new democracy
14th August 2002, 22:46
HOPE AND REVOLUTION
A New Democracy Flyer
A Note to our Readers: Most people are disturbed about the direction of society, but feel powerless to change it. We believe people can change the world. The first step in change is that people discuss as widely as possible what society should be and how we can get there. The following is the first in a series of New Democracy flyers on creating a new society.
Revolution Is the Basis of Hope
As we near the end of the twentieth century, many people have lost hope in the future. The reason for this loss of hope is that there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist system. Communism and socialism have failed. The idea of fundamental change--the idea of revolution--has been defeated by the reality of it.
Without an alternative to the system, fundamental change seems out of the question. We seem doomed to live in the grip of a system which defines human life in terms of profit and loss, competition and inequality. Without an alternative to capitalism, the deepest human values and most important human relationships will be forever under attack by the demands of the economy and the dictates of the elite.
Hope in the future and belief in the possibility of revolution are inextricably linked. Belief in the possibility of revolutionary change is key to the belief that human beings have the capacity to create a human world.
What We Mean by Revolution
The problem in society is that it is completely undemocratic. The real power lies in the hands of an elite for whom working people are merely a source of profit or a dangerous problem. The elite manipulate the institutions of society to strengthen their power. They encourage unemployment to make people desperate. They set black and white and men and women against each other. They take from the poor to fatten the rich.
The present society is based on elite values of selfishness, inequality, and competition. Most ordinary people believe in the opposite values: sharing, solidarity and equality. Revolution means transforming all the institutions and relationships of society to reflect the best values of ordinary working people.
Most people already try to shape their little piece of the world with their values. Revolutions occur when ordinary people gain enough confidence in themselves as the source of the good in society to change the whole world. Revolution means sweeping away elite power and setting up democratic institutions in every workplace and neighborhood, where the voices and votes of working people can determine the direction of society. It means unleashing the creativity and power for good in people, to fulfill together our potential as human beings.
Why We Need A Revolution
Many people fear the future, and indeed the future which capitalism holds for most people is ugly and frightening. People will increasingly be robbed of economic security, to make them more controllable. More power over our lives will be in the hands of the wealthy few. Technology will increasingly be used not to free but to enslave us to unfulfilling jobs or unemployment; millions of people, even billions worldwide, will be treated as surplus population.
But whatever the future holds, the real reason for revolution lies in the present. Capitalism is not just an economic system; it is a system of human relations which maintains its power by attacking everyday the things most essential to our humanity: our understanding of ourselves and our fellow human beings and our relations with them. Capitalism attacks every aspect of our lives by setting us against each other in a race for money and status. The need for revolution comes from the dehumanizing nature of capitalism in our everyday lives.
The problem is not Clinton or Gingrich or other front men for the elite, but the system of elite power itself. Real change requires that we abolish a system based on wealth and power for the few and create society based on real democracy and hope for the many.
IS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE?
A New Democracy Flyer
To our readers: This is the second in a series of flyers on the need for and possibility of creating a truly democratic society. The first was "Hope and Revolution."
Most people want a better world. The idea of revolution to create a truly democratic society, however, raises two important questions:
Would revolution be a good thing?
Is it possible?
Who Should Control Society?
A democratic revolution would be good or bad depending on whether ordinary people are fit to rule society. We are told in a million ways that working people are not fit to rule: they are violent, racist, unintelligent, selfish, and we are better off leaving our fate in the hands of the corporate and government elite. We believe, however, that ordinary people would make a far better world than the elite.
For example, most people believe that children should have a special, protected place in society. Organized workers and others fought for many years for child labor laws and universal free education. Ordinary people everywhere make great sacrifices to provide for their children and give them a safe future.
Capitalism, however, attacks this ethic. Capitalists see children not as especially vulnerable human beings but as little producers and consumers. Corporations flood Saturday morning TV with shows designed to get children to pressure their parents to buy toys. They fill afternoon TV with sensational garbage like Ricki Lake designed to appeal to curious teen-agers.
Capitalism also tries to dominate children at school. Schools are under tremendous pressure from corporate America to be training grounds for new workers to "compete in the global economy," rather than to nurture young people and impart our best values to the next generation, as most people want schools to be.
Most people believe that the elderly too should be protected. Respect for older workers is manifest in the principle of seniority on the job. Seniority represents a generational solidarity that is found in every human society. Older, experienced workers show younger workers the ropes, while younger workers acknowledge that older workers should be protected, even as they slow down in their later years.
