Occupy Wall Street- The Popular

Occupy Wall Street- The Popular Revolt in North America

A View from Canada

Don Currie, Chair Canadians for Peace and Socialism (CPS), Editor Focus On Socialism

Member Editorial Board of North Star Compass (www.northstarcompass.org)

October 22, 2011


Editor’s Note: the following is the article written for the November 2011 issue of North Star Compass (www.northstarcompass.org) - WOC


On October 15th 2011 tens of thousands of Canadian and US citizens joined in solidarity with hundreds of thousands around the world to denounce finance capitalist impoverishment of the people.  The street demonstrations in North America were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in the USA.  The OWS movement is another manifestation of the break with imperialist propaganda and ideology by growing numbers of youth, workers, the unemployed, union militants and those forced to live in poverty in Canada and the USA.  The popular movement in the heartland of imperialism is an important advance in the political process that leads the laboring masses from denunciation of capitalism to awareness of the need to overthrow it.

The challenge presented to communists of Canada and the USA by this popular revolt is neither to trivialize nor to exaggerate it, but to strive to arm it with the class struggle program, strategy and tactics that can lead it towards working class power and socialism.

The Conservative Fiction and Canadian Reality

An internationalist duty has fallen with particular urgency to Canadian communists.  The right-wing Conservative Government of Prime Minister Steven Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty present Canada to the world as an example of the success of state monopoly capitalism (imperialism) to manage the consequences of the 2008 global capitalist depression.  In particular Finance Minister Flaherty and Canadian Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney boast at the IMF and the G20 that the Canadian banking system, due to Canadian regulatory banking laws, saved Canadians from the kind of financial ruin inflicted on the people of the USA and Europe by the subprime induced financial collapse of the US banking system.  CPS exposed that charade at the outset of the current global crisis.[1]

The majority of Canadians know that such corporate boasts are untrue.  The 2008 global capitalist depression fell just as heavily on Canadian workers, the poor and urban and rural middle classes as elsewhere in the capitalist world.  The 1.7 million Canadians out of work, millions more that lost savings and private retirement pension funds, and the majority of wage and salary earners having less purchasing power and lower living standards today than prior to 2008 reject the government line.

A bank recovery for big investors and preferred shareholders is a job and income disaster for the working class.  The impact of the recession continues to fall most heavily on young families.[2]

The Form of Bank Bailout in Canada

In a carefully researched article in January 2009[3] Professor Emeritus Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research exposed the Harper government’s $74 billion purchase of government insured bank mortgages taken off bank ledgers and transferred to a government corporation, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).  CMHC was once used to assist Canadians to purchase homes.  Now CMHC is burdened with bank debt.  With such generous government backing of course the Governor of the Bank of Canada can boast at the G20 that Canada’s banks are stable, on the backs of the Canadian taxpayers.  At the same time urgently needed low cost housing for wage earners is unavailable and real estate prices remain high. 

Canadian bank profits resulting from government largesse are not shared with the people.  Quite the contrary!  Prime Minister Harper after providing the banks with a $74 billion slush fund further lowered taxes on banks and corporations to among the lowest in the capitalist world.[4]  Coddling the banks is accompanied with imposing economic austerity on the people via public sector layoffs and wage freeze.[5]   As the Canadian banks and corporations rack up record profits[6] during a depression, the Conservative government promotes privatization and underfunds state funded public health care and imposes fees for a wide variety of social programs.[7]

The combination of placing $74 billion at the disposal of the banks, lowering corporate taxes and increasing arms spending to an all time historical high, the Conservative government incurred a $40 billion budget deficit.[8]  To reduce the budget deficit the Conservative Government plans large scale public sector worker layoffs, wage freeze and reduced pension benefits.  At the same time the conservative government asserts the strikes it provokes harm economic recovery and is moving to enact legislation to alter the Labour Code to by-pass Parliament and place the power to ban strikes in the executive branch of government.[9]

