service; for the self-determination of the aboriginal peoples; no to genetically modified organisms; refusal of patents on living organisms; some more generalities.
The III W.S.F. - gathered in Porto Alegre, from 23 to 28 of January, 2003 - was again marked by an impressive growth: about 100.000 participants, of which 20,763 were delegates coming from over 130 countries, divided in 1.286 workshops. But the final appeal that emerged from this meeting is very disappointing. Harsh against the coming war, the W.T.O. and the “free-trade” treaties in the making; clear when demanding the total and unconditional cancellation of the Third World debt; it nonetheless brings no further progress whatsoever on other stated objectives, merely reafirming the declaration of the previous year. Problems remain unsolved as to the transparency and representativity both in the choice of the composition and in the functioning of the organs of the W.S.F.. This concerns the International Council, which is the central directory - responsible, among other things, for formulating the overall strategy of the W.S.F. -, as well as the Organizing Committees for the different forums and now also a new apparatus created with the name of “Contact Group”. An optimist informality, the dominant spontaneist creed and the method of decision by non-directive consensus, all concurr in promoting the creation and perpetuation of unclear situations.
After the II W.S.F., the movement unfolded with the organization of regional, national and also thematic social foruns. Regional social foruns include the European, Asiatic, Americas, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Pan-Amazonic. The thematic W.S.F. organized so far were about ‘Argentina’, Buenos Aires, 22-24 August, 2002; ‘Palestine’, Ramallah, 27-30 December, 2002 and ‘Democracy, Humam Rights, War and drug traficking’ Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), 16-20 June, 2003. A great number of social forums have already taken place at a national level. The W.S.F. of 2004 will leave Porto Alegre for the first time. From 16 to 21 of January it will gather in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), a megapolis from another emblematic Third World country.
This so-called anti-globalization movement or for an alternative globalization is, of course, a bag with many different cats. In it we can find ecologists of all lineages (from social-ecologists to “deep” anti-humanist conservationists), peasants of the Third-World and ultra-subsidized European farmers, radical labour activists and union bureaucrats, feminists, gays and transgender rights activists, associations of unemployed or of support for irregular immigrants, anti-racists, nationalists of peripheral countries, representatives of indigenous peoples, activists from NGO’s dedicated to solidarity and sustainable development, neo-hippies, autonomists, enraged anarchists (these sometimes infiltrated by police provocators), communists of all stripes and sects in activity, progressive (or simply compassionate) catholics and other Jesus freaks, academics and reformist intellectuals, career seeking social-democrats, etc., etc.. Among the recurrent sponsors of the W.S.F. there are such conspicuous entities as Petrobras, the Bank of Brazil Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
Here we have finally, so it seems, a rainbow movement, to the liking of certain theoreticians of post-modernity. However, more than the diversity of its components (which in itself could be enriching), what really characterizes the movement is the paralysis caused by the lack of a clear strategical perspective. No “grand narrative” at work here, sure, but also not much movement or clearly stated purpose either. That’s what causes the “anti-globalizers” to become politically hostage to the more mediatic reformist intellectuals of the day. This state of affairs remaining unchallanged, chances are that the movement will be totally recovered by a renewed and cosmopolitan social democracy.
All things considered, the fact that this oposition movement is so diversified is no more than an indirect testimony to how overconfident the great imperialist bourgeoisie really is. The masters of the world allow themselves to completely dispense with any policy of alliances, therefore alienating all the remaining classes and social layers (except for the “comprador” bourgeoisie in the Third World). They do this out of confidence that these same classes will never find between themselves any common ground, capable of constituting a platform of challenge to their solitary and unrestricted grip on power.