The capitalist class rejects this ethic. Corporations routinely "downsize" and lay off thousands of people with decades of seniority and discard them like trash. People mean nothing to the capitalists.
Workers Are the Force for Change
At the heart of society there is a conflict between opposing views of human life. On one side is the owning class, who value competition, inequality, and control from above. On the other side are those who do the work of society and value equality, solidarity, and control from below. This is the class war.
When the battle breaks out into the open, it shakes society to its core. For three weeks in late 1995, two million French public sector workers struck against attacks on retirement and social welfare programs in France. Their strike brought massive outpourings of public support in France and beyond. Belgian railway workers went out on a national sympathy strike with French workers. The world elite feared that the strike might spread throughout Europe.
These strikes in France, like a recent one-day general strike in London, Ontario, and the months-long newspaper strike in Detroit and the three-year struggle of Staley workers in Illinois, did not fall from the sky. They sprang from the everyday values of working people.
Revolution is possible because most people in their everyday lives already struggle to shape the world with values that contradict the dog-eat-dog values of capitalism. Every supportive human relationship, every positive element in society, is a product of ordinary people's struggle against a brutal system to create a more human world. This struggle to humanize the world drives history and social change. Without it the world would be savage and unlivable.
Revolution means the overthrow of elite rule and the success of people's struggle to shape the world with their values. When millions of working people realize that they are fit to rule and that they can make a better world, they will be an unstoppable force.
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION:
WHY DID COMMUNISM FAIL?
A New Democracy Flyer
To Our Readers: This flyer is the third in a series on the future of revolution. The flyer discusses a piece of history that is not well known but is nonetheless important for us today.
Most Americans have rightly always rejected Communism. Yet the disastrous result of Communism has strongly influenced people's view of what human society can be. Defenders of capitalism use the outcome of Communism to "prove" that revolutions always turn out bad and that capitalism is the best possible society.
As the need grows to create a democratic alternative to capitalism, understanding why Communism failed is crucial for understanding that democratic revolution can succeed.
A FATAL ABSENCE OF DEMOCRACY
Millions of working people worldwide took heart at the Russian Revolution in October, 1917. Yet Communism soon became a caricature of its promise. The revolution failed because it was undemocratic.
Working people and peasants toppled the Czarist regime in February, 1917. Workers took over factories and established Workers Committees to run them. Peasants took over many large estates. Ordinary people organized "Soviets"-democratically elected councils-as organs of democracy. When the new government of industrialists and landowners kept Russia in the intensely unpopular World War I, there was a second, Communist-led revolution in October, 1917. The Bolsheviks (Communists) fought for control. They put the Workers Committees under the control of Communist-led trade unions. They undermined the peasants' organizations. They took power away from the Soviets and placed it in the hands of the Party. Sailors and workers at Kronstadt revolted in 1921 against the Communists and were mercilessly butchered.
What motivated the Communists' attack on workers? The Communists' goal was not democracy but economic development and "socialism" under Party control.
Communism is based on Marxist ideas that economic development is the basis of human development, and that workers are not fit to govern until they are "developed" by economic conditions. In backwards countries like Russia at the time of its revolution, the Communists thought the primary goal of the revolution should be industrial development and modernization under the direction of the Party. The Communists did not trust the people to govern. Equality and democracy would have to be put off until the "backwards" populace was ready.
Even in advanced capitalist countries, Marxists have a negative view of working people, seeing them as "dehumanized" and motivated merely by self-interest. Its negative view of people has led Marxism to play an anti-democratic and counterrevolutionary role.
THE KEY TO REVOLUTION
While Communism today has few adherents, Marxism unfortunately continues to be the only coherent and systematic model of social change posed as a revolutionary challenge to capitalism.
Our goal in New Democracy is to spread an alternative to Marxism which makes democratic revolution possible. The basis for a new revolutionary movement is a new understanding of the role of ordinary people in society.
The new understanding of ordinary people is simply this: that most people have values of solidarity and equality opposed to those of capitalism and Communism; that, far from being backwards or selfish, most people in their daily lives already struggle to create a new and better society; that the irrepressible struggle of people to humanize the world, rather than forces of economic development, drives history; and that ordinary people, rather than intellectuals or a revolutionary party, are the source of democratic values and of a new and democratic society.
MAKE DEMOCRACY THE GOAL
Contrary to what capitalist elites would have us believe, successful revolution is possible. To be successful, the explicit goal of revolution must be real democracy, so that ordinary people can shape all of society with equality and solidarity. Only with democracy as the explicit goal can we insure that society will reach its highest ends, and that revolution will never again be betrayed.
