After S11, let's build... FOR A GLOBAL SHUTDOWN ON MAY 1 2001 SHUT DOWN GLOBAL CAPITALISM - UNITE FOR GLOBAL REVOLUTION The 21st century has opened with a great wave of resistance to the institutions of global capitalism. Anti-debt campaigners, eco-activists, trade unions, peasant land movements - wherever there is resistance, there is a growing minority who want to fight not only the symptoms of capitalism, but the disease itself. The protests in London J18, Seattle N30, Washington A16, Millau in July and Melbourne S11 show: 1. New layers of activists against globalisation are ready to act in concert with organisations, with devastating impact 2. International co-ordination is now easier and more effective than ever before. Capitalism has globalised itself - but in the process it has globalised the forces of opposition Global capitalism has created global anti-capitalism. And our rulers instinctively recognise the power of this threat to their control. That is why their international meetings now take place not just behind closed doors but behind a ring of steel. The global anti-capitalist movement must speak for all the peoples of the world: - For the 'Third World', which faces gross indebtedness to Western banks, underdevelopment, starvation, super-exploitation and cruel austerity. -For the former "communist" countries, which - with the restoration of the capitalist system - face the abolition of state welfare provision, privatisation, the rise of nationalism, criminal gangs and mass unemployment. - For the rich, industrialised countries where, while a tiny elite live in unimaginable luxury, hundreds of millions face insecurity, inequality, racism, militarism and pollution. The movement must build on the alliances that have brought us success so far. In Seattle and Millau, trade unions representing workers from industrial and service sectors of the economy marched in alongside peasants, activists and youth. But that's just the start: the anti-capitalist alliance needs to go beyond "summit sieges" - though these are important for exposing the crimes of the system. We need an action plan replace capitalism with a classless society. The same academics, journalists and politicians who tell us that there is no alternative to the market economy insist that the working class is a thing of the past, a disappearing social layer whose organisations have failed for good. It is a lie. As global capitalism forces the pace of industrialisation in developing countries it has created working class on every continent, numbering hundreds of millions. The organised workers are a powerhouse of resistance. The last year alone has proved this beyond doubt. In India, in May 2000 the biggest general strike in history took place, against the International Monetary Fund's demand for more austerity and cuts despite hundreds of millions living in desperate need. In Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Argentina and China - mass strikes are no longer aimed just at the local bosses but at the ultimate enemy: the IMF, World Bank, WTO and WEF. In the USA - at the heart of the internet economy - 85,000 telecoms workers took strike action, defied the law, sent flying pickets - and won. The giant corporations of the "new economy" cannot escape the fact": no workers = no internet and no e-commerce. Mass action, with the working class at the centre, is the key to winning the struggles of today. Working class power is the key to a future free from poverty, exploitation and war. The anti-capitalist youth and activists can bring to the working class movements an unequivocal hostility to the global system. The working class can bring to the anti-capitalist movement its sense of solidarity, its power, its mass character, its high levels of organisation and discipline. We must use the breadth and variety of this worldwide movement to generalise everything that is effective, energetic, militant, imaginative and infused with hope. And we must reject everything that is exhausted, conformist, bureaucratic, narrow, self-serving and filled with despair. The task is clear: to turn the anti-capitalist movement decisively towards the working class - and to make the workers' movement anti-capitalist. But the present leadership of the workers' movement is at best sporadically engaged with anti-capitalist protest: at best they see direct action as a weapon to force the employers to negotiate - at worst the union and party bureaucrats side with the capitalists against us. The majority of the leaders of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), charities, socialist parties and trade unions are intimately tied to the capitalist system. We will hear impassioned pleas for moderation and compromise from this layer of go-betweens who rightly sense that their will be dispensed once when class divisions are abolished for good. All they want today is a place at the negotiating table - and their support for protests that put them there has to be understood in light of that. GLOBAL AIMS FOR A GLOBAL MOVEMENT Our experiences of campaigning under different national conditions can help us to develop a truly global strategy for resistance. How can we do this? By coming together to define our goals and our means. Our goals should be: * Cancel the entire debt owed by nations to the banks: no delays, no conditions, no compensation * Health, education and welfare for all - paid for by punitive taxes on corporate profits and the wealth of the super-rich and by confiscating the factories, businesses, funds, real estate and technology patents of the corporate giants * Abolish the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the World Economic Forum * Massive aid - free, with no strings attached - to compensate developing countries for the plunder by multinationals and the G7 mega-states. Tax the multinational corporations to fund it. * Root out inequality through redistribution of wealth - and a relentless challenge to all forms of discrimination on grounds of race, nationality, gender and sexuality * Halt the market 'reforms' that are restoring capitalism in Eastern Europe, the former USSR, China, Vietnam, Korea and Cuba. For working class democratic socialism based on the rule of workers' councils. * Save the planet through a planned global shift away from the burning of fossil fuels and nuclear fission towards sustainable forms of energy production * Stop the major powers from bombing whole nations into the Stone Age by scrapping NATO and all imperialist military alliances * A democratically planned economy in which society's resources are owned by all, matching products to needs through mass electronic communication and popular control * A world federation based on solidarity and co-operation in place of competition, nationalism and war. WE'RE MAKING HISTORY The capitalists are ashamed of their history, which they conceal and distort at every opportunity. But we can be proud of ours - it is a record of tenacious struggle against exploitation and oppression in every country and in every form. The heroism and agony of the last hundred years speak directly to us today: * Capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence through partial constitutional measures - the exploiters' state apparatus will be used ruthlessly to repress serious challenges to private property. It must be broken up through mass revolutionary action. * A socialist society without class division cannot be constructed unless the mass of working class people determine their own economic and political priorities. Capitalism can exist without popular working class democracy - socialism cannot be built without it. There is no "national" road to socialism: only international action, guided by an international strategy, can beat the global capitalist menace. Socialism in one country was always a delusion. No country can beat global capitalism on its own - nor can socialism be imposed by one country on another on the tracks of tanks. Only through socialism can we end racism, genocide, women's oppression and the oppression of young people, lesbians and gays. ORAGANISE! The next steps for our movement: * Unite the anti-capitalist activists and youth with the worldwide working class movement Make Tuesday 1 May 2001 a worldwide shutdown: with a one-day general strike and protest marches in every major city aimed at the symbols of corporate power * Build an international, anti-capitalist revolutionary youth movement * Link workers fighting closures, privatisation, low pay and unemployment * Build a New International - a world party of social revolution, relying on the fullest internal democracy and unity in action. The all-pervasive culture of global capitalism is founded on the myth of individualism. The billionaires pray that the chase for individual survival will stop us fighting for a better future. But there is more to life, more to humanity, more to history than this. Capitalism is an invisible barrier that separates us from each other and our collective interest. Let's tear it down and build a classless society, so that human history can really begin! Proposed by WORLD REVOLUTION and League for a Revolutionary Communist International (Workers Power) September 1 2000 Sign Up, Adopt this Declaration! email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] eamil: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WORKERS POWER GLOBAL WEBSITE http://www.workerspower.com DESTROY IMF WEBSITE http://www.destroyimf.org -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
