sep program

7/31/2019 Sep Program

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Te Economic Crisis and its Social Impact

1. Te world capitalist system is ensnared in its great-est crisis since the Great Depression o the 1930s. Tenancial turmoil that began in September 2008 withthe sudden ailure o Wall Street icons has metastasized

into a global economic breakdown. For decades theapologists o capitalism have proclaimed that Ameri-can-style ree enterprise is the most perect orm oeconomic organization. Tey ignored the many signso the approaching crisis, while the corporate-con-trolled media celebrated the reckless nancial specula-tion and irresponsible sel-enrichment that dene thebusiness activities and personal liestyles o the rulingclass. When the disaster nally struck in 2008, the USgovernment intervened with a desperate inusion o

hundreds o billions o dollars to save the banking sys-tem rom collapse. Te president o the United Statespublicly acknowledged that the survival o the capital-ist system was at risk. Te emergency bailout protectedthe wealth o rich investors but ailed to contain thecrisis.

2. Te Obama administrations claim that it has bro-ken the back o the recession is a sel-serving lie,told by cynical politicians who are convinced that thepeople can be made to believe anything. Te reality o

growing social distress is not so easily concealed. Ap-proximately 26 million people in the United States are

jobless or unable to nd ull-time work. Hal o thosecounted on the ocial unemployment rolls have beenout o work or six months or longer. Tis is the highestlong-term unemployment rate since the 1930s. Youngpeople, burdened with debts that they accumulated topay or their education, graduate rom college unableto nd decent-paying jobs, or any work at all.

3. Foreclosures are driving one million workers out o

their homes every year. Te income o American work-

ers, which had been in decline since the early 1970s, inow plunging. Tere has been a wave o wage-cuttingsince the onset o the recession. Millions o workingclass amilies cannot make ends meet. Tose unableto pay their bills on time are treated with inhuman

brutality. In cities like Detroit, the utility corporationroutinely cut o gas and electricity to impoverishedworkers, leading to the deaths o scores o peoplethroughout the country.

4. Virtually every state and local government is grippby nancial crisis. Te response o the corporate eliteis to demand austerity. Te politicians who only yes-terday bailed out the banks now proclaim that there no money or essential social programs. Pension plaare being reneged on, schools shut down, and innu-

merable social services that are vital or the well-beino local communities drastically scaled back or elimi-nated. In the guise o reorm, access to health care isbeing made subject to ever greater restrictions.

5. Te attacks on the working class in the United Statare part o a global process. Te economic breakdownthat began in September 2008 is comparable to theWall Street crash o 1929. Now, as 80 years ago, thecrisis began in the United States but has spread rapidlinto Europe and throughout the world. In September

2008, Wall Street banks and investment houses acedbankruptcy. By the spring o 2010, with the nancialsolvency o European countries in doubt, one government aer another announced its determination toimplement painul austerity measures.

6. In the aermath o the 1929 collapse on Wall Streetthe government and the press repeated endlessly thererain: Prosperity is just around the corner. But thedepression that began with the stock market crash anthen spread throughout the world lasted more than a

Te Breakdown of Capitalism & theFight for Socialism in the United StatesPROGRAM OF HE SOCIALIS EQUALIY PARY

Adopted by the First National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (USAugust 11-15, 2010, Ann Arbor, Michigan


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The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism in the United Stat2

decade and led to unprecedented suering and de-struction, to military dictatorships, ascism and worldwar.

7. Te specter o past tragedies looms ever larger. Onthe eve o the Second World War, Leon rotsky, thegreatest strategist o revolutionary socialism in the

twentieth century, described the world crisis as thedeath agony o capitalism. He warned that a catas-trophe threatens the whole culture o mankind. Hiswords were vindicated by the horrors that ollowed.Capitalism survived only by plunging the world intothe cataclysm o war. By the time it ended, in 1945, ap-proximately 70 million people had perished.

8. A new warning must be raised with all necessary ur-gency. Te present crisis will not simply go away. Tereis no peaceul, let alone easy, way out o the economicand social impasse into which capitalism has led man-kind. Te program o the Socialist Equality Partywhich works in political solidarity with the Interna-tional Committee o the Fourth Internationalis nota collection o palliatives and hal-measures. Te aimo this party and its co-thinkers in the Fourth Interna-tional is not the reorm o American and internationalcapitalism. I anything is to be learned rom the trag-edies o the twentieth century, it is that the repetitiono these horrors in the twenty-rst century, on an even

bloodier scale, can be prevented only through the revo-lutionary struggle o the American and internationalworking class or socialism.

Te Historic Decline of American Capitalism

9. Tere is one critical sense in which the presentcrisis diers rom the Great Depression. Despite theseverity o the crisis, the United States o the 1930sremained a rising global economic power. Americancapitalism, which had developed explosively over the

previous hal-century, still possessed the most power-ul, technologically advanced and ecient industrialand manuacturing base in the world. By the end oWorld War II, the United States occupied an unchal-lenged position as the worlds greatest industrial powerand its principal creditor. Tis was the economicbasis or the stabilization o world capitalism and therapid rise in the living standards o American work-ers during the quarter-century that ollowed the endo the war. However, the recovery o Europe and Japan

gradually undermined the dominance o US capital-ism in the 1950s and 1960s. Te deterioration o thebalance o trade increased pressure on the US dollar,which served as the linchpin o the post-war inter-national monetary system. Te industrial and socialmilitancy o the working class wrested concessions

rom the ruling class, placing urther burdens on thenances o American capitalism. Te staggering costso the reactionary and unsuccessul war waged by theUnited States against the Vietnamese people broughtthe economic diculties that had been mountingthroughout the 1960s to a head. In what amounted toan acknowledgment that the era o unchallenged USglobal economic dominance had come to an end, theNixon administration on August 15, 1971 ended theinternational convertibility o the dollar into gold (atthe rate o $35 per ounce).

10. Te last our decades have witnessed the stagna-tion and decay o American capitalism. Since the earl1970s, the value o the dollar, relative to the currencieo Americas major capitalist competitors in Europeand Japan, has allen drastically. Te United States habecome the largest debtor nation in the world. Temonthly balance o trade and payments decits runinto the tens o billions o dollars. Te deteriorationo the industrial and manuacturing base o American

capitalismthe outcome o the interaction o inter-national competition and declining protabilityunderlies the massive growth o nancial parasitism.Tirty years ago, the nancial industry accountedor only six percent o corporate prots. oday, morethan orty percent o corporate prots are generatedthrough money lending, stock market speculation anrelated orms o nancial swindling. Moreover, to theextent that the nancial aristocracy invests in production within the United States and internationally, it isor no other reason than to generate the greatest maso prots and personal wealth in the shortest period otime. Tis is the economic source o the relentless drito eliminate jobs, lower wages, increase productivityand slash social spending. Te American nancial aritocracy stands at the apex o a global system o exploitation that seeks to squeeze as much prot as possibleout o the fesh, bones and sinews o every worker.

11. It is not only its money-madness and pursuit oboundless personal wealth that drive the American

ruling class to intensiy exploitation. Te protracted


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Program of the Socialist Equality Party

economic decay o American capitalism is, in the nalanalysis, the principal cause o the assault on the livingstandards and social conditions o the working class.Te United States can no longer present itsel as theland o unlimited opportunity. In truth, this amousphrase was always a myth that concealed an uglier and

harsher reality. But in the 1930s, under the leadershipo Franklin Roosevelt, it was still possible or Ameri-can capitalism to promise workers a New Deal. Eventhen, with a reorm-minded administration in power,the working class had to wage bitter struggles to trans-late Roosevelts vague and oen insincere promisesinto reality. oday, the Obama administration has noNew Deal to oer. Te Yes We Can demagogy othe campaign trail has become the No We Cant real-ity o his presidency.

Te Failure of the Obama Administration

12. Millions o working people voted or BarackObama in the hope that his administration would re-

verse the reactionary policies o George W. Bush. Tesehopes have been reuted by experience. Under theraudulent banner o the war on terror, the Obamaadministration continues to pursue the global impe-rialist agenda o the American ruling class. roopsremain in Iraq, and military operations in Aghanistanand Pakistan have been escalated. Te use o dronemissiles has made the targeted killing o Aghan andPakistani civilians a daily occurrence. At the sametime, the Obama administration steadily intensiespressure against Iran, preparing the grounds, on oneor another pretext, or a military attack that wouldhave catastrophic consequences. In the nal analysis,Obama, like his predecessors, believes that Americanmilitary power can be used to oset the consequenceso the decline in the global economic position o theUnited States.