The hard fact is, within the so-called anti-globalization movement, equivocations and irreconcilable contradictions are strife. For instance, the trade-union bureaucracy and the laboring aristocracy of the richest capitalist nations keep their own traditional social-imperialist orientation: to guarantee all sorts of perks and honours for themselves, as well as some crumbs of privilege to their affiliates, all at the cost of the continuing super-exploitation of the countries on the periphery. What makes them now approach (cautiously) the “anti-globalization” movement is the fact to they are somewhat vexed with the fact that “their own” bourgeoisies have decided to summarily terminate the “social partnership” they have been maintaining with them since WWII up to now. They took to the streets reclaiming – asides from varied arrangements of direct and exclusive material interest of the bureaucracies - protectionist commercial measures (under the pretext of social, ecological and other doubtful humanitarian clauses) and against the delocalization of industrial direct investments to the countries of the periphery, where much lower wages are the norm.
However, these interests are directly in opposition to the ones of the national bourgeoisie of the peripheral countries (which, unlike the servile and purely parasitic “comprador” bourgeoisie, is itself part of the “no-global” movement). The interests of this national bourgeoisie lie in assuring access for its products to the markets of the rich countries, as well as making ‘joint-ventures’ and varied investment agreements with imperialist capital in their own peripheral countries. This being so, one has to conclude that, on this matter, the interests of social-imperialists are also opposed, if indirectly, to the interests of the rising proletariat and of the immense semi and/or informally occupied urban masses of these same peripheral countries (which constitute, of course, the immense majority of the world-wide working class), to whom the protectionism of the rich countries denies access to the benefits of advanced industrialization. The imperialist bourgeoisie, of course, is the one in the best position to take delight (and profit) from these disagreements.
The W.S.F. can choose not to see or even deny the existence of these conflicts of interests on its ranks, thus keeping the unanimism rule and its beloved consensus between all conscientious “citizens” and people of good will. It will do this, however, at the terrible price of never being able to oppose to the neoliberal model a clear and coherent alternative of economic and social development for this planet.
This historical optimism of the bourgeoisie - the confidence that there is no alternative to its power - is its force, for the moment, but also its blindness. We, Communists, know that this alternative exists. It consists in the taking of power by the labouring classes, opening the way for the dissolution of all social classes. For this purpose they will have, first of all, to struggle for their own unity as a class, based in a common representation of their interests, as well as in the sharing of their social identity and living experiences. The battle for the unity of the labouring classes has never been easy, but today, as the question arises now on a global level – and with the abysses that imperialism has dug in terms of unequal development and different levels of productivity - it is truly a gigantic task, probably only achievable through the constant and cumulative work of several generations.
To begin with it, we have a tradition and a set of values that are the kernal and the living memory of the labour movement since the second quarter of the XIXth century. We need to materialize them and put them to act now, politically, in a platform of proposals for mobilization that answers the challenges of our time, which is effectively the time of our own globalization. The time when the whole world of labour reunites and finds itself one and solidary, in its diversity. Our problem today does not have as starting point the nation. It is no longer a question of finding a proper route for development - or an original way to socialism wrapped up in the national colours - that later on would converge with that taken independently by other sister nations. The political analysis, proposals and intervention required from Communists today must take place directly on a global scale. Later they will reflect themselves - in a differentiated but overall coherent form - in the actions and the proposals that will take place on a national and regional level, which are of course the only levels where one can take power or influence it.
Sketching here some programmatical lines for Communists to stand for on the global plane we are not intent on proclaiming ourselves “further left” than the other activists in the movement, in a vain rapture of sectarian arrogance. Our sole purpose here is to put some order and systematic coherence in the indescribable confusion that exists on the ranks of “anti(alter)-globalization” as we, within the movement (but not on a subordinated form), reclaim as our own the communist point of view, in the double sense defined by Marx and Engels on the ‘Manifesto’:
“The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:
(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.” (Samuel Moore’s translation).
A “movement of movements” can constitute an excellent humus for the upbringing of new ideias or to enlist and temper new militants in the struggle. But in this phase when it is no more than a confederation of varied and divergent dissatisfactions, there is no guarantee that it may yet as such constitute a historical agent, with an active and coherent transformative intervention. To be able to play this role it will have to be armed, first of all, with a programatic platform.
