The Capitalist offensive. What can stop it.

Police attack peaceful protesters at UC Davis

We live in the period of a massive offensive of capitalism against the working class. Wages and conditions are being savaged, the air we breathe and the water we drink is being poisoned, the ideas we are presented with in the mass media are lies and propaganda. And all this in the interests of amassing more and more profits. This is the big picture which permeates every second of our every day. 

I have had the position now for years that this offensive of the bosses will only be turned back by some explosive movement from below. The union leaders will not lead this. They are in bed with the capitalists. Such a movement is most likely to tend to be spontaneous and to be sparked off by a catastrophic event, economic or environmental. I think such a movement will if it is to succeed have to take the form of mass fighting in the streets or the occupation and holding of the workplaces. I think that there is  too much emphasis  given to what a mass general strike could  have in changing the consciousness of the working class. A general strike if it is just a general strike is a demonstration with folded arms.

I think that what is necessary is for the working class to take up physical battle with the bosses and their state machine such as in the 1934 Flint strike here in the USA. This is what turned the tide in the US in the 1930's. I think it will take something like this to turn the tide again. To achieve this will mean arguing for and organizing for committees /fighting squads in the workplaces, unions, neighborhoods, schools and colleges. And organizing these on the basis of explaining that the capitalists have been strengthening the state machine for stepping up the class war, see the increased state apparatus of the cops and army, the increased use of drones, torture and assassination at home and abroad, see the full body armor on demos, the increased tapping of the phones, post  and Internet, the arrests and hounding of people like Bradley Manning, Assange, Snowden, and now apparently even autos are being tracked in the US.

This bosses offensive will not be stopped short of it being physically smashed into the ground either by physically fighting the attacks in the workplaces and streets or by taking over and holding the workplaces in mass general strikes and occupations and in the process move on to reorganize production under the control and management of the working class. Part of this will also be the winning over sections of the state forces again as in Flint.

Part of it will also be the putting forward of an alternative program which seems plausible to the working class. For the working class to fight in the way that is necessary to win they must see an alternative program to that of the capitalist offensive. I will not repeat it here but I have been arguing that one of the reasons the Irish working class  have not taken on the capitalist offensive there is they cannot see an alternative. But an alternative is relatively simple. Cancel all payments to the banks national and foreign and to financial institutions, take over the oil and gas wealth in the country, take over the major industries and major land holdings, calculate how much this would mean in terms of capital, make sure that the amount in this fund is known to every person in the country, explain that such a capital fund, such a reconstruction fund, would go towards rebuilding the country. Go on to explain that such steps would have to be part of an international movement to spread the struggle to the rest of Europe. Audacity, audacity, audacity.  In the case of the US that the struggle will have to be spread world wide.  The working class will not take the steps necessary for a trifle.

Sean