13. Te advances in communication and inormationtechnologies have created the material oundationsor the global integration o all aspects o economiclie. But the progressive eatures and productive po-tential o economic globalization are negated by thecontinued division o the world into nation-states. Tepolitical lie o the planet is dominated by this contra-diction. History has already demonstrated the horribleconsequences, in World War I and World War II, o thestruggle among competing capitalist nations. Te dan-

ger o a new global confagration is mounting rapidlyTe United States views with anxiety the economicgrowth o potential rivals in any part o the world. Inparticular, the rapid economic development o Chinahas provoked widespread discussion within the USpolitical and military establishment about the possibi

ity and implications o war with that country.14. Te result o such a war would be, without ques-tion, a disaster o unimaginable dimensions, but thisdoes not mean it cannot happen. Te logic o imperiaism leads to military confict, and the drive toward wis determined by harsh economic and geo-strategicconsiderations. Nor is China the only potential adversary. Conficting interests and ambitions in CentralAsia, the Black Sea region, the Balkans and Eastern Erope underlie persistent tensions between the United

States and Russia. Tere are clear signs that mountingdierences over economic policies are leading to aresurgence o the old antagonisms between the US anGermany and other European countries. Within itsown hemisphere, relations between Washington andLatin American states are deteriorating.

15. Te determination o American imperialism tomaintain its dominant position in the global capital-ist system creates innumerable scenarios, involvingmany dierent states, which lead to military confict.

One or another o these scenarios, or some unoreseevariation, will ultimately be played out in reality. Tisin act, is the expectation o the American military.Te ocial 2010 analysis o the Joint Operating Envi-ronment (JOE), published by the United States JointForces Command, bluntly declares in its introductionWar has been a principal driver o change over thecourse o history, and there is no reason to believe thathe uture will dier in this respect. Tere is only oneway that another catastrophic world war can be pre-

vented, and that is through the international politicalmobilization o the working class in the struggle orsocialism. Te American working class must and willplay a central role in this global struggle.

16. Te Obama administrations ailure to take any signicant measures to alleviate the economic distress otens o millions o working class Americans testies tthe supreme reality o political lie in the United Statethe total control maintained by the multi-billion-dollcorporations and the super-rich over all branches o


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government and the two-party system. Te executivebranch, Congress, the judiciary and state and localgovernments are subservient to corporate interests.No legislation can be enacted and no measure can betaken that is perceived by the capitalist class as a threatto its interests and wealth. American democracy is

ever more nakedly a government o the rich, by therich, and or the rich. Te growth and concentrationo personal wealth during the past 30 years, which hasproduced a degree o social inequality higher than anyother advanced capitalist country, is the outcome o taxcuts and the repeal o laws and regulations that onceplaced restraints on the exploitative activities o thecorporations.

17. Te concentration o staggering sums o moneyin the hands o a small raction o the population, the

consequence o private ownership o the means oproduction, is not only socially obscene. It is, moresignicantly, economically destructive and incompat-ible with the critical needs o society, within the UnitedStates and internationally. Tis is the age o a globallyintegrated mass society. Approximately seven bil-lion people inhabit our planet. Tree hundred millionpeople live in the United States. All the great socialproblems that conront modern societythe provisiono ood and other basic necessities, education, medical

care, housing, social inrastructure, the development onatural resourcesrequire solutions that are collective,not individual, in their character. Tere is a desperateneed or the rational development o global economicresources and their utilization in the interests o theworlds people. Moreover, the technological advancesand economic growth that are required to abolish pov-erty and meet the ever-rising social and cultural needso people cannot be achieved without a scienticallygrounded awareness o the complex and lie-threaten-ing problems conronting the ecology o our planet.

18. None o these problems can be addressed in acountry and a world where all important economicdecisions are made by privately owned corporations.Te crazed speculation in subprime mortgages thatprecipitated the worldwide nancial crash o 2008demonstrated how the world economy is at the mercyo the ravenous and socially criminal pursuit o per-sonal wealth. And, i that lesson was not sucient, theecological catastrophe in the Gul o Mexicopolluted

by hundreds o millions o gallons o crude oilis a

historic exposure o the socially toxic character o privately owned corporations. It has already been estab-lished that BP either ignored or consciously violatedeven the most basic saety procedures in its pursuit oprot. BPs criminal behavior was abetted by successiUS administrations, Republican and Democratic.

19. Despite the magnitude o the disaster produced bthe explosion o BPs Deepwater Horizon oil rig, theObama administration remains paralyzed in the aceo the massive power, economic and political, exertedby BP and other transnational corporations. In a tell-ing and predictable demonstration o his obeisance tocorporate power, the president declared that he has nwish to undermine the nancial viability o BP. Just athe Wall Street nanciers were never held criminallyliable or the economic devastation caused by their

reckless speculation, BP too has been sheltered romthe consequences o its actions. More important thanthe ate o BP and its executives are the deeper eco-nomic roots o this catastrophe. Te basic source onot only the catastrophe in the Gul o Mexico, but othe innumerable orms taken by the expanding eco-nomic crisis, lies in the ruthless subordination o theeconomic and social interests o the masses o workinpeople to the pursuit o prot and personal wealth bycapitalist corporations that own and control the mean

o production.Te Bankruptcy of Liberalism and the

Democratic Party

20. Te economic crisis that exploded in the autumno 2008 continues, with no end in sight. Te Obamaadministration has sought to cover up the ineective-ness o its pathetic hal-measures with hollow rhetoriMore and more, its response to the crisis recalls that oHerbert Hoover aer the 1929 crash. In that earlier p

riod o economic crisis, a liberal journal commented:For eighteen months unemployment has been spreading poverty and acute suering through industrial anagricultural areas alike. No one yet knows when thepresent economic disaster will be brought to an end.Te illusory years have given way to earul economicinsecurity and to widespread despair. Tese eighteenmonths have revealed the hypocrisy o the Presidentspledge o cooperation toward the attainment o eco-nomic security. Te Administrations eorts to at-tain economic security have consisted o attempts to


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minimize the seriousness o the depression, o boldassurances that steps which would restore prosperitywere about to be taken, and o a woeully unsuccess-ul program to stimulate private or local agencies toundertake tasks which the Administration was deter-mined to shirk.1

21. Tese words, written in 1931, were an indictmento the policies o the Hoover administration. Teyserve just as well as a description o the Obama admin-istrations response to the economic and social disaster.Te ailure is not merely that o a president, but oan entire political system and the capitalist economicorder that it deends. Tere remains no small numbero liberal Democrats who hope against hope that theadministration will suddenly change course and pro-claim with appropriate anare the second coming o

Roosevelts New Deal. Teir dreams are in vain. Tecorporate and nancial oligarchy that dictates policiesto the Democrats and Republicans is demanding theapplication o ever more savage doses o austerity.

22. When American capitalism was approaching thepinnacle o its global power and infuence, its leadersacknowledged that the political rights enumerated inthe US Constitution were, by themselves, insucientto guarantee equality and allow the pursuit o hap-piness. In his State o the Union address delivered

in January 1944, President Roosevelt declared: Wecannot be content i some raction o our peoplewhether it be one-third or one-h or one-tenthisill-ed, ill-clothed, ill-housed and insecure. He statedthat it had become sel-evident that true individualreedom cannot exist without economic security andindependence. As part o his eorts to reurbish capi-talism, which had been so thoroughly discredited bythe Great Depression, Roosevelt proposed the adop-tion o a second Bill o Rights under which a new

basis o security and prosperity can be guaranteed orallregardless o station, race and creed.

23. During the next 20 years, in the aermath o theSecond World War, the United States and the globaleconomy realized historically unprecedented rates ogrowth. Living standards rose signicantly within theUnited States. But Roosevelts second Bill o Rightsremained a dead letter and the economic security thathe proclaimed as a right never came close to be-

1 The Nation, July 15, 1931, p. 61.

ing realized. Even in this most prosperous period oUS history, nearly 20 percent o Americans remainedmired in poverty. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnsonproclaimed his War on Poverty. But the promises othat campaign were abandoned as the global and intenal contradictions o American capitalism mounted.

From the 1970s onward, the Democratic Party shiedsteadily to the right and abandoned its previous poli-cies o liberal reorm. Tis process corresponded to thdecline in the world position o the US. During the la40 years, the living standards o the working class havsteadily declined. Major recessions in 1979-80, 1981-83, 1991-93, and 2001-03 inficted immense economiharm to working people, even beore the latest disastebegan.

24. American capitalism proved incapable o realizing

the promise o economic security and the eliminationo poverty during the decades o its greatest successesWhat, then, can be expected o this economic systemin a period o breakdown and crisis?

