Have we been living through the opening year of Capitalism’s Final Great Crisis?
Have we been living through the opening year of the Final Great Crisis of Capitalism? Yes.
Are we on the eve of the Socialist Revolution? We could be. Whether we are is wholly contingent upon whether we democratic socialist activists- we, democratic socialism’s spearhead- begin to meaningfully and intelligently organize and aggressively and astutely disseminate the simple truth over the course of the next couple of years. What emerges from this will be either a world of workers’ republics or an indestructible totalitarian capitalism with everywhere a totalitarian face, a capitalism invulnerable to the sentiments of the masses, and a capitalism under which the presently-existing limited civil liberties, labor rights, and social welfare programs working classes have won from their masters have been vanquished. We cannot be as optimistic as our great forefather Marx was here- with continued rapid growth of capacity for automation of labor, as well as continued ramping up of ultra-authoritarian state activity and growth in automation and artificial intelligence-driven ultra-authoritarian state capabilities, what could emerge from the Final Great Crisis could be a final victory of Capital. We are certainly at the end of the age of Capital’s reign by liberal capitalism and so-called “social democratic” capitalism over much of the world, of the post-WW II era and of Fukuyama’s “end of history”, but that doesn’t mean that Capital itself will not survive these years of crisis and proceed at breakneck speed towards its end game- towards a consolidation of all power and wealth into its hands and towards a devaluation of the labor of the people and reduction of their power to challenge those who have lorded over them to nothing.
Yes, the events of this year are indeed spurring on and accelerating the development of embryonic and early stage class consciousness in all corners of the world as has nothing else before- Yes, including the first few years of the Trump spectacle. There is something to be said for this remarkable, spontaneous, almost overnight growth.
But the growth in these unorganized and often vague sentiments among large sections of the working classes is not enough. Tremendous educational and organizational effort is needed to help these notions and ideas quickly blossom into comprehensive understandings of the structures and systems of power that we live under across all sections of the working classes, into full class consciousness of the working classes, into intellectual autonomy of the working classes, into world working class unity, into the development of a democratic global working class agenda towards the realization of maximum economic democracy and abolition of the market economy and into effective political organization.
We cannot afford any more laziness or procrastination. We must stop simply talking to comrades in the spearhead, in the “frat”, as Comrade Adolph Reed would say, and reach out to those who are not yet close to where we are- in the short term, whether through articles, YouTube videos, social media discussion, debate with major political personalities, or the formation of socialist study circles, environmental conservation groups, tenant organizations, and small, embryonic labor unions and political parties that would coalesce into the future political parties of a mass global movement of the working classes. We cannot keep putting off things until tomorrow. We must work tirelessly for the development of class consciousness every day and we must challenge elements that will attempt to mislead the working classes with pro-establishment dreck and reactionary and economic authoritarian anti-establishment chicanery.
People are beginning to understand that they have been under the whip of some system of capitalist brainwashing. A good many are not too terribly far from meaningfully understanding the systems of power that oppress them. A good many are not too terribly far from realizing in their minds a picture of socialist society and discovering the path to it. But we are very short on time and aggressive and intelligent organizational and educational effort from we, democratic socialism’s spearhead, is the spark needed to light a fire in the minds of the masses and facilitate rapid and exponential growth of the informed ranks of democratic socialism. It is up to us to get the ball rolling quickly soon.
So let us do what must be done. The end of this still young decade will be the fork in the road. This is our last chance. If the masses do not develop full class consciousness and act to seize the reins of society within the coming several years, socialism will never be established and Capital will win a final victory. These years, opened by the arrival of the SARS-CoV2/COVID-19 pandemic, will be the pivotal years in the history of humankind.
-Strom McCallum