A New Democracy Flyer
A Note to our Readers: Most people are disturbed about the direction of society, but feel powerless to change it. We believe people can change the world. The first step in change is that people discuss as widely as possible what society should be and how we can get there. The following is the first in a series of New Democracy flyers on creating a new society.
Revolution Is the Basis of Hope
As we near the end of the twentieth century, many people have lost hope in the future. The reason for this loss of hope is that there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist system. Communism and socialism have failed. The idea of fundamental change--the idea of revolution--has been defeated by the reality of it.
Without an alternative to the system, fundamental change seems out of the question. We seem doomed to live in the grip of a system which defines human life in terms of profit and loss, competition and inequality. Without an alternative to capitalism, the deepest human values and most important human relationships will be forever under attack by the demands of the economy and the dictates of the elite.
Hope in the future and belief in the possibility of revolution are inextricably linked. Belief in the possibility of revolutionary change is key to the belief that human beings have the capacity to create a human world.
What We Mean by Revolution
The problem in society is that it is completely undemocratic. The real power lies in the hands of an elite for whom working people are merely a source of profit or a dangerous problem. The elite manipulate the institutions of society to strengthen their power. They encourage unemployment to make people desperate. They set black and white and men and women against each other. They take from the poor to fatten the rich.
The present society is based on elite values of selfishness, inequality, and competition. Most ordinary people believe in the opposite values: sharing, solidarity and equality. Revolution means transforming all the institutions and relationships of society to reflect the best values of ordinary working people.
Most people already try to shape their little piece of the world with their values. Revolutions occur when ordinary people gain enough confidence in themselves as the source of the good in society to change the whole world. Revolution means sweeping away elite power and setting up democratic institutions in every workplace and neighborhood, where the voices and votes of working people can determine the direction of society. It means unleashing the creativity and power for good in people, to fulfill together our potential as human beings.
Why We Need A Revolution
Many people fear the future, and indeed the future which capitalism holds for most people is ugly and frightening. People will increasingly be robbed of economic security, to make them more controllable. More power over our lives will be in the hands of the wealthy few. Technology will increasingly be used not to free but to enslave us to unfulfilling jobs or unemployment; millions of people, even billions worldwide, will be treated as surplus population.
But whatever the future holds, the real reason for revolution lies in the present. Capitalism is not just an economic system; it is a system of human relations which maintains its power by attacking everyday the things most essential to our humanity: our understanding of ourselves and our fellow human beings and our relations with them. Capitalism attacks every aspect of our lives by setting us against each other in a race for money and status. The need for revolution comes from the dehumanizing nature of capitalism in our everyday lives.
The problem is not Clinton or Gingrich or other front men for the elite, but the system of elite power itself. Real change requires that we abolish a system based on wealth and power for the few and create society based on real democracy and hope for the many.
IS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE?
A New Democracy Flyer
To our readers: This is the second in a series of flyers on the need for and possibility of creating a truly democratic society. The first was "Hope and Revolution."
Most people want a better world. The idea of revolution to create a truly democratic society, however, raises two important questions:
Would revolution be a good thing?
Is it possible?
Who Should Control Society?
A democratic revolution would be good or bad depending on whether ordinary people are fit to rule society. We are told in a million ways that working people are not fit to rule: they are violent, racist, unintelligent, selfish, and we are better off leaving our fate in the hands of the corporate and government elite. We believe, however, that ordinary people would make a far better world than the elite.
For example, most people believe that children should have a special, protected place in society. Organized workers and others fought for many years for child labor laws and universal free education. Ordinary people everywhere make great sacrifices to provide for their children and give them a safe future.
Capitalism, however, attacks this ethic. Capitalists see children not as especially vulnerable human beings but as little producers and consumers. Corporations flood Saturday morning TV with shows designed to get children to pressure their parents to buy toys. They fill afternoon TV with sensational garbage like Ricki Lake designed to appeal to curious teen-agers.
Capitalism also tries to dominate children at school. Schools are under tremendous pressure from corporate America to be training grounds for new workers to "compete in the global economy," rather than to nurture young people and impart our best values to the next generation, as most people want schools to be.
Most people believe that the elderly too should be protected. Respect for older workers is manifest in the principle of seniority on the job. Seniority represents a generational solidarity that is found in every human society. Older, experienced workers show younger workers the ropes, while younger workers acknowledge that older workers should be protected, even as they slow down in their later years.
The capitalist class rejects this ethic. Corporations routinely "downsize" and lay off thousands of people with decades of seniority and discard them like trash. People mean nothing to the capitalists.