American Workers and Socialism

25. Tere is no denying the act that there exists a vasdisparity between the historic character o the politi-cal and social tasks that conront American work-ers and their existing level o consciousness. But the

program o a genuinely revolutionary party must bebased on a scientic analysis o objective reality, not oimpressionistic and usually alse conceptions o whatworkers may or may not be prepared to accept. AsLeon rotsky, the ounder o the Fourth Internationalexplained: Our tasks dont depend on the mentality othe workers. Te task is to develop the mentality o thworkers. Tat is what the program should ormulateand present beore the advanced workers. Moreover,the Socialist Equality Party emphatically rejects the

claim, advanced by all sorts o demoralized skep-tics, that the American working class is incapable omounting a revolutionary challenge to capitalism andwill never accept the need or socialism. Tis politi-cally bankrupt outlook, inused with the sickly spirit deeatism, is based on a rejection o the laws o historand the lessons o past struggles.

26. Te history o the American working class is oneo dicult and relentless struggle. Te story o its slowadvance, in the ace o the brutal resistance o the cap

talist class, is written in blood. From the earliest class


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battles o railroad workers in the 1870s and the ghtor the eight-hour day in the 1880s, to the establish-ment o mass industrial unions in the 1930s, the work-ing class shed its blood and gave up its martyrs to endthe naked tyranny o the employers. In the aermatho World War II, the great wave o strikes that swept

over every sector o industry wrested concessions romemployers that led to a rapid rise in living standards.Tese struggles, in turn, inspired the great battles oArican-American workers or civil rights in the 1950sand 1960s, which ound broad support among workingpeople and youth.

27. But the Achilles heel o the working class lay in theabsence o an independent mass socialist movement,guided by Marxist theory. Even during the period othe most violent class battles, the working class re-

mained, through its allegiance to the Democratic Party,under the political control o the capitalist class. Fromits earliest days, the American Federation o Labor(AFL) did everything in its power to maintain thepolitical subordination o the working class to the bigbusiness parties. Tis remained the policy o the tradeunions during and aer the mass struggles or indus-trial unionism that swept across the United States inthe 1930s.

28. Tere are many actors that underlay the ailure o

American workers to develop a politically independentmass socialist movement against capitalism: the sheer

vastness o the American continent, the heterogene-ity o a working class drawn to the United States romall over the world, the unscrupulous use o racism bythe employers to divide and conquer, the notori-ous corruption and criminality o large sections othe trade union bureaucracy, and the erocity o theanti-communist red-baiting campaigns o the govern-ment, big business and the trade unions. Moreover, the

crimes o the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Uniongravely undermined the appeal o socialism in the eyeso American workers.

29. In the nal analysis, the vast wealth and power oAmerican capitalism was the most signicant objec-tive cause o the subordination o the working class tothe corporate-controlled two-party system. As long asthe United States was an ascending economic power,perceived by its citizens as the land o unlimited op-portunity, in which a sucient share o the national

wealth was available to nance rising living standardsAmerican workers were not convinced o the necessito socialist revolution.

30. Te change in objective conditions, however, willlead American workers to change their minds. Tereality o capitalism will provide workers with many

reasons to ght or a undamental and revolutionarychange in the economic organization o society. Teyounger generations o working peoplethose bornin the 1980s, 1990s, and the rst decade o the twentyrst centurydo not know, and never will know,capitalist prosperity. Tey are the rst generation oAmericans in modern times who cannot reasonablyexpect to achieve a living standard equal to, let alonebetter than, their parents generation. Young autoworkers born in 1990 are paid less than hal what the

parents were once paid or doing the same work. Asor the parents, many have lost their jobs and pensionAmerican working people are being drawn into theglobal maelstrom o a developing class struggle andare becoming aware o the emerging spirit o socialresistance around the world, rom Greece to Bangla-desh. For decades, American workers were told thatthe Asian workers were their enemies, the producers low-cost products that deprived them o their jobs. Bnow they read and hear o strikes in China, and begin

to realize that the workers o Asia are not their oes,but their brothers and sisters.

31. A new world situation exists. Te struggles o theworking class must be based on an understanding oobjective realitythat is, on a scientic understandino the capitalist crisis and the lessons o history. TeAmerican working class requires a new perspective, anew program and a new leadership.

32. In his summary o the materialist conception ohistory, Karl Marx, the ounder o modern socialism,wrote: At a certain stage o development, the materiaproductive orces o society come into confict withthe existing relations o production. From orms odevelopment o the productive orces these relationsturn into their etters. Ten begins an era o socialrevolution.2 Tese productive orces, comprising notonly actories, oces, tools and scientic knowledge,but the working class itsel, are being strangled by the

2 Marx-Engels Collected Works, Vol. 29 (New

York: International Publishers, 1987), p. 263.


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social relations o capitalismprivate ownership andthe division o the world into nation-states. Te globalnancial crisis, the decline in production, the contrac-tion in world trade, the gargantuan budgetary decits,the instability o national currencies, the deteriorationo relations between countries, the growth o milita-

rism and, above all, the plunging living standards othe working classall these interconnected processessigniy the beginning o a new era o revolutionary up-heaval. Te needs o mass society cannot be met withinthe ramework o a system based on private ownershipo the means o production. Te global development othe productive orces is being strangled by the capital-ist nation-state system.

Te Revolutionary Potential of the Working

Class

33. Only through the struggle o the working class,the main revolutionary orce in modern society, cana progressive solution be ound to the crisis createdby the breakdown o capitalism. Te working class isrevolutionary because 1) it is the principal productiveorce in society; 2) the historical and political logico its resistance to capitalist exploitation and oppres-sion leads to the abolition o private ownership o themeans o production, the replacement o the protmotive with the satisaction o social needs as the driv-ing principle o economic lie, and the realization ogenuine social equality among all people; and 3) it isan international class whose victory will break downthe barriers o national states and unite humanity in atruly global community devoted to the protection anddevelopment o its common home, the Earth.

34. Never beore in history has the working classcomprised such a large proportion o the worldspopulation. In countries, particularly in Asia, where

modern industry hardly existed only 50 years ago, themassive infow o capital has nanced an immensegrowth in the industrial inrastructure and the work-ing class. Within the historically advanced centers ocapitalism o Europe and North America, the workingclass is the overwhelming majority o the population.echnological advances, shis in the internationaldivision o labor, and the decline in the global positiono American-based manuacturing have altered thecomposition o the working class. But the economicand social transormations in the United States have ei-

ther expanded or created new categories o workers. I1960, the year John F. Kennedy was elected presidentwomen were still a relatively small percentage o theworkorce. Te service industry was in its inancy.Programming was the occupation o a small numbeo skilled specialists. No one yet spoke o I workers

35. Te size o the traditional middle classindependent small businessmen and armershasdeclined drastically. More signicantly, its collectiveeconomic signicance is a small raction o what it w50, let alone 80 years ago. American society has beenproletarianized to an extraordinary degree. Te vasmajority o the peoplewhether they work in actoriand on construction sites, or in oces, medical cen-ters, shopping malls, primary and secondary schools,university complexes or scientic laboratories; wheth

they drive trucks, buses and trains or fy commer-cial aircralive rom paycheck to paycheck. Teseworkers share common problems and ace a commonenemy: the gigantic nancial and corporate institutiothat hire, re and exploit them in the pursuit o prot

36. Tere is a staggering contradiction between theeconomic and social signicance o the working classand its negligible infuence on the political directiono society. Te concentration o wealth is accompa-nied inevitably by the concentration o political powe

Within the United States, the nancial and corporateoligarchy has monopolized political power to an extenthat has no equal in any other advanced capitalistcountry. Te American working class has never suc-ceeded in establishing its own mass political party. Tpresent crisis has exposed the enormous price that thworking class is paying or its subordination to theDemocratic Party.

37. In the course o the great industrial strikes o the1930s, which included the occupation o actories andpitched battles with the police in many major cities,American workers built a powerul national tradeunion organization, the CIO. In 1955, ollowing itsmerger with the older ederation o cra-based unionnearly one-third o workers in privately-owned com-panies were members o the AFL-CIO. And yet evenduring its post-World War II heydaywhich coincidwith the international economic dominance o theUnited Statesthe AFL-CIO was crippled by its reac-tionary politics. Te AFL-CIO accepted wholeheart-


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edly the legitimacy o the capitalist prot system, waserociously hostile to socialism, and sought to purgethe unions, requently with the use o violence, ole-wing, anti-capitalist infuences. In keeping with itsloyalty to capitalism, the AFL-CIO aligned itsel withthe Democratic Party, bitterly opposing all eorts to

ree the trade unions rom the political domination obig business. Finally, the trade unions were erociouslynationalistic and identied the interests o the workingclass entirely with the imperialist policies o the rulingclass.

