We’re Much Better Than We Look Under Capitalism
Anyone reading the newspapers or watching the news on TV every day can’t help but get depressed—wars, pandemics, inflation, mass murders and environmental destruction are a part of everyday life.
We are taught that these things have always existed in one form or another and always will be a part of human nature. And further, that that’s why it’s necessary to have a hierarchy that rules—a superior class of people in control of the police, the military, and the government. This is the capitalist class—the owners of the means of production and the overseers of the working class who create the wealth in the first place. Without this hierarchy, they say, the world would be in chaos.
But the truth is, it’s capitalism—an economic system that places the rule of the wealthy elite over the masses of humanity, by the threat of death and the destruction of the planet itself—that breeds the chaos and violent competition and conflict in the world today.
From the times of outright slavery to the wage slavery of modern capitalism, the wealthy elite have held the power of life and death over the masses to command us to do their bidding—even as cannon fodder for their wars—any and everything that they require in order to preserve their control over the wealth that the working class produces. Our share of the pie is determined by how hard we fight the capitalists for it.
The mindset of war
In a December 11, 2022, major New York Times expose of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (J.R.O.T.C.), in an article titled, “Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C.,” by Mike Baker, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Ilana Marcus:
“While Pentagon officials have long insisted that J.R.O.T.C. is not a recruiting tool, they have openly discussed expanding the $400 million-a-year program, whose size has already tripled since the 1970s, as a way of drawing more young people into military service. The Army says 44 percent of all soldiers who entered its ranks in recent years came from a school that offered J.R.O.T.C. High school principals who have embraced the program say it motivates students who are struggling, teaches self-discipline to disruptive students and provides those who may feel isolated with a sense of camaraderie. It has found a welcome home in rural areas where the military has deep roots but also in urban centers where educators want to divert students away from drugs or violence and toward what for many can be a promising career or a college scholarship. …Of the textbooks obtained and examined by The Times, one from the Navy states that a U.S. military victory in Vietnam was hindered by the restrictions political leaders had placed on the tactics the military could use. That hawkish interpretation of the war fails to account for the fundamental problem that many civilian textbooks point out: the lack of popular support among South Vietnamese for their government, which was America’s chief ally in the war. …A Marine Corps textbook describing the ‘Trail of Tears’ during the 1830s fails to mention that thousands of people died when Native Americans were forced from their lands in the southeastern United States. …Sylvia McGauley, a former high school history teacher in Troutdale, Oregon, said she was troubled when she found that the J.R.O.T.C. textbooks being used at her school were teaching ‘militarism, not critical thinking.’”
How astounding is it that J.R.O.T.C. can claim that military training is somehow non-violent? And that being trained to follow the chain of command, i.e., following orders, leads to cooperation, camaraderie, and critical thinking!
A companion piece titled, “J.R.O.T.C. Textbooks Offer an Alternative View of the World,” by Mike Baker and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs published the same day describes a J.R.O.T.C. textbook regarding female cadets:
“A Marine Corps textbook tells female cadets that, in uniform, they should wear lipstick and shape their hair in an ‘attractive feminine style.’ In an era when women are fully integrated into combat jobs, an Army textbook details how men should not sit ‘until all the ladies at his table are seated.’ It recommends that men help women sit down. ‘If a lady leaves the table at any time, the gentleman who seated her rises and assists with the lady’s chair,’ the book says.”
So, when women all over the world are fighting for our rights to equal pay, control over our own bodies, equal access to jobs, housing, and education, J.R.O.T.C. teaches young women to be submissive and young men to expect it.
Capitalism vs. socialism
Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky and all socialists had quite a different view of human nature. They looked at things from an entirely different perspective. They looked at wars, pandemics, mass murders, environmental destruction, and inflation as the inevitable result of class oppression—the rule of the rich over the poor—capitalism. They conclude:
- Inequality and oppression are not states of nature.
- Bigotry—racism, sexism, classism—helps preserve capitalist oppression by placing one section of the working class on the side of our own oppressors and in opposition to our own common interests as workers and humans.
- And finally, we, the working class, the majority, have the capability to change the world profoundly and democratically by taking the control of the means production away from the capitalist minority and put it into the hands of the majority—to produce according to what we all need and want—not for the private profit of the few.
Organizing for a socialist future
The ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky have been around a long time, and they are even more relevant today.
Ironically, those who adhere to these ideas—who have read the contributions these founders have made—are more isolated than ever.
The ravages of modern capitalism have succeeded in tearing socialist groups apart and pitting us against each other. Any genuine cooperation as occurs from time to time in the antiwar, anti-racist or anti-sexist movements soon dissolves into warring factions among the groups with the goal of “owning” the movement.
This is an adaptation to capitalist-political dictatorship that is counter to socialist democracy and equality.
As a result, the vanguard of the working class—those of us who have been fighting for socialism for our whole lives—are fragmented into tiny grouplets that can’t cooperate in defense of our own human rights and, ultimately, in defense of all life on earth.
Things that can be done
We have more capabilities of world communication that the founders of the socialist movement could have ever dreamed of. And, we have, in our ranks, all the skills necessary to use these avenues of communication to organize ourselves into an international, revolutionary socialist party of the working class—a party that can build democratic workers organizations powerful enough to end capitalism and embark on a new, socialist society based upon equality, justice, freedom and democracy for all.
Socialist Viewpoint
Our magazine tries to present as many articles as possible from various radical groups here and around the world that uphold the principles of revolutionary socialism based upon its founders, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky.
We encourage meaningful, democratic discussion among groups to develop a program for unity and solidarity with the goal of cooperation and organization to end capitalism and build a socialist world.