The political objectives we will outline here are therefore formulated on a global plane. In this sense, they serve as guide for the strategical action of national and regional political parties affiliated in this trend. This does not mean, however, that they will have to be translated, immediately and literally, into unilateral measures adopted at this level by these same parties once they assume power. For example, objective 1 does not have to express itself in an immediate and unrestricted opening of borders, which could encourage uncontrolled flows and perverse effects difficult to control. The fulfilment of the global objectives by way of concrete political measures adopted at a national or regional level will be a weighed up and internationally co-ordinated process. Without opportunist betrayals but also without unwarranted strikes of unilateral voluntarism.
With this qualification, what we present here are immediate demands to make right now on and against the bourgeois (imperialist) powers of the day. In this sense, it’s a “minimal program” in the language of yesteryear. They are not the strategic and final objectives of the communist struggle. However, neither are they mere panaceas and makeshift solutions. For their amplitude and depth, the proposed measures, once adopted, would certainly produce a frontal clash with the functioning logic of the capitalist “world-system”. For that reason, they can only be understood in the context of a social and historical process of revolutionary rupture, with the access to power of the organized proletariat and its allies, in the North as well as in the South.
This being so, it is also true that these objectives - for all their simplicity, concreteness and evident equity - will most probably be able to mobilize wide layers of activists who do not have, as a starting point, any certainty about the necessity of this rupture with the current social order. Militants and activists who only wants to struggle against the “excesses” of capitalism - for a sense of justice or in a vague spirit of solidarity with the disinherited of the Land - will be able, after a concrete experience of struggle for these limited and clearly defined objectives, to conclude for themselves that what’s in excess is capitalism itself. That nothing solid and consolidated will be obtained, in terms of social progress and advancement in human dignity, without knocking over the whole bourgeois order.
For those who want effective change, to be radical is not simply an option. If another world is really possible, it can only start to emerge once the naked root of the old one - capitalist exploitation at the place of production - has been thoroughly exposed in broad day light. We are presently in conditions to prove to tens of thousands of young activists (who tomorrow could be leading into struggle hundreds of millions of workers) that at this historical stage capitalism is totally incompatible with the most elementary levels of simple human decency. We will not achive this, however, with abstract and learned speeches on surplus-value or the historical mission of the labouring classes. With revolutionary patience and humility, we will have to walk alongside these “anti-globalization” activists the rough avenues of the real, concrete struggle. It will be their’s and our own university. Only there will they be able to learn (and we will learn anew, concretely) what is this other world we are aiming at and under whose agency can it be made a real possibility. This will be the road for the reconstitution of the party for the emancipation of the proletariat.
This party to be reconstituted (and recreated) is a world-wide party. Party in a wide sense, for it will have an informal base and repel any pretense to contain a single universal revolutionary directorium. The work we need has nothing to do with conspiratorial delusions and everything to do with the patient reconstitution of a world view, a transformation project and a clearly defined camp in a struggle that takes place on a global scale. With this I am not endorsing any order of dissolution to the national parties that were formed in the tradition of the III International. Many of these parties have suffered processes of reformist degeneration, sectarian shrinking or both. Some remain, however, that are still mass organizations strongly identified with the working classes and with an unwavering sense of independence. There is even a revolution - in Cuba - that still shows, quite miraculously, some signs of vitality. Some other communist parties maintain themselves in power after a drawn out period of sliding revisionism that took them very widely away from their objectives, but that still constitute, nonetheless, important barrages against imperialism. The intent to dissolve at once all these parties in a “movement of movements” with no clearly defined shape or purpose can only come out of foolishness or bad-faith.