Farmers Incomes Also Under Attack

The attack on organized labour has been extended to farmers, as the Conservative government enacts legislation to privatize the Canadian Wheat Board and other single desk marketing agencies which have provided Canadian farmers with a level of price stability for their products.  The demise of the Canadian Wheat Board will benefit corporate farming at the expense of small and medium farmers now forced to market products through private corporate grain marketers.  Competition among farmers to access private marketers will lower prices to farmers and increase profit margins for agricultural commodity market speculators.  A reduction in the share of small and medium grain producers in the international grain market will now occur.[10], [11]

State Monopoly Capitalism (Imperialism) – the 21st Century Reality for Canada

What has been said thus far is but a small indication of a trend to a more open dictatorial rule by finance capital over the economy and the political life of Canada.  That is not surprising.  The evolution of Canada from a so-called liberal democracy to a right wing aggressive G7-NATO imperialist state is not well understood outside of the country.  The myth of Canada as some sort of enlightened democracy with an above class “civil society” is far removed from the truth.

Canada is a G7-NATO state integrated into the global system of state monopoly capitalism, imperialism.[12]  Al l G7-NATO states are governed by the most deceitfully reactionary militaristic anti-working class regimes on the planet.  The G7-NATO states, led by the USA, account for 50.42% of global GDP about $31.688 trillion[13] and spend more on militarism than all of the remaining countries of the world combined.[14]  The G7-NATO states are the main source of global economic instability and imperialist war.  Without exception the imperial governments of all G7-NATO states act on behalf of the profit interests of finance capitalist oligarchies that control the economies of these countries and most of the global economy.

Imperial Entitlement and the Struggle for Peace and Socialism

The ruling elites of the G7-NATO states have spared no effort to attempt to convince the approximately 500 million Europeans of the EU, 34 million Canadians and 312 million US citizens constituting approximately 10% of the 7 billion global populations that EU-North American prosperity is an imperial entitlement to use all of the labour and resources of the world.  The USA is the largest per capita consumer of energy[15] in the world.

This imperial entitlement assert G7-NATO propagandists, is dependent on continued majority support for NATO wars of regime change, conquest , and wealth appropriation of other peoples  labour and other people’s resources such as is underway in Libya.  The capitalist press is full of speculation about investment opportunities for foreign investors waiting to plunder Libya’s oil resources on the ruins of NATO aggression.[16]   Canadian finance capital is poised to participate in the plunder.[17], [18]

The ruling elites of the G7-NATO states assert they are entitled to the entire wealth of the planet and justified to use all means including if necessary, destroying whole civilizations that impede their global destiny.  The only sovereignty these ruling elites recognize is the sovereignty of private finance capital.

The ruling elites of the G7-NATO states assert that assigning the bulk of state wealth to military budgets is justified to defend the preferred status of western societies.  The aim of the highly centralized, privately owned and controlled club of financial oligarchies is to convince the laboring masses that global western supremacy is the only international order that can be conceived of and worthy of perpetuation.

Canadian Finance Capital Seeks Bigger Presence at NATO and Imperialist Round Tables

Within this imperialist predatory system, Canadian finance capital is aggressively reaching for preferred status.   Imperial status requires a buildup and modernization of the military to ensure its interoperability with NATO, EU and US forces.  Such a build up includes decisions to build Canadian foreign military bases on several continents.[19]  All of this aggressive military expansion is in behalf of a small circle of banks, big private investors and a military elite seeking a greater share of the plunder of NATO wars, IMF, World Bank and the European Central Bank predation.

Oppressed People’s Everywhere Reject G7-NATO Global Vision

The global vision of the financial oligarchies of the G7-NATO states has been rejected by the oppressed peoples of the world.  The billions of impoverished people of Asia, Africa, South and Central America and the Caribbean, still suffering from the terrible legacy of four centuries of colonial domination, now confront 21st century imperialist oppression.  As in the past the new generations in these countries have taken up organized struggles against imperialism with the conviction that no power knows better than they do the kind of social system necessary to re-fashion their economies, governments and resources to meet their own economic and social needs.  Many have taken non-capitalist paths and some have opted for socialism.