38. Resting on these rotten oundations, the tradeunions have proven incapable o deending even themost minimal interests o the working class, let aloneimproving its standard o living. For the last 30 years,the policies o the trade unions have brought workers

nothing but deeats. Te percentage o union-aliatedworkers employed in the private sector is at its low-est level since the early 1900s! But the revenues o theunion bureaucracy, composed o middle-class unc-tionaries, are guaranteed by the services it perorms orthe corporations. In terms o policies and aims, thereis no signicant distinction between the corporationsand the unions.

39. o hope that these corrupt, corporate-controlledorganizations can be transormed, aer decades o be-

trayals, into instruments o social struggle is to indulgein utile illusions. Te ailure o the AFL-CIO exposes,in the nal analysis, the bankruptcy o its nationalist,capitalist and class-collaborationist program. A resur-gence o working class struggle can be based only ona program that recognizes that the capitalist systemhas ailed. Te answer to this crisis will not be oundin appeals to the corporations and the politicians theycontrol or the reorm o capitalism. Rather, the So-cialist Equality Party insists on the struggle or work-

ers power and the socialist reorganization o society,within the United States and internationally.

Socialism is the Only Way Forward

40. Capitalism has ailed the working class o the UnitedStates and the entire world. Te time has come or theworking class to ght or a dierent approach to theeconomic organization o society. Te only viable alter-native to capitalism is socialism: the reorganization o alleconomic lie under the democratic control o the work-

ing class, to serve social needs, not private prot.

41. But socialism will be achieved only through theestablishment o workers power. Tis will require adicult struggle. But the nal goal o socialismthabolition o economic exploitation, all orms o in-equality, the oppression o one group o human beingby another group, and, consequently, the removal o

all restraints on individual creativity and the fowerino human cultureis not the outcome o a mythicalquest. Te revolution that will lay the political basisor socialism is prepared in the course o countlessstruggles by the working class, in the US and interna-tionally, to deend its interests and oppose the eorts the nancial and corporate aristocracy to impose theburden o the crisis on the masses. Socialism is not agi to be given to the working class. It must be oughor and won by the working class itsel.

42. Te program o the Socialist Equality Party beginwith the pressing needs o the working class. Te SEPdemands and policies start not with what capitalismcan aord, but with what the working class and ourcomplex and global mass society require. Nor doesthe SEP tailor its program to what small-minded op-portunists and pragmatists may consider immediatelyachievable. What can or cannot be achieved, in anygiven situation, is determined in struggle. Tose notprepared to ght will never win anything. Te de-

mands o the SEP play an essential role in raising thesocial and political consciousness o the working clasand, as a result, strengthening its ability to ght.

43. Te demands raised by the SEP are not separaterom the goal o socialist revolution. Rather, eachdemand by its very nature raises a challenge to thematerial interests o the corporate aristocrats. Asthey encounter the resistance o corporations and thecapitalist state to their legitimate demands, workingpeople will see ever more clearly the need or the revo

lutionary transormation o society. Te ght or thesdemands strengthens the working class, unies its disparate struggles, and in each case poses the necessity taking political power and establishing socialism in thUnited States, as part o the socialist reorganization othe world economy.

Te Basic Social Rights of the Working Class

44. Every man, woman and child is entitled to live anenjoy his or her lie and develop his or her potential t

the maximum, without the curse o poverty and mate


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rial want. Te act that tens o millions o people in theUnited States are ill-ed, ill-clothed, ill-housed andinsecurenearly 70 years aer President Rooseveltdeclared that such conditions are intolerableis anunanswerable indictment o American capitalism. TeSocialist Equality Party proposes that the working class

adopt the concept that there exist social rights thatare essential to lie in a complex modern society and,thereore, inalienable. Working people must resolveto secure these rights through the mobilization o theirstrength as a class, independent o and in oppositionto the corporate-controlled political parties and theinstitutions o the capitalist state. Tese rights are:

Te right to a job

45. Te right to employment is the most basic o all.Without a steady, good-paying job, it is impossible tosatisy all other needs. Te loss o a job means the losso sel-esteem and social connection, immense psycho-logical distress, along with the elimination o healthcare coverage, the destruction o lie savings, and vul-nerability to poverty and homelessness or onesel andones amily.

46. Millions o Americans conront this desperate situ-ation. What was once considered unacceptable in theUS is now proclaimed the new normal. Te ocial

unemployment rate is close to 10 percent, while realunemployment is much higher. Hal o the jobless havebeen without work or more than 27 weeks, and the av-erage length o unemployment is nine monthsa levelo long-term unemployment unseen since the GreatDepression. Some 26 million people are unemployedor underemployed. In some states, ocial unemploy-ment is over 14 percent, while real unemployment inurban centers can approach 50 percent.

47. Chronic unemployment is robbing an entire

younger generation o its uture. Sixty percent o col-lege students are graduating with no oer o a job, andmore than hal o workers 16-24 years o age have no

job, the highest level since World War II. It is univer-sally acknowledged that todays youth will live signi-cantly worse than their parents.

48. An emergency public works program must belaunched immediately to provide employment or all.Tere is plenty o work to dorebuilding schools,hospitals, public housing, roads, mass transportation,

water and sewage systems, communications networkand other public acilities, and improving the condi-tions o lie or working people.

49. Against mass unemployment, layos and work-place shutdowns, the working class must deendunconditionally the right to a job. Every worker who

is laid o and all those entering the workorce must bguaranteed paid job training and employment.

Te right to a livable income

50. Wages have been under attack or decades. Tedismantling o industry has wiped out middle-classmanuacturing jobs, with decent wages, benets and

job security. In the auto industry, which long set thestandard or manuacturing wages, new workers arehired at $14 an hour, barely above the grossly inad-

equate ocial poverty line or a amily o our. Massunemployment is deliberately used to drive down labcosts and boost prots. Te Obama administrationsstrategy or economic growth is based on turning theUS into a cheap labor platorm or exports.

51. Te current ederal minimum wage ($7.25 an houcondemns millions to poverty. It must be replaced bya guaranteed annual income that covers all needs. Tmany people unable to work because o old age, dis-ability or ill health must also receive this income.

52. For decades, credit cards, second mortgages andother orms o debt have concealed the decline o liv-ing standards. Te same big banks bailed out with pulic unds are tightening the screws on working peopleo ensure economic security, there must be immediadebt relie or the millions o Americans who work as

virtual indentured servants to giant nancial institu-tions. Tis should include reducing debt payments toaordable levels and abolishing usurious interest ratebank ees and overdra ees.

Te right to leisure

53. Workers have been subjected to a relentless in-crease in the workweek, with millions dependent upoovertime and multiple jobs to make ends meet. Teeight-hour day, the demand raised by the workersmovement nearly 150 years ago, is now a thing o thepast. American workers put in 340 hours more a yearon the job than workers in Francenearly nine ullweeks. While millions remain on the unemployment


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lines, employers seek to cut costs by increasing thehours o those still working, rather than hiring the job-less. Tis is intolerable. o improve conditions o lieand provide jobs or the unemployed, the workweekmust be shortened. Workers should earn a ull-timeincome based on a 30-hour workweek.

54. Out o the worlds 33 richest countries, the US isthe only one in which workers receive no legally man-dated paid vacation. Nearly hal o all workers have nopaid sick days. Workers have a right to sucient timeor amily, leisure and cultural activities. Tis mustinclude the right to ve weeks paid vacation annually,together with adequate paid sick days and paid amilyleave. o relieve the burden on amilies, society mustprovide ree childcare and aer-school activities.

Te right to decent and aordable housing

55. An estimated 3.5 million people, including 1 mil-lion children, become homeless every year. Over 1million houses are repossessed, and tens o thousandsace eviction rom rented homes and apartments everyyear. Te emergence on the outskirts o major cities otent cities, the modern equivalent o the Hoovervilleso the Great Depression, is among the most damningindictments o the prot system.

56. Te economic crisis o 2008 was precipitated by a

speculative binge in subprime mortgages. Mortgagelenders exploited peoples need or a home in a lthyscheme designed to extract as much as possible romthose least able to pay. In the process, home prices shotup to record levels. As housing prices have collapsedover the past two years, millions o people now ndthemselves under water, owing more to the banksthan their homes are worth.

57. A major actor in homelessness is the lack o a-ordable housing. Due to the surge in housing costsand the decline in income, the average Americanconsumer spends 34 percent o income on housing andanother 30 percent on transportation. Tis leaves verylittle or ood, utilities, health care, education and otherbasic necessities.

58. Tere must be an immediate halt to all oreclosuresand evictions. All mortgages should be restructured toaordable levels, indexed to income and employmentstatus.