The revolutionary wave of the XXth century, initiated with the storming of the Winter Palace, is today, of course, drawn out and in reflux. In many ways, however, it has fertilized the soil for the following wave. And on the other hand - as whoever has already spent some time observing the seaside will know - not always a wave has time to complete its reflux, before being intercepted and partially carried forward again by the following wave. Communism needs renovation, no doubt. Point is that this renewal is undertaken by those who are carried by the ascending wave, located in the very crest of desire for proletarian universal emancipation; not by those who still follow the course of the descending wave, on an accelerated pace or maybe already in open disbandment. Point is also that the existing communist parties – “refounded” or not – are able and willing to recognize the ascending wave, capture it, remould themselves on its new form (with confidence and generosity), in order to thus be in conditions to participate actively in the new historical course.
Here we have then what are, in my personal perspective, the immediate objectives of the Communists:
1. Free, unrestricted movement in the whole world for people who are looking for better conditions on which to make their offer of work; the immigrant workers will have full associative freedom and the same civic and economic rights as the autochtonous ones, as well as the option of adopting the nationality of the host country after a certain period of residence.
2. Abolition of all protectionist trade barriers in the imperialist countries (roughly, the countries affiliated to the OECD); the peripheral countries and regions will be allowed to keep the customs barriers and other non-tariff regulations that prove to be useful and adequate for assuring their food self-reliance, the prossecution of their strategy of industrialization and the consolidation of an autonomous service sector.
3. The foreign direct investments of the great transnational corporations will be subject to approval by the public authority of the host countries or regions, which will be given only in case they can combine harmoniously, in a subordinated form, with the development plan that these countries or regions have democratically decided to pursue; if these investments are made in peripheral nations they will depend on formal agreements that implie technology transfers, restrictions to profit repatriation (with effective accountancy fiscalization) and modalities for their redemption by the host country.
4. Immediate end to all public subventions of fiscal exemptions to agricultural or industrial exports from the countries of the OECD; subsidies to agricultural production will be canceled wherever they can be proved responsible for a dumping effect, harming the local production of poor countries.
5. Immediate cancellation of all public and semi-public debt of the peripheral countries; interdiction of all remunerated “lowns”, of public or private origin, to peripheral public authorities.
6. End of bank secrecy and of all “tax havens”.
7. Prohibition of all speculative currency transactions; severe restrictions and heavy taxation on all speculative movements in the stock markets, particularly agravated in the case of international short-term movements.
8. Collective contracts and public social security for all workers; prohibition of sackings and lay-offs in companies with solid annual results - the prevaricators will be subject to public expropriation.
9. Legal maximum schedule of work of 30 hours weekly, without loss of pay, in all the countries of the OECD; programs of professional training and sharing of jobs for all long-term unemployed; creation of agencies for vocational orientation for the enrichment of leisure time, privileging solidarity work and education in view of an informed participation in democratic processes of political and economic decision-making at all levels.
10. Democratic control in the management of all big and middle capitalist corporations, by representative organisms of the workers, consummers and any public interest that may be affected by its activity (ecology, patrimony, public health, etc.); immediate public expropriation of any corporation that repeatedly employs harmful practices or abuses of its monopolistic position.
11. Fiscal systems recentered on the direct tax on revenue, with a progressive scale; effective combat on tax evasion.
12. Guaranteed minimal revenue for all adult population, at a level that assures survival and the satisfaction of the most elementary socially recognized needs.
13. Public services of quality, on a national or regional base, in the distribution of power, water, basic sanitation, telecommunications, health, education, banking, insurances, radio-television, written press, edition, culture and spectacles, Internet, post offices, housing, transports, distribution and commerce of essential consummable goods.
14. Radical reform and restructuring of the banking sector, with the annullation of all standing own house mortgages and small consummer debts.
15. Abolition of all patents and the patrimonial content of intellectual property rights; the creators and innovators will be remunerated by public funds, in proportion to the public interest aroused by their works.
16. Restrictive regulation to the use of trade marks and severe limitations (in content and amplitude of the campaigns) to commercial advertising, which must limit itself to offering reliable information on the products, emphacizing its distinguishing characteristics in an honest and sober form.
