A storm is coming. We can track its approach, but even as we are caught up in its vortex, there is no amount of defense, of protecting, of shoring up, of sandbagging that can shield us from the cataclysm. The storm we face now is not only ecological; it is economic, social, political. The devastation and destruction visited upon the Gulf coast, the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico, and the firestorms of California and the earthquakes in Mexico, starkly expose the real cause and outcome of the storm we all face: they are a sign of a broken system.
Before Maria assaulted Puerto Rico, it was already made bankrupt, the government hardly able to function. Over seventy billion dollars of debt is owed to large-scale investors and hedge funds. The austerity measures already in place resulted in double-digit unemployment. The U.S. government has already indicated that there will be no help coming. The Puerto Rican people are on their own. The hurricane disaster only exacerbates and accelerates the crisis.
As the article “From the Editors: The Corporate State versus Humanity” states, we are living in a world where the corporate private property interests of the few are dictating the terms of life and death for the many. This is a systemic, human-made disaster, a process of global capital around the world.
As dire as all of this may sound, it does not actually best describe the times we are in. We are living in revolutionary times. This means that the very conditions that have led to the current crisis we are experiencing, have also created the forces that can chart a different path. The new technology, automated, electronic, laborless production, is the root cause of the brokenness of a system that is based upon production by human labor. The workers, who are more and more being excluded from production, constitute a new class, who are now free to become the political force that can resolve the crisis engulfing society and ensure the future of humanity and the planet. All is not lost. That is our hope, our vision, our future.
As the article “Our Class Needs to Know the Truth” states upfront, the revolutionary period we are in is real and profound. Nothing less than the fate of the planet is as stake. The increasing social and political storms we find ourselves caught up in are the shaping up of two opposing forces contending for our imperiled future. The ruling class is preparing to contain social upheaval by instituting fascist control, at the same time it throws up smokescreens of confusion and deception.
The truth is that the era of capitalism and its merciless exploitation is coming to an end. There is no going back. To secure our future we must go forward. On a new foundation, we have a new world to build. The very abundance the new technology is able to produce, is itself the key to a future worth having. With the new class obtaining the political power to do so, it can distribute the abundance to all those in need. It can put an end to private property, which now concentrates the wealth of society in the hands of a few.
Homelessness is absolute destitution, where growing millions are being altogether abandoned. The homeless are at the heart of the new class being cast off from a broken system. However, as the article, “Homelessness is the Sign of a Broken System” shows, the workers of this new class of which the homeless are a part, themselves constitute the power to overturn the private property system and establish a cooperative society to meet human needs. Indeed, it is the only way they can survive.
Healthcare is also a vital battleground in which the stakes are for life and death itself. “Healthcare: From Private to Public” points out how the introduction of advanced technologies into healthcare has caused an irreversible antagonism and polarized the interests of the private corporations versus the best interests of the public, the working class. Making comprehensive and universal healthcare a necessary public infrastructure is illusive to a corporate State. Yet, the nationalization of the abundance of health resources to end the scarcity of health distribution is on the strategic path of a new class on course to build a new society organized in its interests.
“The Anthropocene and Fossil Capitalism” explains how not only the super-hurricanes and the super-firestorms are man-made, and constitute a “new normal,” but that global warming is part and parcel of a private property economic system that is at the same time wreaking havoc on human society. Yet, the astounding technological advances of our times can, in the hands of the people, be the force to provide all we need to live a decent life
November.December 2017 Vol27.Ed6
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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