Millions of workers today have been thrown out of work as the bosses and their government shut down production and commerce as opposed to reorganizing plants and retail outlets to make them safe during the coronavirus outbreak.
Neither the Democrats nor Republicans — the twin parties of capitalist exploitation — have any serious proposals to reverse an economic and social crisis that is taking a deepening toll on the lives of working people. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are determined to defend the rule of the capitalist robber barons.
Only the Socialist Workers Party candidates point to the capacities of working people to act together to defend ourselves. The party’s presidential ticket — Alyson Kennedy for president and Malcolm Jarrett for vice president — advances proposals to unify and strengthen working people as we stand up to the bosses’ attacks on our wages and working conditions on the job and take steps towards building the unions we need.
The SWP campaign says action is needed now by workers and our unions to demand the government fund a massive public works program to create jobs at union-scale wages, to build the hospitals, homes, schools and other things working people need.
As employers threaten to lay off millions more workers, our unions must demand bosses cut the workweek to 30 hours work for 40 hours pay to spread the work around — a shorter workweek without any cut to our weekly take-home pay. Don’t let the bosses dump more of the burden of their crisis on our shoulders!
With this issue the Militant is launching an eight-week fall subscription drive to expand our readership, extend the reach of the SWP election campaign and offer at reduced rates books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries. In the midst of today’s crisis the Militant is more valuable than ever. During government lockdowns the paper never missed an issue, providing an intransigent defense of the interests of working people and highlighting what we can do together to advance our struggles.
It is a voice for working-class fights unfolding today from the strike for higher wages and full-time work by retail workers in Newfoundland, Canada, to protests by New York yellow cab drivers against onerous debts, to actions to bring down the brutal regime and expand political space in Belarus.
The Militant is your paper, help get it around! Introduce the paper and the SWP campaign to your friends, co-workers and family. Use it to win endorsers for the only working-class party on the ballot!
The books — like the six on special with a subscription listed on page 6 — explain what lies behind the capitalist crisis and draw on decades of experience of the working-class movement and of revolutionary struggles to point a way forward.
The Militant explains why workers need our own party, a labor party, that can lead us in our millions to fight to take political power into our own hands and replace dog-eat-dog capitalist rule with our own government — a workers and farmers government.
That is only possible as “working people begin transforming ourselves and our attitudes toward life and work and each other. Only then will we learn what we’re capable of becoming, as we unfold the capacities of ourselves and our allies to change society,” writes SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes in Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism, one of the titles on offer during the party’s drive.
This drive to expand the circulation of the Militant and the books takes place concurrently with an SWP Party-Building Fund effort. Contribute as generously as you can to help the party respond to expanding political opportunities today.