59. Te right to decent housing or all can be assuredonly by placing the home-building and nancing in-dustry under public ownership, and pouring hundredo billions o dollars in public unds into the construction o new homes and apartments and the renovatioo existing buildings.

Te right to utilities and transportation

60. Every year, millions o households in the US havetheir utilities turned o or non-payment. Shutos,which serve the prot interests o the giant utility companies, lead directly to deadly res, people reezing todeath in their homes and other social horrors.

61. Te deregulation and privatization o utility com-panies throughout the country has led to sharp in-creases in electricity and heating bills. Worst aected

are the poor. On average, an individual on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) now spends about 20 per-cent o income on utilities. Many workers ace unpaidutility bills in the thousands o dollars. Federal andlocal programs or low-income energy assistance aregrossly inadequate and underunded, and the Obamaadministration is planning another $1.8 billion cut inassistance this year.

62. All the basic utilitiesincluding electricity, gas,phone and Internet accessmust be made available t

everyone as a basic right, not subordinated to the proneeds o the utility companies.

63. Similarly, mass transportation systems have beenstarved o public investment and allowed to decay,where they exist at all. Tis has particularly severelyimpacted those who are elderly, disabled or otherwiseunable to provide their own transportation. All peoplmust have access to sae and aordable public trans-portation.

Te right to high-quality health care

64. Advances in medical technology make possible anenormous improvement in the health o the worldspopulation. Yet more than 46 million people in theUS lack any health insurance, while at least 25 millionmore are underinsuredunable to bridge the gapbetween insurance coverage and medical bills. Exist-ing ederal health care programs, including Medicareand Medicaid, are inadequate, underunded and undrelentless attack.


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Program of the Socialist Equality Party 1

65. Despite health care costs that are double or morethose in other advanced capitalist countries, the USranks last among them in conditions o health. Ac-cording to a 2009 study by Harvard researchers, therewere nearly 45,000 deaths in the US in 2005 associatedwith lack o health insurance. High medical bills are

responsible or 62 percent o all personal bankruptcies,and 80 percent o these are among amilies that havehealth insurance.

66. Te response o the ruling class to this health carecrisis has been to cut costs or the corporations and thegovernment and ration health care or the vast major-ity o the population. Te Obama administration isspearheading this campaign under the raudulent ban-ner o a health care reorm that was draed in closeconsultation with the insurance companies and drug

manuacturers. At the same time, the Obama admin-istration has created a bipartisan budget decit paneltasked with cutting ederal health care programs andSocial Security. At a state level, governments starved oresources are slashing coverage and eligibility or Med-icaid benets or the poor, elderly and disabled.

67. Te solution to the health care crisis lies in puttingan end to the privately owned health care corporations,which rake in $200 billion a year in prots rom hu-man suering, and establishing socialized medicine.

Tis means an end to medicine-or-prot and the es-tablishment o ree, high-quality state-run health careor all. Tis must include the right to preventive care,prescription drugs, mental health care and advancedtests and procedures, as well as the right to an abor-tion, which is under attack throughout the country.A multi-billion-dollar program must be launched totrain new doctors and other health care providers andestablish new acilities in order to meet the needs o all.Existing personal debt accumulated through massive

health care expenses must be abolished.

Te right to a secure retirement

68. Millions o retired workers and the elderly arethrown onto the scrap heap by American capital-ism, orced into poverty once they can no longerproduce proits or their employers. Cutbacks orthe unavailability o elder care means that agingparents are thrown back on the resources o theiradult children.

69. Over 7 million older Americansabout one inveare living below the poverty line, due in part torising health care costs. About 60 percent o the elderdepend entirely upon Social Security or survival. Be-cause Social Security benets are inadequate, more anmore older workers are orced to delay retirement or

go back to work, oen competing with younger workers or minimum-wage jobs. Older workers also aceage discrimination, with a nearly 10 percent increase reported cases between 2004 and 2009.

70. Tose workers who were able to win decent pen-sions in an earlier period are seeing their benetsscaled back, and newer workers are getting jobs withew or no benets. Te past three decades have seen aprolieration o dened-contribution pension plans, icluding 401(k) plans, rather than dened-benet plan

Tis has substantially reduced the cost to businesses,while serving as a means o unneling money intothe stock market, where it is at the mercy o nancialspeculators.

71. All workers must be guaranteed pensions that alloor a secure retirement, with an income that covers alnecessities o lie. Workers should be allowed to retireat the age o 60, with a ull pension. Elder care pro-grams must be expanded and ully unded.

Te right to education72. With the growing complexity o society and workcomes the need or all workers to have a quality eduction. Yet the state o education is abysmal and gettingworse. Starved o unds, states and localities through-out the country are shutting public schools and end-ing critical programs. eachers are victimized or thecrisis in education, and have been orced to acceptmass layos, cuts in benets and wages, and increasedclass sizes. Te decay o the schools, combined with t

social crisis, has led to a surge o high school drop-outs. Te inevitable result is a decline in educationalachievement.

73. Te catastrophe acing the public schools is theproduct o three decades o attacks and budget-cuttinas well as the privatization o school services, thedraining o public resources into or-prot schools, anthe prolieration o perormance-based testing. Tehave been combined with an assault on the separa-tion o church and state through the introduction o


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religious indoctrination into the schools in place o theteaching o evolution, cosmology and other sciences.Obamas Race to the op program has deepenedthe right-wing policies promoted by the bipartisanNo Child Le Behind Act, signed into law by Bush.Districts are pushed to compete or meager unds by

expanding charter schools, ring teachers at under-perorming schools or shutting these schools downaltogether.

74. While education in the US has always been plaguedby inequality, the expansion o American democracywas accompanied by increasing access to educationincluding the introduction o public education ol-lowing the American Revolution, the expansion opublic high school education spearheaded by reormerHorace Mann, the extension o education to Arican-

Americans aer the Civil War, and desegregation inthe 20th century. Tese earlier reorms are now beingreversed. It is precisely the egalitarian aspect o publiceducation that makes it the target o the right-wingpoliticians and the corporate interests they represent.

75. At the college and university level, young workersare increasingly priced out o access to education, ororced to take out tens o thousands o dollars in loansto pay outrageous tuition costs. Students graduatingwith a bachelors degree rom public our-year insti-

tutions owe on average $20,000 in debt, even as theyace an increasingly bleak employment outlook. otalcollege student loan debt is approaching $1 trillion,and exceeds total credit card debt. Tis debt should beabolished.

76. All discussion o equality in a society where ac-cess to education is largely determined by income isa raud. A public works program must include a planto hire tens o thousands o teachers and sta at qual-ity wages and benets, reduce class sizes, repair olderschools and build new ones, and equip all schools withthe most up-to-date books and learning technology.Higher education, including continuing education oradult workers, is a necessity in modern society andmust be guaranteed to all ree o charge.

Te right to a healthy and sae environment

77. Te health and well-being o humanity dependson a healthy environment. However, addressingenvironmental degradation is impossible in a society

in which every decision is dictated by the pursuit oprot.

78. Te oil spill disaster in the Gul o Mexico hasdestroyed the economic and environmental basis o tentire region. It is a graphic expression o the deadlyconsequences o deregulation, corporate cost-cutting

and the reckless pursuit o prot by giant corporationIn the ace o the greatest environmental catastrophe US history, the Obama administration has le every-thing in the hands o BP, unconditionally deendedthe prot interests o the company, and held no oneaccountable. Te immediate victims o the disas-terworkers and small business owners in the Gulregionwill receive grossly inadequate compensationor the devastation o their livelihoods.

79. Among the many environmental disasters con-ronting mankindincluding pollution o cities andwaterways, the devastation o rainorests and coastalregions and the destruction o biological diversityperhaps the most dangerous is global warming, whichthreatens to disrupt the worlds climate, destroyingagricultural production, increasing the spread odiseases, and jeopardizing all lie on the planet. De-spite urgent warnings rom world scientists, capitalistgovernments the world over are incapable o responding. Even inadequate international treaties such as the

Kyoto Protocol are now declared uneasible.

80. An emergency response to the environmentalcatastrophe must begin with the expropriation o theglobal energy giants under the democratic control othe working class. Tis is the necessary rst step in thimplementation o a rational global plan or the pro-duction o energy in a way that can meet social needswhile protecting the environment, including a mas-sive social investment in alternative orms o energyand public transportation. Te expropriation o thesecompanies will also ree up resources to ensure that rgions aected by environmental disasters are restoredand those who have seen their livelihoods destroyed,including by the BP oil spill, are made whole.

81. Included in the right to a healthy environment isthe right to a sae work environment. Decades o costcutting and government deregulation have made or aincreasingly treacherous workplace, rom stress disorders aecting about 1 million workers a year to deadl

accidents like the Upper Big Branch mine explosion


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that killed 29 miners in the worst coal mining disasterin 40 years. Te capitalist system treats workers as dis-posable commodities, whose injury or even death is olittle consequence measured against the relentless driveor prot and individual wealth accumulation.

