Capitalism and Women's Exploitation
In capitalist society, workers are exploited by the ruling capitalist class. But exploitation of workers is not the only form that exploitation takes; there are other particular forms of exploitation. For example, the exploitation of Black and Indigenous people by white colonizers through chattel slavery and genocide, which facilitated further exploitation, creating an underclass within the underclass.
Another very prominent kind of exploitation is gender-based exploitation, which in our current era exists in the form of patriarchy, which is then further shaped by the conditions of capitalism. While patriarchy is harmful to all people, it involves and is facilitated primarily by the oppression of women. Women’s exploitation contributes to the power of the capitalist class; therefore, the liberation of women and the end of gender-based exploitation of all kinds is a necessary component of socialism.
The Dialectics of Organizing and Mobilization
A revolution, among other things, is a series of mass mobilizations, continuing on until the quantity of mobilizations creates a qualitative change in societal power relations. A revolution is the collective action of an entire class. How do we get an entire class to move?
Committees, Councils, and the Construction of Revolution
With our superior numbers, the capitalist regime stands no chance against our united efforts. But ‘unity’ is the operative word, and it does not develop spontaneously. Unity is achieved through the painstaking construction of workers’ organizations — organizations which are tempered, tested, and hardened through struggle as steel within a furnace.
Workers Must Take Power
A better society, even a livable one, cannot exist as long as the capitalist regime is in power. But how can we defeat capitalism and what do we build in its place?
If We’re Going to Defeat Capitalism, We Need to Build a Working Class Base – Right Now
What is the purpose of a communist party? For much of the Western left, the answer to that question has become abstract. Day-to-day political work generally consists of raising consciousness through political writings (only read by other leftists), responding to the crises faced by the working class with political demonstrations (only attended by other leftists), or developing survival programs (which can only collect and redistribute the meager resources of the oppressed). The notion of the victory of the working class over the capitalist ruling class is but a hazy object on the distant horizon. Instead, leftists have come to admire struggle for struggle’s sake, divorced from the attainment of any long-term objective.