Workers Are the Force for Change
At the heart of society there is a conflict between opposing views of human life. On one side is the owning class, who value competition, inequality, and control from above. On the other side are those who do the work of society and value equality, solidarity, and control from below. This is the class war.
When the battle breaks out into the open, it shakes society to its core. For three weeks in late 1995, two million French public sector workers struck against attacks on retirement and social welfare programs in France. Their strike brought massive outpourings of public support in France and beyond. Belgian railway workers went out on a national sympathy strike with French workers. The world elite feared that the strike might spread throughout Europe.
These strikes in France, like a recent one-day general strike in London, Ontario, and the months-long newspaper strike in Detroit and the three-year struggle of Staley workers in Illinois, did not fall from the sky. They sprang from the everyday values of working people.
Revolution is possible because most people in their everyday lives already struggle to shape the world with values that contradict the dog-eat-dog values of capitalism. Every supportive human relationship, every positive element in society, is a product of ordinary people's struggle against a brutal system to create a more human world. This struggle to humanize the world drives history and social change. Without it the world would be savage and unlivable.
Revolution means the overthrow of elite rule and the success of people's struggle to shape the world with their values. When millions of working people realize that they are fit to rule and that they can make a better world, they will be an unstoppable force.
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION:
WHY DID COMMUNISM FAIL?
A New Democracy Flyer
To Our Readers: This flyer is the third in a series on the future of revolution. The flyer discusses a piece of history that is not well known but is nonetheless important for us today.
Most Americans have rightly always rejected Communism. Yet the disastrous result of Communism has strongly influenced people's view of what human society can be. Defenders of capitalism use the outcome of Communism to "prove" that revolutions always turn out bad and that capitalism is the best possible society.
As the need grows to create a democratic alternative to capitalism, understanding why Communism failed is crucial for understanding that democratic revolution can succeed.
A FATAL ABSENCE OF DEMOCRACY
Millions of working people worldwide took heart at the Russian Revolution in October, 1917. Yet Communism soon became a caricature of its promise. The revolution failed because it was undemocratic.
Working people and peasants toppled the Czarist regime in February, 1917. Workers took over factories and established Workers Committees to run them. Peasants took over many large estates. Ordinary people organized "Soviets"-democratically elected councils-as organs of democracy. When the new government of industrialists and landowners kept Russia in the intensely unpopular World War I, there was a second, Communist-led revolution in October, 1917. The Bolsheviks (Communists) fought for control. They put the Workers Committees under the control of Communist-led trade unions. They undermined the peasants' organizations. They took power away from the Soviets and placed it in the hands of the Party. Sailors and workers at Kronstadt revolted in 1921 against the Communists and were mercilessly butchered.
What motivated the Communists' attack on workers? The Communists' goal was not democracy but economic development and "socialism" under Party control.
Communism is based on Marxist ideas that economic development is the basis of human development, and that workers are not fit to govern until they are "developed" by economic conditions. In backwards countries like Russia at the time of its revolution, the Communists thought the primary goal of the revolution should be industrial development and modernization under the direction of the Party. The Communists did not trust the people to govern. Equality and democracy would have to be put off until the "backwards" populace was ready.
Even in advanced capitalist countries, Marxists have a negative view of working people, seeing them as "dehumanized" and motivated merely by self-interest. Its negative view of people has led Marxism to play an anti-democratic and counterrevolutionary role.
THE KEY TO REVOLUTION
While Communism today has few adherents, Marxism unfortunately continues to be the only coherent and systematic model of social change posed as a revolutionary challenge to capitalism.
Our goal in New Democracy is to spread an alternative to Marxism which makes democratic revolution possible. The basis for a new revolutionary movement is a new understanding of the role of ordinary people in society.
The new understanding of ordinary people is simply this: that most people have values of solidarity and equality opposed to those of capitalism and Communism; that, far from being backwards or selfish, most people in their daily lives already struggle to create a new and better society; that the irrepressible struggle of people to humanize the world, rather than forces of economic development, drives history; and that ordinary people, rather than intellectuals or a revolutionary party, are the source of democratic values and of a new and democratic society.
MAKE DEMOCRACY THE GOAL
Contrary to what capitalist elites would have us believe, successful revolution is possible. To be successful, the explicit goal of revolution must be real democracy, so that ordinary people can shape all of society with equality and solidarity. Only with democracy as the explicit goal can we insure that society will reach its highest ends, and that revolution will never again be betrayed.