If workers shut down a factory or a whole sector of the economy in the course of waging the struggle for their rights they soon find that their struggle reaches the limits imposed by the capitalist system. These limits are based on the private ownership of property and the political power it wields. These limits ensure that while certain rights exist, such as the right to strike, they do so only to the extent that they do not threaten the right of the capitalists to maintain their control of the situation. At the stroke of the pen these rights are taken away - as in the case of back-to-work legislation which has been used against workers in important sectors of the national economy such as the railway and post office. These limits also ensure that rights exist entirely within the context of the supremacy of private property. Thus, in a strike or other struggle workers often find themselves facing the courts or labour boards which dictate what will be the boundaries to any struggle. For example, the courts routinely intervene to grant injunctions limiting the right to picket, and the right of workers to organize (and also to maintain their organizations) falls within the limits determined not by the workers, but by the labour laws and labour boards. Contrast this to a situation in which thousands of workers are laid off as the result of a single decision by a corporation or a government, or the anti-social offensive, which has seen the governments at all levels launch their attacks on social programs and the most vulnerable, all in the name of protecting the profits of the monopolies and the financial oligarchy. There is no limit to these rights enjoyed by the monopolies and financial oligarchy. In fact, they become policy through actions taken by the governments at every level to recognize that paying the debt and deficit cutting are a priority over providing for the social needs of the people. Privatization of existing social services is another measure which goes hand in hand with the anti-social offensive. In other words, the cards are all stacked against the working class. The limits imposed can only lead to the intensified exploitation of the working class. The crisis of unemployment is one example. Another is the anti-social offensive. Such things are happening because the working class is confined to the limits acceptable to the present ruling class of the monopolies and financial oligarchy and its political representatives. What it is clearer with each passing day and each new struggle is that the working class must act in a new way. Whether it is the deepening economic crisis or the anti-social offensive which is eliminating any responsibility of society to provide and care for the well-being of its members, the necessity is for the working class to change the situation. It has to advance its pro-social program on the basis that society must provide for the interests of all working people. It has to enter the political arena not on the basis of electing this or that political party but from the consideration of electing its own representatives to defend its interests and set the pro-social agenda. TML DAILY, 12/2/97 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]