17. Radical democratization of the mass media, removing them from the control of the giant capitalist corporations (as well as from the dependence of commercial advertising) and entrusting them to the responsibility of groups of associated professionals, local colectivities or democratic public authorities; all the regions and communities of the world should have equal access to adequate means for the exercise of the right to inform and to be informed, in an honest and professional way, with quality and respect for their proper identity and cultural sensibilities; global massification of the use of the Internet.
18. Immediate extinction of the I.M.F., the World Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, the W.T.O., G7(8), O.E.C.D., N.A.T.O., Security Council of the U.N. and other formal or informal, world-wide or regional imperialist directorates.
19. Prohibition and desactivation of all weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological), of all ballistic and cruise missiles, all military satellites, armored terrestrial vehicles, long-range artillery, as well as of all war aviation and navy; a giant program for the conversion of military industry to socially usefull purposes.
20. Desmantling of all international agencies of spying and “security” – either private or state-run, politico-military or commercial – with publication of all their secret reports and memoranda.
21. Creation, with a global scope (U.N. or similar) and supported by substantial contributions by the richest countries, of a great public agency responsible for financing development projects in the peripheral countries and regions; States from the less developed nations will be encouraged to pursue a strategy of solidarity and progressive integration, at a regional level, based in an autonomous, self-centered and centripetal process of accumulation of wealth and fixation of ressources.
22. Creation of a global system of guarantee of prices for the international commerce of raw materials and untransformed agricultural products.
23. Gigantic international public effort of investigation for (renewable and non-pollutant) alternatives to fossil fuels as sources of energy, with democratic debate and decision on its findings.
24. Creation of a massive world-wide service of public health/sanitary education and another one of elementary schooling and vocational training.
25. Prohibition of all forms of oppression and descrimination against women, followed by positive measures for the promotion of their social and economic status.
26. Democratic agrarian reform, assuring the access to the land for the peasants who wish to remain so, with associative options, technical support and efficient financing, thus guaranteeing everywhere food security and self-sufficiency at a national and/or regional level, with the preservation of biodiversity and the integrity of the natural patrimony.
We omit here all questions of political and administrative organization, which will certainly be decided, in face of concrete and unpredictable circumstances, by the historical creativity of the associated producers and the peoples on the move, not being at all certain that they will obey any uniform model. What is certain is that they will be forms of much bigger democratic density, with very superior levels of enlightened participation.
Yes, this world is possible. It is even so at a much shorter notice than we ourselves believe, not to speak of what the hired ideologists - with chair and tribune - would like us to. It is very evident, however, that to get there a radical alteration on the correlation of forces in the class struggle on a global scale is necessary. We have first to recompose our lines - with a patient and tenacious work of organization and defensive coordination - in order to effectively sustain the neoliberal bourgeois offensive. Later on, we will have to move on the offensive, in a coordinated way, with audacity and decision. However, no offensive initiative will be possible, in the proletarian camp, without a deep renewal of its strategic objectives, which is to say of its theoretical horizons. At this initial moment, this work will necessarily go through a phase of a certain experimentalism and visionarism. Only later on, with the dialectic of praxis at work, we will have its scientific consolidation.
This other world in which we live presently is the one that is a radically impossible. Its maintenance is totally impracticable for much longer. Now that this fact starts to impose itself irrecusably to all awaken consciences, it’s all the more urgent to initiate - among Communists and other radical democrats - the debate of the questions I have tried to approach in this essay, consciously running for it the risk to appear megalomaniac.
If the cook imagined by Lenine could move the handspikes of the Soviet State with all self assurance, couldn’t we - precarious labourers, single mothers, workers with no skills, technicians with no jobs, immigrants with no papers, peasants with no land, peoples with no hope - couldn’t we, Communists, elaborate on what other world is that we are claiming in the streets to be possible? What is this other world we want to give birth to by the force of our own arms?
The work we have before us is immense, tremendously demanding, but it is absolutely irrecusable. And we have to start at once, without one moment more of wait or hesitation.