The significance of the OWS movement is that the imperial vision of global dominance so familiar to the oppressed masses of the developing world is now being actively rejected by a growing and significant number of people inside the G7-NATO states itself, in particular the USA.  This awakening, still in early days, and already the target of imperialist subversion, is nonetheless a new front of resistance to finance capital.  The emergence of the OWS movement is significant also for the potential for merging the anti-imperialist struggles of the oppressed people’s of the developing and developed states.  

The Divide between Rich and Poor

The gap between the wealth appropriation by the G7-NATO financial oligarchies and the real living conditions of the laboring masses of the world is so obvious to intelligent people, that a turning point has been reached in mass public awareness as to who and what constitutes the real enemies of global peace and human progress.  OWS has helped to clarify the lines of class struggle in North America.

A movement is arising, having as one of its motivating factors, a search for a new type of political economic system to replace predatory capitalism.  This awakening has been simmering in the working class movements of the people since the advent two decades ago of neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus.  Following the counter-revolutionary overthrow of Soviet Socialism that rolled back decades of social gains in both the former socialist states and the advanced capitalist states, international finance capital was emboldened to re-capitalize the former socialist states, seize the labour and resources of its peoples and imposed neo-liberalism everywhere.  It hasn’t turned out that way.  

Communists and the Occupy Wall Street Movement

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is not surprising to genuine Marxists and Communists and dedicated revolutionaries.  Marxism has studied and drawn conclusions from the fact that abrupt changes in the global capitalist economy has the effect of causing all classes to move into motion and compel them to reassess their world view.  Such a situation can include the creation of pre-revolutionary conditions.  The rejection of neo-liberalism, confined in the beginning to left progressives, has now broken into mainstream public discussion, affecting all forms of class politics, theory, ideology, political action, labour, peace and electoral struggles on all continents.

That is why the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement erupting in a mass way inside the USA today and spilling over into Canada is of such importance for ending NATO wars and weakening imperialism.  The OWS movement is the continuation in North America of similar struggles, albeit in different forms, that have been underway in the EU since the economic depression of 2008.

The OWS movement has its own features and that is not surprising.  However what OWS has in common with similar movements in Europe and South America and Asia is what is significant.  Because state monopoly capitalism (imperialism) is a global system, all of the struggles of the laboring masses of all of the G7-EU-NATO states without exception have a common anti-monopoly character and increasingly anti-capitalist character.

Social Democracy and OWS

Even the class collaborationist role of social democratic leadership of organized labour in Canada and the USA has not prevented the rise of militant and independent mass actions of the working people.  In fact it is not an exaggeration to say that social democracy has been compelled by the rapid rise of OWS to mask its role as class conciliator and give verbal support to the movement.

The OWS movement is only partly a spontaneous movement.  The role that organized labour has played in the Wisconsin events in the USA is a significant factor in motivating OWS and accounts for its distinct anti-corporate pro-labour content.[20]  Similarly in Canada, strikes by steelworkers, nickel miners, health and educational sector workers, airlines workers have given the OWS movement a pro-labour content.

Right Wing Social Democracy Exposed

The forms of mass popular resistance to imperialist war and capitalist depression in G7-EU-NATO states are as varied as the countries within which they develop.  The fight back is at many levels, reflecting differing levels of capitalist economic development and balance of class forces.  What slogans arise from these movements reflect the political experience and strength of organizations of the working class and its allies, in particular the strength and influence of participating communist parties. 

The popular revolt underway in Europe against IMF-EU austerity, reaching its highest form of militant resistance in Greece where the Communist  Party of Greece (KKE) plays a leading role within the Greek working class, has now reached the USA and is unfolding in Canada, albeit at a much lower level.

The resistance of the working people of Canada and the USA to the 2008 depression was always present but muted and constrained by the role of right wing social democracy that successfully channeled potential mass protest to parliamentary electoral politics.

Unlike Greece where the communist-led PAME unions have adopted class struggle strategies of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)[21] in North America organized labour, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and in the USA the AFL-CIO is led by social reformists that adhere to the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) doctrines of class collaboration.

