Vol. 74/No. 45      November 29, 2010

At the same time, as the recent G-20 summit shows, rivalry among capitalist and wannabe capitalist powers is intensifying. These conflicts are not resolvable, as they flow from the very workings of the capitalist world economy itself. The future is one of fiercer trade wars that can eventually escalate to shooting wars.

Recent remarks by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka criticizing the deficit commission’s proposals reflected the nationalist framework that infects the labor movements of imperialist countries. “If we actually want to address our economic problems,” he said, “we need to end tax breaks that send American jobs overseas.”

The working class has no country and no interest in helping “our” capitalists compete against the wealthy rulers in other nations. On the contrary, among other demands, we call for canceling the Third World debt, which is one of the ways the imperialist system perpetuates underdevelopment and which hangs as a heavy burden on fellow toilers throughout the world.

Workers everywhere can learn from the concrete example of proletarian internationalism shown in the decades-long course carried out by the working people of revolutionary Cuba, from the role of its volunteer soldiers that when to Angola and helped defeat South Africa’s apartheid army in the late 1980s to Cuban medical personnel who are on the front lines today combating Haiti’s cholera epidemic.

The jobs program we need starts with a massive, federally funded public works program to employ millions at union-scale wages, building affordable housing, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure.

If the profit-driven capitalist system proves incapable of providing a means of livelihood for workers, it only begs to be replaced by the rule of working people—a socialist system based on international working-class solidarity and the needs of the billions who inhabit this earth.
 
 
Related articles:
Meeting of G-20 bares trade tensions
White House deficit panel: Slash programs, tax workers  
 
 
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