Only Communism Can End Inflation and Exploitation here ♦ Debt Crisis letter here ♦
Capitalist Inflation Destroys Workers’ Lives. Only Communist Revolution Can End Misery and Exploitation
Food prices are going up and up. So is everything else!
Inflation is shrinking workers’ buying power worldwide. It’s causing hunger, starvation, disease, and mass migration. The capitalists use inflation to make the masses pay for their crisis. They constantly push workers’ wages as low as possible. Now it’s worse.
Money is the means the capitalists use to steal the value workers produce but don’t get paid for. They maximize their profit by paying workers as little as possible.
Money and exploitation define capitalist production relations.
Only workers’ labor power—not money! — produces value. By getting rid of the capitalists and their wage slavery with communist revolution, we can collectively produce only the useful things that the masses need to live and thrive. We’ll share it, based on need. We won’t exchange or trade it. There won’t be markets or money.
Comradely relations define communist production relations.
The Covid pandemic, itself caused by capitalism, spurred inflation. Demand for goods dropped. Supply chains were disrupted. As the pandemic slowed down, demand increased, but supply had dropped. It takes time for supplies to be replenished. So prices increased above what many can pay for what they need.
The imperialist war in Ukraine dramatically reduced supplies of oil, gas, and grain. Prices shot up. Destroying the Nord Stream pipeline (which supplied gas to Europe from Russia) meant increased gas prices in Europe and the rest of the world. Less grain from Ukraine meant higher prices for grain and food in general, especially in Africa. The short supply has enabled oil and food producers to jack up prices and reap huge profits while workers go hungry and freeze.
Imperialist Conflict and the Price of Money
The sharpening fight among imperialist and capitalist powers over which currency will dominate capitalist markets also contributes to inflation. Money itself is a commodity. The price of each currency goes up and down (mainly up) rather than being tied to gold or the US dollar. This inflates prices of international transactions, making things more expensive.
The Chinese yuan is gaining ground against the US dollar. But the fight over which currency will dominate world markets will only finally be decided by world war. That’s how the US dollar became the world reserve currency after World War II.
Inflation is also rising because the main imperialist powers (the US, China, and Russia) are spending more of the money they steal from workers on weapons. The US plans to spend over $1 trillion upgrading its nuclear weapons facilities, for example.
That means investing less capital to produce consumer goods. Weapons are incinerated in wars that kill workers for bosses’ control of markets, profits, and workers’ labor.
Communist Revolution, not Reform
In the face of inflation, unions worldwide are pushing the fight for higher wages. They want the masses to put our faith in reforms. But higher wages will not keep up with rising inflation, which will end up swallowing any wage increases that workers “win.”
Capitalism is a monstrous system based on racism, unemployment, terror, exploitation, environmental destruction, and war as capitalists compete to the death for maximum profits. The illusion that unions and reform can solve this diverts workers from the only solution to the capitalist crisis: mobilizing for communist revolution to destroy capitalism.
Capitalism pits workers against each other for slave labor jobs. Communism won’t have any unemployment or wage slavery. Instead, everyone everywhere will be needed to produce, distribute, and fight to meet the masses’ needs.
Communist social and political relations mean cooperation, collectivity, and confidence in our comrades. We will produce and share everything the masses need—without competition or markets for buying and selling goods or services. Eliminating wage slavery, we can end the racism, xenophobia, and sexism it produces.
Communist masses will plan for meeting workers’ needs, including safe, healthy working conditions, housing, healthcare, and environment. Scarcity won’t be a reason for price gouging (inflation), but an impetus to mobilize to produce more of what the international working-class needs.
The imperialists are preparing for World War III to determine which currency will dominate the world’s markets and workers. We call on the masses worldwide, especially industrial workers, soldiers, and youth, to join ICWP to mobilize for communist revolution—so that NO currency and NO imperialist rules the world. Instead, the communist masses will make our own decisions to meet our own needs!
US Debt Crisis: The Very Rich Versus Homeless People
I wonder if our friends are aware that this foolishness about the debt ceiling is really about the transfer of wealth to the top. That for a substantial number of years the powers that be in the USA have talked us into accepting extremely rich people and the homeless. This has nothing to do with the value of people’s lives (their contribution to society) but can be attributed to what conditions the society in general will accept. Before conditions were created to make people homeless, the average person had to be conditioned to accept it.
The money that does not exist in the pocket of the homeless resides in the bank account of the billion-dollar class. There is a direct relationship.
—Reader in the USA
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