The corporate State and the system of private property stand in the way of humanity’s creating an economic system that conforms to the new conditions and for the common good. Humanity faces two paths: Either a society based on fascism and war or a cooperative society that distributes the wherewithal of life according to need. The survival of humanity is at stake.
The article, “U.S. Global Hegemony and Capitalist Crisis,” points out that the consequences of the huge transformation in production and exchange over the past four decades have resulted in shifts in investment. In the U.S. ,the social consequences of those shifts in the economy expressed themselves as crises of homelessness, housing, unemployment, health care, water, and the environment. On the global level, the consequences have been much more severe, expressing themselves in wars, famines, and disease.
“From the Editors: Dark Vision,” shows how the Tax Reform and Jobs Act of 2017 projects a dark vision that gives shape to a future in which a corporate State moves to consolidate private property, while containing by force a growing impoverished class, whose means of livelihood are steadily being taken away.
“Makers and Takers – A Book Review,” shows that the workers, especially that section that has borne the brunt of the crisis most directly, cannot rely on the ruling class to come up with a solution. The only solution that makes any sense is that the workers are going to have to take matters into their own hands. They are going to have to become a political force that can take control and transform the economy and society in their own interests. Since the solution to the problem is the circulation of the abundance of society to all those in need, then it is going to have to be distribution without money.
“Politics and the New Class: Revolution or Ruin” makes it clear that a technological revolution is developing on the basis of digital computers, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and related technologies. This revolution is growing in power exponentially and is moving toward eliminating the need for labor in production. Most profoundly, it is creating an objective basis for the elimination of private property, because the end of work demands an economy that distributes goods on the basis of human need, rather than on the basis of money.
Questions are raised in the article, “Can People Change Their Thinking?” The article states that every new qualitative time produces its own new revolutionary ideas. It begins with addressing the question, how do we resolve the crisis of these times? And from that emerges the question, where are we going? Or, in other words, what is our vision?
The cover article in this issue, “We Have a New World to Win,” concludes by saying that humanity has endured a history of revolutionary struggle for freedom that was unattainable under the past material conditions of scarcity. Today visionaries and revolutionaries carry on that struggle for freedom, with a political clarity made possible under the new material conditions of abundance. Humanity can finally step across that nodal line and break free, to secure tomorrow’s promise of true human freedom. We have a new world to win.
January/February 2018. Vol28.Ed1
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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