Communism Will Free Workers from Capitalist Wage Slavery here ♦ Mexico May Day: Communist Revolution, Not Trade Union Reformism here ♦ Money is a Social Relationship here ♦ Organizing Industrial Workers in South Africa here ♦
Communism Will Free Workers from Capitalist Wage Slavery
EL SALVADOR, April 17— “It’s time to fight for a just society for the working class,” said a young worker, when invited to participate in the May Day march.
“That is, Communist society,” added another worker.
The International Communist Workers’ Party is mobilizing industrial workers, students, farmworkers, health workers, and teachers to march for Communism on the day of the working class, May 1. We will distribute our Red Flag newspaper and wave the red flags of the communist revolution, of the working class.
The working class needs a society without classes, without money, without racism, without sexism. We need a system that ends the relationship of selling labor power as a commodity, for a measly wage, in order to survive. We need Communism, where production is based on humanity’s needs, not for profit.
“Millions of workers work in factories all over the world, and the wages are not enough to cover a family’s basic expenses,” said one worker. The capitalists rob us, they cheat us, they owe us, this has to end, and it will be achieved by the working class organized in the ICWP, fighting for Communism.
The bosses have allies in government ministries and unions who give demagogic speeches to make us believe that they are going to solve workers’ problems. This is a political trap into which we must not fall. Under the table, they already have agreements that go against the working class, which we have experienced lately in a factory when workers demanded payment for work done the previous year and not yet compensated.
The ICWP fights to free our class from this prison disguised as freedom that is the rotten capitalist system.
We meet in various collectives in the factories and the countryside to discuss the only way to end wage slavery. We are inviting a great mobilization for May Day and reaffirming our commitment to fight for the working class by organizing more industrial workers who are key to the communist revolution.
Our collective of farmworker fighters for communism is also inviting Red Flag readers from their community to the march.
We have seen how thousands of workers carry out mass protests in various parts of the world. Capitalism is in crisis, inequality increases every day, and we face waves of layoffs that have generated uprisings. This shows that the masses seek a different society, but it also shows the need for a party that leads these struggles. This is an opportunity to organize for the ICWP.
In this march we will massively distribute Party literature. The masses need to know about Communism, to escape the traditional struggle for reforms that prolongs wage slavery and that starves millions while a few enjoy the profits generated by the workers.
The Communist system will end the hunger and exploitation of humanity because we will live and work collectively. We have a historic task: to break the chains of wage slavery.
The International Communist Workers’ Party is actively organizing to end exploitation and erase national borders and everything that divides the workers. We are building a mass party, establishing communist political relations internationally.
Join the ICWP and march for communism this May Day!
May Day 2023: Communist Revolution, Not Trade Union Reformism
MEXICO, April 19—May Day celebrates INTERNATIONAL UNITY of the working class against the capitalist class worldwide.
Governments everywhere serve the capitalist bosses. They will do so until our class organizes itself as the International Communist Workers’ Party, building in struggle the communist relations and solidarity needed for our classless society while organizing the revolution.
ICWP organizes massively for Communism. Workers produce, with our hands and brains, everything of life-giving value. In communism, we will only produce and share this value—without money, wage slavery, or bosses!
Today, as US-China rivalry intensifies, with ever-increasing danger of World War III, US capitalists are moving factories to Mexico. War requires critical production closer to the US market. The super-exploitation of one of the lowest-paid sources of labor power is crucial too. This is the real meaning of “nearshoring.”
President Obrador’s labor reform, derived from NAFTA (now TMEC) claims to promote “union democracy” by eliminating the bosses’ union leaders and “Protection Contracts.” But this is not in the workers’ interest. Government-legalized union contracts have left the old bosses’ leadership of Telmex, Mining, Pemex, CFE in office.
Mexican trade unionism, since the 1910 revolution, was always controlled by the current capitalist government. Capitalism has so little to offer the Mexican working class that these old forms have returned under Andrés Manuel and MORENA.
Union reforms can’t liberate us from wage slavery. Over two centuries of struggle have shown the need to reconstitute ourselves as ICWP for independent, forceful, revolutionary action. Conditions are ripe!
The value workers produce increases with technological advances. The big capitalists doubled their wealth in two years during the pandemic. Now they are hiring more workers and have almost reached pre-pandemic levels — at lower wages.