Te right to culture

82. Access to art and culture is a basic component oa healthy society. Yet, like everything else, it is underrelentless attack. American culturelm, television,musicwas once a pole o attraction because o itsinnovation and powerul democratic and humanisticspirit. Te subordination o culture to the prot motivehas led to an immense degeneration.

83. Culture has suered rom unding cuts or the arts,a right-wing ideological assault on artistic expression,

and the general brutalization o American society.Government subsidies to museums, orchestras, the-aters and public television and radio have been gutted.Art and music education has been drastically curtailedor eliminated outright rom most public schools.Library hours and services have been scaled back, andeducation unding cuts have included the closure oschool libraries. Te media, owned by giant corpora-tions, unction as mouthpieces o the government andthe wealthy, polluting public airways and spreading

lies. Te damage to the intellectual and moral abric osociety resulting rom such a mercenary and philistineapproach is impossible to quantiy.

84. o enable all working people to have ull access toart and culture requires massive public unding and thecreation o new schools and centers or music, dance,drama and art, either at a nominal ee or or ree. Deci-sions on subsidies and grants or the arts must be takenout o the hands o the politicians and bureaucrats andplaced under the control o committees o artists, mu-

sicians and other cultural workers.

Te Social Rights of Workers vs. Corporate

Power and the Capitalist State

85. Te social rights enumerated above represent theessential needs o the working class. But it would beutopian to believe that they can be achieved without aundamental reorganization o economic power andthe redistribution o wealth within the United States.Te Socialist Equality Party states openly that the real-

ization o these rights requires a rontal assault on thehitherto unchallenged prerogatives o the corporationand the rich. Te vast wealth created by the labor ogenerations o workers must be taken out o the hando a privileged ew and put at the disposal o the peopas a whole. Workers will achieve nothing i they seek

avoid such a direct attack on the economic and political power o the capitalist class. Accordingly, the SEPraises a series o additional demands that arise logicarom the ght or the social rights o working people.Tese demands include:

For the expropriation o the banks and fnancialinstitutions

86. All the basic needs o the working class come intoimmediate and direct confict with the dictatorship o

the giant banks and nancial institutions over everyaspect o political and economic lie. Tese corpora-tions, the commanding heights o the economy, contr

vast social resources, the product o the collective labo billions o people all over the world. Tese immenssums are employed not to benet society, but to in-crease the wealth o a tiny layer, buy o governmentsand dictate policies.

87. Over the past 40 years, the power o the banks inthe US has grown enormously. A wave o nance-driv

en corporate consolidation during this period has beeused to slash wages, downsize companies and raid pesion and health care unds. Te stock market boom othe 1990s was accompanied by an ever more obsessivocus on the immediate return on investment or WalStreet. Tis oen proceeded alongside, and was in acdependent upon, the destruction o the real productivorces, the shutting down o actories and the elimination o jobs.

88. Tis parasitism o the nancial aristocracy, whose

wealth is increasingly divorced rom the production oreal value, was a principal actor behind the nancialmeltdown o 2008. In some cases, as in Goldman Sachsbets on the collapse o the housing market, the crisis wasdeliberately provoked in order to transer wealth into thhands o Wall Street speculators. Te gospel o the reemarket did not prevent the banks and their political representatives rom looting the public treasury to guarantethe bad debts o the nancial aristocracy. Tese debts,transerred to government balance sheets, are now to be

paid through cuts in critical social programs.


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89. Te actions taken by the nancial elite and its polit-ical representatives in response to the crisis have vastlyexpanded the power o the banks. Tanks to a serieso bank ailures, the top our commercial banks in theUSCitigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank o Americaand Wells Fargonow control about 70 percent o the

countrys bank assets, up rom less than 50 percent atthe end o 2000.

90. Tere is not a single social need that can be met solong as these institutions remain under private control.Te banks and other big nancial institutions must beexpropriated, with ull protection or small depositors,placed under public ownership, and operated underthe democratic control o the working class. Tis willmake available enormous resources or a public worksprogram to eliminate poverty and meet social needs in

the US and internationally.

For the nationalization o major corporations

91. Next to the banks stand the giant corporations.Te extent o monopolization in the US is greater thanat any point in history. Decades o deregulation andcorporate consolidation have created conditions inwhich a ew massive businessessuch as ExxonMobiland Chevronexaco in energy, Archer Daniels Midlandand Monsanto in agribusiness, Johnson & Johnson

and Pzer in pharmaceuticals, and Microso, Apple,Google and Intel in computer technologydominatemarkets, dictate government policy, and exploit hun-dreds o thousands o workers around the world.

92. Te claim that these giant corporations are mosteciently run when under private control is a raud.Tese corporations work tirelessly to deend their ownnarrow interests at the expense o society as a wholerom preventing the development o alternative sourc-es o energy and public transportation, to maintaining

monopolies in computer operating systems.

93. All privately owned industrial, manuacturing andinormation technology corporations valued at $10billion or more must be transormed into publiclyowned enterprises, with ull compensation or smallshareholders and guarantees or all pension and healthcare und investments. Industries critical to the basicunctioning o societyincluding telecommunica-tions, agriculture, education, health care and transpor-tationmust also be subject to public ownership and

democratic control.

94. Tis does not mean the nationalization o every-thing. Small and medium-sized businesses, whichemploy millions o workers, are themselves in desperate need o reliable sources o credit and relie rom thunair monopolistic practices o the large corporation

For workers control

95. Te expropriation o the banks and corporationsmust be accompanied by the establishment o genu-ine democratic control over production. Tis is thenecessary basis or the development o a rational plano global production and distribution to replace theanarchy o the capitalist market and ensure that alldecisions are based on social need.

96. Te aim o socialist policy is not to replace capitalist nanciers with unaccountable bureaucrats. Indus-trial democracy means real control by working peoplover their working lives. What is democratic about asystem in which the place where most people spendthe bulk o their timethe work placeis run as adictatorship? Decisions aecting conditions o work,saety, salaries, hiring and hours must be subject tothe democratic voice o the workorce. Tis presup-poses the opening o the books o all corporations orinspection by the workers and the broader public, an

the ratication o corporate leadership by a democratvote o all employees.

For social equality

97. One o the basic tests o whether a society is mov-ing orward or backward is whether it is becomingmore equal or less equal. Te levels o inequality thatexist in the US are virtually without precedent inhistory. Te past our decades have seen a shockinggrowth o inequality. In the 1970s, the top 1 percent o

the population took in about 8 to 9 percent o annualincome. By 2007, its share had soared to 23.5 percenta level not seen since the 1920s, on the eve o the GreDepression. During this same period, 58 percent oall income growth has gone to the top one percent othe population, and 35 percent to the top one-tenth oone percent. Income or the bottom 60 percent o thepopulation declined by about 5 percent.

98. On a world scale, there are now more than onethousand billionaires, including more than 400 in the


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US. Collectively, this layer o the super-rich saw theirwealth grow by 50 percent in 2009, to $3.6 trillion. Tewealth o this layer has grown amidst the greatest eco-nomic crisis in generations due to the policies o gov-ernments throughout the world, above all the Obamaadministration. Te multi-trillion-dollar bailout o the

nancial system was accompanied by the rejection oany measures that would curb compensation or cor-porate executives and hedge und managers.

99. Te apologists or capitalism claim that inequalityis not related to the economic crisis, as i the withdraw-al o trillions o dollars rom productive use has noeconomic impact. Te continual and insatiable driveo the nancial aristocracy or more and more moneyhas bankrupted the country and ueled one specula-tive binge aer another. Te same corporate CEOs who

say they have no money to pay decent wages and whocarry out massive job cuts somehow manage to paythemselves and their top executives millions or eventens o millions o dollars every year.

100. Immediate measures must be taken to promotesocial equality and a radical redistribution o wealth,including a progressive income tax that places theburden o taxation on the rich, while lowering taxesor the vast majority o the population. axes on theprots o all major corporations must also be sharply

increased.

101. Te expropriation o the rich is justied not onlyeconomically and politically, but also morally andlegally. Balzacs adage that behind every great ortunestands a great crime is certainly true o todays aristoc-racy. From Enron to the subprime mortgage racket, somuch o this wealth has been garnered through meth-ods that have been thoroughly destructive and outrightcriminal. Yet only an insignicant handul o these cor-porate criminals have been held accountable, and thosemost culpable get o scot-ree. Te SEP advocates theinvestigation and prosecution o those involved inspeculative activities and criminal misappropriation osocial and corporate resources.

