"Nothing can present to our judgment, or to our imagination, a figure of greater absurdity, than that of seeing the government of a nation fall, as it frequently does, into the hands of a lad necessarily destitute of experience, and often little better than a fool. It is an insult to every man of years, of character, and of talents, in a country."

--Thomas Paine, 1795

"Dissertations on First Principles of Government"

Poverty, homelessness, and unemployment have always been part of the details of any Capitalist system. The many on top are always benefited by colluding, by cutting up markets, and by fixing prices. It is always in their benefit to underproduce food where there is a famine, to underproduce coal where there is a winter. Scarcity increases the value of a product. This is a caused by a system where the few own the majority of land and productive wealth -- by the system of Capitalism. But, some have tried to fight it by joining the worker's party.

The Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Revolutionary Workers Party -- there are so many titles for this type of political party. By living in a Capitalist system, you see the want, the waste, and the exploitation that exists everywhere. It is natural to change it. Can the worker's party help you?

A worker's party would try to make laws to improve the way we live and work. Shorter hours, better pay, more benefits, safety equipment, compensation for injury on the job, among many other areas. But all of these things can also be accomplished by unions. If you want to improve the standard of living for the common masses, organizing them into labor unions is more effective.

For the worker's party to be able to make any changes, it would have to get into office. Until it reaches the critical point of 51% of the voters, it would not be able to make significant changes to society. It would either be in a coalition with other parties, where its effects would be diluted. Or it would lose the election.

"...there is no such thing as good government, because its very existence is based upon the submission of one class to the dictatorship of another."

--Emma Goldman with Johann Most, 1896

"Anarchy Defended By Anarchists"

If the worker's party could achieve 40% of the vote, and it wouldn't be enough. It would require 51% of the vote to get it into power. But consider 40% of the people going out on strike. This could cripple an entire economy -- the steel mills would be shut down, the trucks would stand still, and the harvests would rot.

It would be enough to gain any demand from the Capitalist class or the government. That many workers on strike could end a war, could increase minimum wage, could create employment and jobs. There are people willing to work, willing to consume with their earnings, and then near them, empty lands. The strike could pull that land from the grips of Capitalists, and allow the people to work it.

And that's the difference between the union and the political party. If we strike to change society, it is because we demonstrated how essential the working class is to the economy. But if we vote for a worker's party, it will use laws to protect the workers.

These laws will always be received with contempt and bitterness -- and they never cut at the direct power of the Capitalist. But a strike makes a Capitalist helpless, and they are put in a situation where they have to negotiate and give in to our demands. The workers' party makes the capitalist class into an aggressive enemy -- the workers' strike cuts right at the root of capitalism.

From fighting discrimination to environmental protection -- from ending wars to improving your standard of living -- the union and the General Strike are the greatest tool.

"There his mistake lay. The masses, without distinction of degree of culture, religious beliefs, country and speech, had understood the language of the International when it spoke to them of their poverty, their sufferings and their slavery under the yoke of Capitalism and exploiting private ownership; they understood it when it demonstrated to them the necessity of uniting their efforts in a great solid, common struggle. But here they were being talked to about a very learned and above all very authoritarian political programme, which, in the name of their own salvation, was attempting, in that very International which was to organise their emancipation by their own efforts, to impose on them a dictatorial government, provisional, no doubt, but, meanwhile, completely arbitrary and directed by a head extraordinarily filled with brains.

"Marx's programme is a complete fabric of political and economic institutions strongly centralised and very authoritarian, sanctioned, no doubt, like all despotic institutions in modern society, by universal suffrage, but subordinate nevertheless to a very strong government..."

--Mikhail Bakunin, ~1800's

"Marxism, Freedom, and the State," Chapter 4

Punkerslut,