ECUADOR, Nov 15, 2024–Workers in Quito demanding energy (electricity) fight against the police. These and all workers need to fight for communism, the only system that can meet all our needs
Greedy Capitalist Government Profits from Worst Drought in Sixty Years
ECUADOR, November 24— For the past two months, Ecuador has suffered the worst drought in over sixty years. It was caused by a combination of La Niña and global warming. The result was blackouts lasting eight to fourteen hours a day. Thousands of people lost their jobs, companies went bankrupt, and the overall economy lost billions of dollars.
This crisis was created by capitalism: the exploitation of all natural resources to produce huge profits for local and foreign investors, mainly from the US and China. Local companies also influence the government. They seek profit by producing and distributing electricity.
The main contradiction is between capitalist energy production that extracts capitalist profits by exploiting the working class and nature, on one side. Versus the need of the working class for free and regenerative energy that improves their quality of life, on the other.
The Ecuadorian government works for the energy companies, not for the working class. It ignores the development, during the last decades, of many alternative regenerative technologies. These include the photovoltaic use of the sun, the use of the wind, the geothermal use of the heat of the earth, and the waves of the oceans, among others.
The energy companies have a vested interest in protecting the existing network. The more renewable energy is developed, the higher the costs to maintain their grid with fewer customers and less profits.
Most profitable for the capitalists is the continued use of their existing investment in the current central distribution system of national copper wires, poles, substations, and transformers.
However, the most efficient method of energy production for all consumers is the use of a passive regenerative system (sun, wind, ocean, and land) in which communities and households are serviced collectively or individually without a central distribution grid. But that means no more profit for the capitalists.
Hydropower continues the use of the current central distribution system. Although it appears to be regenerative because it only uses the power of river water, it is against nature. The dams hold back the normal flow of the rivers to clean themselves. Sludge accumulates that robs the water of oxygen, kills marine life, and ruins the natural course of the river.
When it doesn’t rain, these hydraulic plants are useless. But, even so, we pay by being unemployed and with the cost of providing energy for ourselves individually.
The capitalists make their profits by selling electricity to the customer and from government subsidies. But with the same capital invested in hydroelectric and combustion power, every building and house in Ecuador could have been equipped with alternative energy and there would be no more costs or profits for twenty to thirty years.
A communist society will solve problems by using dialectical materialism to analyze the contradictions in each problem. It will resolve them to the benefit of the working class and nature. Our solution is to end capitalism and build communism.
In a communist society, led and organized by the working class, we will solve all levels of problems for the benefit of the entire working class and nature. Under capitalism, all problems are solved for the benefit of the ruling class and capitalists who must profit from all aspects of society.
Commissions of workers from all over will get together and review all available natural resources (local, regional, and worldwide) and all available passive and active energy technologies. They will determine what is best for the masses internationally.
That’s communism in action. Everyone shares the labor and costs of the technology, and there are no profits, only benefits for all.
December 3—Thousands fought cops and surrounded army vehicles in South Korea in defiance of President Yoon’s declaration of martial law. He claimed that opposition parties were sympathizers of North Korea and dangerous to his pro-US regime. Six hours later, after the parliament voted against the declaration, Yoon backed down. Now he faces impeachment. Workers and students in South Korea have long fought bravely and militantly in the face of harsh repression. We urge them, and their supporters everywhere, to fight for communism, the only real solution.
July, 2024 Mass Strike of Samsung Workers in South Korea shows workers’ potential power to mobilize the masses for communist revolution.”