102. Te ght or social equality includes oppositionto all orms o discrimination based on race, gender,ethnicity, religion, national origin and sexual orienta-tion. However, genuine equality does not mean therationing out o limited education and job opportu-

nities on the basis o race or other categories. Such

armative action policies benet only a privileged ewhile pitting white and minority workers and studenagainst one another in a divisive struggle or jobs andcollege admission. We insist on ull equality, within thramework o a massive social investment to guaranteall social needs, including ree and open admission to

universities. Only such a policy, based on the unity instruggle o all sections o working people, can createthe conditions or a society in which all people canenjoy economic security and realize their ull potenti

Political and Democratic Demands

103. Tere are, nally, a series o democratic andpolitical demands that are o critical importance tothe uture o the working class. Its struggle cannot beconned to demands o an economic character, how-

ever important they are in themselves. Working peopmust be continuously mindul o the broader politicaand international context in which the ght againsttheir ruling class unolds. Te SEP includes in itsprogram demands that address themselves to crucialpolitical issues:

Defend democratic rights

104. Te growth o social inequality is incompatiblewith democracy. Te new aristocracy brings with it tharistocratic principle o government, in which the staunctions ever more openly as an instrument o classrule. From ancient Rome to pre-revolutionary Franceand Russia and up to the present, those who have ac-cumulated great wealth will use any means to keep it.Basic democratic rights in the US established by theAmerican Revolution and Civil Warincluding therights o ree speech and political association, the righto vote, the right to due process saeguards in criminaproceedings, and protections against illegal searchesand seizuresare today under relentless assault.

105. Te attacks o September 11 have been used as apretext to massively expand domestic spying, restrictreedom o speech and association, and increase thepowers o the executive branch. Te American rulingclass has erected a vast national security state, including the Department o Homeland Security, backed byhundreds o separate government agencies and privatcompanies. Te powers o the FBI and the NationalSecurity Agency to spy on the population have beenexpanded through the Patriot Act and executive or-


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ders. Te US government has declared the power tohold anyone, including US citizens, indenitely with-out charge.

106. Te attack on democratic rights is deeply rootedin the structure o American society, particularly itsextreme levels o social inequality, and is not the prod-

uct o one administration. Tis is proven by the ac-tions o the Obama White House, which has deepenedthe anti-democratic policies o Bush. It has opposedthe investigation o Bush administration ocials or

violations o the Constitution, continues to support thePatriot Act and other anti-democratic legislation, hassuppressed the publication o photos depicting tortureand other evidence o criminality, and has invoked thestate secrets privilege to block lawsuits by victims otorture. Obama has also sharply expanded the perse-cution o government whistleblowers and is leading a

campaign against WikiLeaks or publishing documentsthat reveal the criminality o US military operations.

107. Lacking any solution to the crisis besetting Amer-ican society, the American ruling elite and its gov-ernment resort to locking up a greater portion o thepopulation than any other country on earth. Te sel-proclaimed leader o the ree world holds 2.3 mil-lion people behind bars under conditions o extremebrutality, while more than 5 million are on supervisedparole or probation. Te US remains one o the ew ad-

vanced countries to employ the death penalty, execut-ing 1,216 individuals since the Supreme Court sanc-tioned the resumption o judicial killings in 1977.

108. Te deense o democratic rights requires shuttingdown the national security state apparatus and its mul-tiple agenciesthe Department o Homeland Security,the CIA, FBI, NSAand the repeal o the Patriot Actand other police-state measures imposed in the nameo the war on terror. Te working class must launch acounteroensive against the attempts by the ruling eliteto whip up reactionary social and political orces in

support o its attacks on basic rights. It must strive notonly to deend the democratic and social gains o thepast, but to democratize American society. Tis mustinclude the repeal o the death penalty and the disman-tling o the domestic police and prison complex.

Oppose militarism and war

109. Te growth o militarism poses the starkest threatto democratic rights. Hal a century ago, President andormer World War II commander Dwight D. Eisen-

hower warned against the emergence o a militaryindustrial complex with the potential or the disas-trous rise o misplaced power. Te American people,he cautioned, should take nothing or granted. Temilitarys power has grown uninterruptedly in theintervening decades, while its transormation into an

all-volunteer orce has isolated it increasingly romthe democratic sentiments o the population.

110. odays soldiers, largely drawn rom among working class youth, are subjected to continuous deploy-ments. ens o thousands suer post-traumatic stresshorric injuries or death in Washingtons neo-coloniawars. Tey are taught that they are warriors in anattempt to create what amounts to a separate militarycaste. Te ocer corps has become increasingly politcized and right-wing, with its senior members openly

challenging the civilian government on matters opolicy. In its social position and ideology, the Ameri-can military has become more and more like its counterparts throughout the world that have carried outarmed coups and imposed bloody dictatorships.

111. Te military plays an ever more direct role inAmerican political lie. Te Posse Comitatus Act,which prohibits the use o the military within theUS, has been undermined through the open use othe military in domestic settings. Te creation o the

Northern Command has established or the rst timea military command structure overseeing the US. Allo these measures are the embryonic oundation ormilitary-police rule in the United States.

112. Te world economy is integrated as never be-ore in a single system o production, and yet this hasonly exacerbated the conficts between nation-statesand heightened the danger o war. Bushs wars o thewenty-First Century began with the US invasion oAghanistan in October 2001, now the longest militarengagement in the countrys history. Tis was olloweby the invasion o Iraq in March 2003. Tese two warhave been accompanied by a series o smaller engagements and the growing threat o a much broader confict between the major powers.

113. Hundreds o thousands o Iraqis and Aghanshave been killed by US aggression, and millions moreturned into reugees. About 7,000 US and other oreigoccupation troops have lost their lives. All over the

world, atrocities carried out by the American military


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against civilians have become routine, while the USopenly upholds the right to assassinate its perceivedopponentsincluding US citizens.

114. Te Obama administration has expanded thesewars, including a massive surge o US soldiers inAghanistan. Bombing campaigns in Pakistan have

increased, and the administration is expanding threatsand sanctions against Iran.

115. Enormous resources are expended by the Ameri-can state in producing the most advanced means odestruction imaginable. Adding together the militarybudget and direct spending or US war abroad (over$700 billion total) to military-related spending outsideo the Department o Deense, total annual militaryspending exceeds $1 trillion.

116. Both Republican and Democratic administrationsinvoke the strange and unexplained events o Septem-ber 11, 2001 as justication or an unending globalwar on terror. In reality, this is merely a pretext orwars o aggression that are being ought to secure UShegemony over regions that are o vital geo-strategicimportance and contain much o the worlds oil, gasand other natural resources.

117. Te economic crisis has sharply increased globaltensions, which threaten at any point to break out into

war. Te US is actively preparing or a military confictwith China, while the old divisions in Europe that ledto two world wars are reemerging. American impe-rialisms attempts to exploit the collapse o the SovietUnion to expand its infuence in Eastern Europe andthe ormer Soviet republics is leading to increasingtensions with Russia, which poses the threat o directmilitary confict, as seen in the US-backed Georgianassault on South Ossetia in August 2008. And, just asin the 1930s, economic and trade conficts exacerbated

by the global capitalist crisis must inevitably lead tomilitary tensions between the US and its erstwhilecapitalist allies in Europe and Japan. With the majorpowers now armed with nuclear weapons, a new worldwar will threaten the uture o civilization.

118. Te SEP calls or an immediate and uncondi-tional withdrawal o all US, British and other oreigntroops rom Iraq and Aghanistan. Tose responsibleor planning and waging aggressive war must be heldaccountable. Te vast US military and intelligence ap-

paratus must be dismantled, with the shutting downo the hundreds o US overseas military bases and thedisbanding o the standing army. Tis will ree up immense resources to pay reparations to countries rav-aged by US militarism, as well as meet critical socialneeds at home.

119. Te only progressive alternative to militarism issocialist internationalismthe struggle to unite theworking class internationally in the ght or a socialisuture in which the worlds resources can be utilizedand developed cooperatively to eliminate the scourgeo poverty, disease and ignorance and to raise the liv-ing standards and cultural level o all mankind.

Defend the rights of immigrant workers

120. Te working class as a whole must take up the

deense o the rights o immigrant workers against thsuper-exploitation o the capitalist employers and therepression o the police and immigration authorities.

121. Te corporate-controlled politicians and mediascapegoat immigrants and whip up racist and chauvinist sentiments. Tey promote the contemptible lie thathis oppressed section o the working class is to blamor rising unemployment, alling wages and attacks onsocial conditionsthe product o the corporate-driveattack on the entire working class. Teir aim is to

divert rising popular anger and rustration away romthe capitalist system and divide and weaken the working class as a whole.

