Workers Have to Have a Plan

The People
September 1996
Vol. 106 No. 6

WORKERS HAVE TO HAVE A PLAN

BY LINDA FEATHERINGILL

Many of us realize that capitalism has outlived its usefulness, and that it is time for humanity to move on to the next logical stage. We want to create a sane and productive world. But how can we do so? We need a road map, a plan.

The Socialist Labor Party has a workable plan ready for workers to take and use. This plan is based on workers acting with workers for workers. No Santa Claus, no good fairy, no miracle worker is going to come along and set things right. It is useless for us to wait for deliverance from the pains caused by capitalism. We will have to deliver ourselves.

The SLP plan is based on a nonviolent combination of political and economic action. It is based on control by the entire working class instead of by an aristocracy of the wealthy, "vanguard" political leadership or dictatorship by any name. Only if the people as a whole take control of the economy can they maintain that control and use the forces of production to fill their needs.

How can this plan be put into action?

The answer is that workers must form a political party of their own that specifically organizes workers as a class. This political party, acting together with a new economic, or industrial, organization, could work in the interests of all workers -- employed and unemployed, skilled and unskilled, young and old, strong and weak.

Actually, a political party based on these principles already exists. The SLP is such a party, and it has a plan, or program, for the needed economic organization -- the Socialist Industrial Union (SIU).

When the SLP has enough members and active supporters to reach large numbers of workers, it will offer candidates for us (the working class majority of the population) to elect our own representatives to Congress and other political offices -- BUT NOT TO RUN THE CAPITALIST POLITICAL GOVERNMENT OF TODAY. A majority of working-class representatives in Congress, reinforced by democratic working-class control of the industries and services through the SIU organizations, would then dissolve the current government that only serves to preserve the capitalists' hold over the rest of society. At the same time, our elected representatives in the industries and services would form a new congress -- an industrial congress -- that would serve the interests of all.

If we workers stopped cooperating with the political parties of capitalism and actively took part in controlling our world through our own political and industrial organizations, capitalism would soon wither and die. We would then be able to both construct and maintain a system that is directly based on our own input. The SIU program clearly illustrates how this can be done.

We don't have to turn our backs on politics, either, or passively wait for a better day that will never come if we fail to organize to bring it about. We don't have to wander around in search of direction. A plan already exists that is simple, flexible and designed to meet the needs and desires of workers. It is peaceful, workable and within the grasp of working people. We don't have to suffer in isolation. We can join together and we can change our world.