Rising costs. Shrinking wages. A bloodthirsty government. Hard-won rights being stripped away. The collapse of everything the generations before us fought for in this country. Skyrocketing evictions. Misery. Economic crisis like we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. These are the benefits of capitalism. On the one hand: cheap phones, air conditioners, and computers. On the other: ecological disaster, prejudice and race-hate, the loss of bodily autonomy, and being reduced to a machine for someone else’s profit. Why? Because someone benefits. The (overwhelmingly) white men in power are making money. They tell us what to do, what to watch, what to wear, who to love, and who to hate. They tell us not to worry our little heads over Communism. They tell us to hate the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, the Palestinians, our neighbors, our friends, ourselves. There has never been a better time to understand Communism. The time for Communism isn’t last century, or yesterday. The time for Communism is now.
What is Communism? Communism is liberation: the total liberation not only of the working classes, but of all people, all over the world. That sounds too good to be true, but Communism isn’t utopianism. It isn’t a guaranteed solution to all our problems. In fact, Communism is only the beginning of solving our problems. Communism is nothing more and nothing less than the common ownership by all of society of the productive forces that make and do everything for everyone. The capitalists that own these now say who can work, when, why, and where. They decide what gets made. Under Communism, society doesn’t produce for greed: it produces for need. Although the capitalists tell us about all our freedoms, what they mean is their freedom to exploit us, and our freedom to be exploited. As long as we have to rely on the profit margin of a big company to meet our needs, we will never be free. There is no freedom without economic security, and there is no security for the working people without Communism. The first freedom is freedom from want.
Capitalism perpetuates national oppression, race-hate, white supremacy, cis-heteronormativity, and oppressive patriarchy. These oppressions spring out of class society. It is Communism alone that attacks class society at its root. No feminist can work for the liberation of women if they do not work for the liberation of women from class oppression. No gay rights activist can work for the liberation of queer and gender oppressed people if they do not work for the liberation of those who are class oppressed. No disability rights advocate can work for the liberation of disabled people if they do not work for the liberation of the poor. Social oppression stems from economic oppression. It is working class queer people, women, trans people, Black people, and other marginalized groups who are the most exploited. It is Communism that gives us a voice to articulate this exploitation, a rubric to chart it, and ultimately, a weapon to defeat it. When our exploitation ends, liberation begins.
