Adelante! A Message for the New Year

Campaigners fighting cuts recognise the next generation are facing a tougher future than their parents

Note: A version of this article was originally published here.

We approach the new year of 2011 with a prevailing sense of doom and gloom: that things are going to get worse, rather than better. For most of us this applies to how we view world events, politics, and society. For some of us this also applies to our personal lives.

In fact we are experiencing a unique moment in modern history. Our generation, is set to be the first generation which is likely to have a worse standard of living than our parents. The signs are everywhere: poverty increasing, the super-rich getting richer, the rest of us getting poorer, unemployment rising, pensions shrinking, opportunities closing, and benefits shredded. All of the measures which gave people a measure of security in their lives within a capitalist society are under attack. Meanwhile, for those who are determined to follow their aspirations in life, and those who are simply trying to survive, life becomes an increasing struggle: we sign-on, we study, we intern, we work, we stress…we hope everything will work out  and we can have the same standard of living as our parents, or better. We allow ourselves to be exploited, underpaid, taken advantage of, in the hope of our imagined future. We have become 21st century philanthropists. Let’s hope it’s worth it.

Meanwhile, events in the wider world contribute to the pervading pessimism which grips the general mentality. ”We” occupy the second-poorest country in the world, have destroyed another, and at home are losing civil rights and subjected to increasing surveillance in the name of an illusory “War on Terror”.  As John Pilger has written, this is an Orwellian inversion of the truth: the war is terror. And behind this new imperialism is the source of the malaise, capitalism. The effects of an economic system predicated on limitless growth, the exploition of man by man, and the exploitation of nature by man, are becoming ever clearer. Among humans, the ownership of the majority of humanity’s wealth and the means by which that wealth is created, by tiny privileged elite, is creating an ever-increasing gap between the richest and the poorest, with the majority being exploited ever-greater in order to survive: from garmet workers in Export Processing Zones in Asia and Mexico, peasant farmers in Africa and South America, to cleaners and bar workers in the UK. Meanwhile the need to ever-increase profits not only necessitates the increased exploitation of human labour but also of our natural environment which we depend upon for our survival, with rainforests, habitats, and species disappearing, fossil fuels beginning to run out, and resources such as fresh water under strain. The planet and humanity cannot continue to afford such continued exploitation for the  limitless increase in consumption and profit. Yet for its supporters and beneficiaries the current crisis in capitalism allows and necessitates further attacks on the majority of humanity: in western countries leading to attacks on public services, benefits, and any notion of collectivism or a common good.

Yet, against this backdrop, I cannot help but be optimistic. This might seem like “pie in the sky” thinking in light of the rise in reactionary thinking in the UK and further afield along lines of gender, race, sexuality and class. Moreover, the absolute poverty of ideas, policies or possibilities in the “mainstream” media and political establishment [Labour, Tory, SNP, Lib-Dem] could encourage the notion that “There is No Alternative”. Are we faced with a slow (or not so slow) decline in the human species, and indeed the state of our planet? Are our ideas, creativity, and efforts at shaping our collective future for the better exhausted, leaving us with no option but to try and salvage the best for ourselves while letting the world slide into a century of barbarism? The answer must be an emphatic No.

Capitalism may be entering its final decline, but humanity is not. However, securing a viable and meaningful future for ourselves means fighting to transform the basis upon which we organise human society. The fight cannot be only individual, via deciding to “live better” or “opt-out” of the system. It has to be collective. Also, both the means and end of such a struggle necessitates democracy: equality of decisionmaking among all those affected by a given decision as far as is practicably possible. This is important both for the grassroots strength and creativity of a genuine popular movement, avoiding a movement’s co-option and loss of authenticity, and to allow for everyone’s full human development.

Ultimately, we need to end the exploitation of man by man. We need to abolish the ownership of humanity’s collective wealth and the earth’s resources by a tiny elite. We have enough food, water, housing materials, and means of providing healthcare and education for everyone on the planet. Between us, we have enough labour power to do all the necessary tasks needed for us to survive and develop with no one being unemployed and no one working for the dominant portion of their lifetime. Both of these social facts are rooted in capitalism’s need for our labour to make a profit from the capitalist who buys it from us. Rather, our resources, wealth, and labour power need to be organised in a way that allows everyone to attain their full development as human beings: a society characterised by the principles of from each according to their means, to each according to their needs and wherethe free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. A society where all forms of slavery (wage, bonded, chattel, trafficked) and oppression (of gender, culture, race, sexuality) are opposed, overcome, and abolished. A society were we end our alienation from ourselves, our labour, and our planet. In our current era, confronted with widespread pessimism and disillusionment, especially among my generation, this is time to be bold. We should not accept the TINA mantra from capitalisms’ acolytes, nor simply fight a defeatist reargaurd action to defend gains won in past struggles, with no sense of winning any victories of our own. We must proclaim ourselves as fighting for the emancipation and liberation of humanity, and the fight starts now.

The above sentiments may sound utopian. I’ve already argued that against the bleak prospects for the next generation(s) of humanity, the best defence is offense: in the form of radical, participatory, and emancipatory politics. Of course, no one can realise their own ideal version of what humanity should and could be. Many of the most advanced ideas for society may not be realisable in our lifetimes. But consider this: it is better to struggle for emancipation and liberation and have partial success, and help beat the path for movements to come, than sit back and watch our decline to barbarism. “I’ll fight for a new world, but I’m happy to start with free public transport” (not to mention the redistribution of wealth, the elimination of poverty and gross inequality, the mass expansion of education and opportunity, an increase in cultural and political activity and expression, the complete respect for all human rights, public ownership of major sectors of the economy, and the self-management of workers, to name but a few…).

In our current reality, we need a movement to fight for such a future, creating forms in the present which build bridges to the kind of society we want to live in. Such a movement, a genuine* socialist movement, is not only desirable, but necessary. Rosa Luxemburg’s choice is put to us ever more urgently: socialism or barbarism?

And for those who have their historical blinkers on, think on this: capitalism has only existed for a few hundred years, and its reign will end, as did feudalism before it. Indeed, capitalism is currently ailing and in decline. In an era of globalisation, human society is changing ever-faster, and we have the collective power to shape the trajectories and development of our societies. Even in the last few hundred years, social movements have made massive gains in democracy, human rights, equality, welfarist measures, and more in the fight for complete emancipation and liberation.

Therefore, for 2011, I raise a toast for optimism and hope: to make capitalism history, and socialism the future**. Ignore “whit the hoodies croak for doom“, roll up your sleeves, and get active. There is, as they say, no time like the present.

*Important characteristics include: grass-roots, mass-based, pluralistic, internally-democratic, eco-socialist, creative, radical and coherent.

**Or if not socialism, whatever word you prefer for the sentiments expressed in this post.