122. Sections o the political establishment are pro-posing blatantly racist and anti-democratic mea-sures that would acilitate the mass roundup o im-migrants. Tere are also growing calls to modiy the14th Amendment o the Constitution to eliminate theguarantee o citizenship or all those born in the US.Te attack on this basic democratic rightestablisheaer the Civil War not only to guarantee citizenship reed slaves, but to guarantee equal protection beorethe law and due process or all citizensis a threat tothe entire working class.

123. Te Obama administration, with the help o itsliberal and supposedly le supporters, has exploitedpopular anger over these policies to push or its reac-tionary measures, under the banner o comprehensivimmigration reorm. Obama is now leading the driv

to increase the militarization o the border (including


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the use o unmanned Predator drones), expand work-place raids, and deport immigrant workers. Stepped-up policing along the border has led to a sharp increasein the number o workers who have died in the desper-ate attempt to cross into the US in search o employ-ment. Among the proposals advanced by the admin-

istration is the introduction o a biometric ID card, arst step toward a national ID card that would acilitategovernment monitoring o the entire population.

124. Te SEP ghts or the repeal o all anti-immigrantlaws and the disbanding o Immigration and CustomsEnorcement (ICE) and the US Border Patrol. It callsor all undocumented workers to be guaranteed ulllegal rights, including the right to work and the rightto travel to their home countries without the threato being barred rom returning and torn rom their

amilies. Against the attempt to militarize borders andpersecute immigrants, not only in the US but all overthe globe, the working class must uphold the principleo open bordersthe right o workers to live and workin whatever country they choose with ull citizenshiprights.

Te Political Independence of the WorkingClass

125. Te ght or this programor the social needs o

the working class, or the deense o democratic rights,or an end to warraises at every point the neces-sity or the independent political organization o theworking class. It is impossible or the working classto advance its interests within the ramework o theDemocratic Party and the capitalist two-party systemin the US.

126. Te experience o the Obama administration hasonce again demonstrated the right-wing, pro-corporatenature o the Democratic Party. Every aspect o the ad-ministrations policythe expansion o war, the bailouto the banks, the wholesale attack on the working classand the persistent calls or cutting social programshas been dictated by the corporate and nancial elitethat controls the political system in the US. o the ex-tent that dierences exist between the two parties, theyare o a tactical characterover how best to deendprots and prevent the development o an independentopposition in the working class.

127. Te ght or the political independence o theworking class means a struggle against all those mid-

dle-class organizations, including nominally socialisgroups, which claim that the Democratic Party can bepushed to the le through mass pressure. Tis positiois aimed at preventing the working class rom estab-lishing its own independent political party.

128. In act, the Democratic Party long ago abandone

even a nominal commitment to social reorm. Terightward movement o the Democratic Party has beeaccompanied by attempts on the part o its middle-class supporters to promote all manner o liestyleissues and identity politics as a means o obscuring thquestion o class and social equality.

For new organizations of working class

struggle

129. Te interests o the working class can be secured

only through mass struggle. All history demonstratesthat nothing is handed down rom above. Democratirights, social reorms, the eight-hour day, the prohibition against child laboreven these gains won undercapitalism were the byproduct o revolutionary up-heavals.

130. New popular organizations o the working classmust be built in opposition to the existing tradeunions. Te AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coali-tion are not working class organizations, but auxiliaryarms o corporate management. Tey work actively toincrease the exploitation o the working class and toisolate and demoralize any opposition rom among thworkers themselves. Tey encourage nationalist sentiments, dividing dierent sections o the working clasagainst each other. Politically, the unions work to chanel the working class behind the Democratic Party anthereby subordinate it to the politics o the capitalistclass.

131. Over the past our decades there has been a col-lapse in the number o strikes, the elementary orm oclass militancyrom 35 million lost man-days dueto strikes in 1968, to 16 million in 1972, to less thantwo million today. Tis is due not to a decline in sociatensionssocial inequality has soared during thissame periodbut to the betrayals o the trade unionbureaucracy. At the same time, the wealth o the uniobureaucracy has become increasingly disconnectedrom the conditions o the membership, or even thenumber o unionized workers. From 2001 to 2008,


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the membership o the United Auto Workers ell rom701,000 to 431,000a decline o about 40 percentbut the UAWs billion-dollar assets increased. Tiswas a period that saw repeated concessions contractsimposed on auto workers, reducing wages and benetsand introducing multiple-tier wage systems.

132. o advance its interests, the working class mustbuild genuine mass organizationsrank-and-leworkplace, actory and neighborhood democratic ac-tion committeesanimated by the spirit o revolution-ary intransigence and opposition to the two parties obig business. Tese organizations must begin with theneeds o the working class and must be democraticallycontrolled by the working class. Tey must take evergreater responsibility or uniying the working classemployed and unemployed, skilled and unskilled,

native-born and immigrant, across dierent industriesand workplacesand organizing their common strug-gles against the capitalist class.

For a workers government

133. Tese independent organizations o workerspower must be instruments or the revolutionary mo-bilization o the working class to take political powerinto its own hands, breaking the dictatorship o WallStreet and the corporate elite over political, economic

and social lie. Tis can be realized only through theestablishment o a workers governmentthat is, agovernment o the working class, by the working classand or the working class, which will implement thesocialist policies that are required to meet the needs oworking people.

134. Socialism cannot be achieved simply through theelection o socialist candidates to the existing stateinstitutions. Te state and its institutions are demo-cratic only in the most ormal sense. In reality, they

are instruments o corporate domination created bycapitalism, in which the Democratic and Republicanparties, the twin parties o the ruling class, exercise amonopoly.

135. Tose who populate Congress, the White Houseand the major courts are representatives o one or an-other corporate interest and the nancial aristocracy asa whole. Trough various meansincluding egregiousballot access restrictions, the domineering infuenceo money in the electoral process, and the corporate

control o the mediathe ruling class seeks to excludany genuine expression o the interests o the workingclass.

136. A workers state must be based on new orms anstructures o participatory democracyarising in thecourse o revolutionary mass struggles and representa

tive o the working class majority o the population.Tis will ensure that such a government is truly popular and democratic, based on bodies elected directlyrom the actories, oces and other workplaces as weas the working class neighborhoods.

137. Te policy o such a government, as it introducethose measures essential or the socialist transorma-tion o economic lie, will be to encourage and activelpromote a vast expansion o democratic working clasparticipation in, and control over, decision-makingprocesses.

Te International Unity of the Working Class

138. Te Socialist Equality Party is the only partywhose program is based on the common interests othe international working class. It is aimed at orging united movement o workers o every country.

139. Te problems workers conront in the UnitedStates are, in essence, the same as those conronting

workers in every other part o the world. War, attackson democratic rights, exploitation, unemployment,poverty and environmental destruction are not merelAmerican problems. Tey are world problems thatrequire global solutions.

140. Capitalism is a global economic system. Vasttransnational corporations scour the world or thecheapest labor and or raw materials, producing or aworld market. Te same banks and nancial marketsdictate policy in every country. Because production i

global, the problems o mass society can be resolvedonly on the basis o an international socialist program

141. Te SEP rejects the position that globalizationis itsel the problem, and that the task is to reestab-lish a national economic ramework and strengthenthe nation-state. Te immense growth o technologyand communications associated with globalizationprovides the basis or a dramatic improvement in theliving standard o every human being. Te problem isnot globalization as such, but the subordination o th


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global economy to private prot and the interests othe wealthy.

142. When big business and its political representativesuse low wages outside the US to justiy the continualassault on wages and benets in the US, this onlyunderscores the need or American workers to unite

politically with workers internationally in a worldwidestruggle or socialism against the economic tyranny othe transnational corporations.

143. Te SEP rejects all orms o nationalism, ethnicand religious chauvinism, and racism. Tis includesthe deliberate promotion o anti-Arab and anti-Islamicsentiment to justiy criminal US-led wars in the Mid-dle East and Central Asia.

Build the Socialist Equality Party! Build the

Fourth International!

144. Te Socialist Equality Party bases itsel on thegreat traditions o the international socialist move-ment. Socialism stands or equality, human solidarityand cooperation, the material and spiritual liberationo mankind rom oppression and want. Te theoreticallabors o Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels establishedthe historical necessity or socialism and laid the oun-dations or the creation o the modern revolutionaryworkers movement. With the 1917 October Revolu-tion, socialism became the program o a mass popularmovement that overthrew capitalism and establishedthe rst workers statethe Soviet Union. Te Rus-sian Revolution was part o a broader internationalstruggle o the working class or social equality. Everymajor advance o American workers was associatedwith socialism and spearheaded by socialist-mindedmilit

sep program

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