The proportion of the wealth we produce that comes to us through wages is constantly shrinking. Workers in manufacturing produce their daily wage in 24.67 minutes. In the remaining 455.33 minutes of the day, they produce profits that the capitalists steal for themselves.
Technology does not produce value. Only workers’ labor power can! More investment in expensive machinery means a falling rate of profit for millionaires, and thus more intense competition, leading to wars.
This further impoverishes the working class. To keep their wage-slaves alive, the capitalist government establishes “social programs” including subsidies to the elderly, students, and single mothers. This “charity” also maintains the demand for goods which are produced in greater quantities than we workers can afford to buy.
Not satisfied with exploiting our labor power in factories, the capitalists abuse us more every day. The merchant and the landlord rob our miserable wages.
We are not free: the bosses dictate how we live and die. Buying and selling commodities is NOT the freest, least violent way to organize society. Social programs (paid from the public treasury), demagogy against the “conservative oligarchy” and “neoliberalism,” and myths about heroes do not attack wage slavery. They are part of the system’s need to deceive us.
We need the ICWP: There are massive and violent demonstrations from Asia to Europe, from Africa to America. The capitalist world order is undergoing convulsions. However, the working class needs conscious action led by our communist party. ICWP’s historic task is to massively mobilize the working class to build our party and win communism.
Capital daily subjects millions of people to the horrific effects of its contradictions. Hunger, criminal violence, racism and sexism and war are the consistent reproduction of a system that produces for profit.
This May Day, we reaffirm that the solution to capitalist horror is communist revolution. We are building a mass party, establishing communist political relations internationally.
Join the ICWP and march for communism this May Day!
Money Is a Social Relationship of Exploitation
I am an industrial worker in South Africa, working for Transnet, a South African railway. I read Red Flag online as I live far from Port Elizabeth.
I read an article on the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. It says that money is a relationship of exploitation. I started thinking more about it. Transnet got a $5 billion loan from China Development Bank. In 15 years, the CDB will organize to transfer billions of dollars from the super-exploitation of South African workers.
In South Africa, many people dream about buying an Apple iPhone. It is very expensive. Most people buy a cheaper cell phone, almost all made in China. When workers buy a cell phone, they think about the features, colours, styles etc. But nobody thinks of long hours of work, stressful conditions at work, and prison-like conditions in China. Similarly, when South African diamonds, gold, platinum, or soybeans are sold in other countries, people don’t think about the plight and suffering of South African workers.
We relate to cell phones or minerals in terms of exchange, not seeing the exploitative nature of working for the capitalists. The article makes it clear that we don’t need money and banks, it is the source of exploitation. When I talk to my co-workers, they agree. I plan to distribute more Red Flags to my co-workers.
—Comrade industrial worker in South Africa
Organizing Industrial Workers in South Africa
Hi Comrades,
My name is T. I’m a member of the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters). But I was recently invited to a meeting of ICWP by a friend.
I’ve been involved in politics almost all my youth, first with the ANC (African National Congress) youth league, then now with the EFF. My reasons have remained unchanged: there should be a radical change in society.
First, I thought the ANC would bring about this change. When the change I hoped for proved futile in the ANC, I recently joined the EFF as I believed they were a better alternative. I just wanted to make that clear.
The topic of the ICWP meeting was how we effectively mobilise industrial work. The purpose of the meeting was mainly to answer three questions. First, why is this important? Second, who must carry out this work? Lastly, how do we make a deeper analysis of our industrial mobilisation to better understand what works and what does not work?
This was new to me. Never in my life have I thought about working this way. Even during the election cycle, no political party even bothers to go where the workers are working. So, this grabbed my attention because our work in the EFF always focused on the community work and rallies in Community Halls or Stadiums.
What the ICWP comrade proposed was new to me. And this meeting helped me change my outlook to look at society not in a racial context but on a class basis. Whatever I do or say, it must reflect my communist outlook.
My one criticism is that I left with the impression that the main focus is industrial workers, not other workers like, say, construction workers and paint workers, who I believe are the most exploited workers in South Africa. Maybe because this was my first meeting, these things will become clear with time, as I intend to join the Comrades in the next meeting and mobilisation.
Let me conclude by saying that I agree with mostly what ICWP is prescribing, that communism is the solution to capitalism. But I’ll be honest and say also that some of the solutions are unorthodox, like the need to get rid of money. I’m not convinced on that point. But all in all, it was a good meeting, very eye opening for me. Looking forward to the next one.
—Enthusiastic Friend
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