In Canada the Canadian Labour Congress provides support to the New Democratic Party, a social democratic party that since the last federal election now holds the position of official opposition in the Canadian Parliament.  In the USA the AFL-CIO provides support to the Democratic Party and was an important factor in the election of President Barak Obama.

The OWS movement because of its relative political independence and rapid spontaneous spread to many major cities of the USA has caused alarm in the ruling class of the USA and calls for its control range from the extreme right wing demands to suppress it by force to social reformist schemes to deflect it into a reserve of support for the re-election of Obama in 2014.

The external and internal reactionary forces attempting to destroy the movement either by state intervention or spreading mass confusion by petty bourgeois radicals, confront an overwhelming reality; the worsening state of the US economy which shows no signs of abating.

Militarism and the Deepening Crisis

Compounding the debt crisis for capitalist governments in both the USA and Canada is military spending that has reached astronomical proportions.  The US government squanders 40% of the entire federal budget on military spending.  NATO demands that its member states contribute 2% of GDP to fund future predatory wars on poor countries.

The system of state monopoly capitalism in all G7-EU-NATO states is in the grips a general crisis of its system and an acute cyclical crisis, the latter yet to bottom out.  There are no signs of a global recovery.   The general consensus among Marxist economists is that the global system is slipping into a second phase of the 2008 collapse.  Such a two stage depression happened once before during the 1930’s Great Depression when in 1938 after almost ten years of painfully slow capitalist recovery and massive working class resistance, the economy took another dive that was only halted by the advent of WW2.

Socialism is on the Agenda

The experience of hundreds of millions victimized by capitalist depression and confronted with state violence is causing an intense ideological reappraisal of the capitalist system, its future and the need for a new type of governance to replace it.  Socialism, contrary to revisionist theorists, is back on the historical agenda of class struggle politics.

What is new in today’s struggles is that they arise when the example of real socialism as it was constructed in the Soviet Union and the socialist system of states is still very much alive in the collective memory of the masses.  Unlike 1917 and the ascendancy to power of the working class in Russia, when there was no historical precedent for socialism, today the achievements of real socialism becomes an important political factor in current struggles.

The Youth Are Creating a New Mass Media  

The privately owned and controlled mass media, with the advent of social media in the hands of savvy young people, is failing to completely control the message that capitalism is a system for all, demanding support of all.  The slogan of the working class that “we didn’t create the crisis and we refuse to be its victims” is an expression of the determination of millions to engage in independent mass political action that rejects the tutelage of capitalist parties. 

The experience of hundreds of millions now able to by-pass imperialist propagandists has created conditions for rapidly closing the gap between the rising spontaneous struggles of the working class and its allies, and the need for a comprehensive revolutionary theory and program of mass struggle.

This is the challenge confronting all of the Communist Parties of the world at the International Meeting of Communist and Worker’s Parties at their upcoming meeting in Athens Greece December 9-11, 2011.[22]

Communists assume responsibility for the whole revolutionary process underway in our own countries and internationally.  We seek what is new in rising struggles with only one purpose in mind, to make socialism the cause of all workers and all of the anti-imperialist forces.

Lenin’s Advice

In re-reading Lenin I came across this advice fully applicable to our time. It is from Volume 22 page 356 of his collected works in the essay, “The Discussion on Self Determination Summed Up”

Lenin writes:

“The socialist Revolution in Europe cannot be anything other than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry oppressed and discontented elements.  Inevitably, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will participate in it – without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible – and just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and errors.  But objectively they will attack capital, and the class-conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, capture power, seize the banks, expropriate the trusts which all hate (though for different reasons), and introduce other dictatorial measures which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately “purge” itself of petty-bourgeois slag.”

How well Lenin summed up mass struggles in his time, and how applicable are his observations for today’s struggles.


 

[13] Source 2010 IMF Reports. GDP USA $14.5T (% 23.09) Japan $5.46T (% 8.68) Germany $3.286T (% 5.22) France $2.56T (% 4.07) UK $2.25T (% 3.58) Italy $2.055T (% 3.27) Canada $1.577T (% 2.51)