On September 17, in a desperate campaign to stop global warming, thousands of climate activists, business leaders, government officials, and “civil society representatives” will converge upon New York City for the fifteenth annual Climate Week. Co-sponsored by the United Nations, an organization born in 1945 to serve U.S. imperialism and the postwar liberal world order, the event has a bold slogan: “We Can. We Will.”
In reality, the reformists can’t—and the capitalist bosses won’t. After a summer of lethal heat waves, biblical floods, hot tub oceans, runaway wildfires, and toxic orange skies, liberal reforms cannot prevent wholesale catastrophe from climate change. Climate action has hit a wall. Greenhouse gas emissions set an all-time high in 2022, and will do so again in 2023. The rulers are wedded to heat-trapping fossil fuels for two fundamental reasons: maximum profit and inter-imperialist rivalry. From China to the United States, their system is falling into crisis. With fascism rising and World War III on the horizon, capitalism has no answers for perpetual war, massive poverty, or resurgent infectious diseases. It surely has none for the vast challenge of climate change and the racist horrors we are witnessing in real time.
Only a communist world, run by and for the international working class, can balance our needs for energy with the priorities of health, safety, and development that serve our class interests. Only the working class can be trusted to make life-and-death decisions on how to heat and power our world—to build more safely run nuclear reactors, for example. There’s no climate solution without communist revolution!
Clean energy “transition” is dead in the water
Beginning in the 19th century, coal and oil and gas fueled the rise of capitalism. They brought millions of workers out of the cold. They created modern industry and transportation—and modern wars for profit. But today, fossil fuels are Exhibit A of capitalism in decay. They’re filthy and inefficient and force multipliers of racist inequality. Climate change is deadly for workers, and for Black and Brown workers most of all. Nine million people a year die from the fine particulate matter linked to greenhouse gasses. Half a million die from extreme heat alone. In 2022, climate disasters forced 100 million workers to flee their homes. One third of Pakistan was under water.
In 2015, at a benchmark climate summit in Paris, the UN set a “binding” target for global warming of 2 degrees Celsius—or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—over pre-industrial levels. (For context, the Earth has already warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius.) Based on current climate policies, according to Columbia University physicist James Hansen, the planet will punch through the Paris ceiling before 2050 (“Global Warming in the Pipeline,” www.columbia.edu, 7/5). By 2100, within the lifetimes of children here today, the Earth projects to be at least 2.7 degrees hotter (climateactiontracker.org). That might not sound like much, but consider: The last Ice Age was triggered by a temperature shift of just 6 degrees Celsius. At 2.7 degrees of warming, scientists predict that the Earth will pass calamitous tipping points of no return (nature.com, 11/27/19). Coral reefs will go extinct. Polar glaciers will dissolve and drown islands around the globe (abc.net.au, 3/28/22). A billion or more climate migrants will be trapped between unbearable conditions and the bosses’ borders (economicsandpeace.org, 9/9/20).
Meanwhile, recent UN climate summits have been hijacked by Big Oil, the same monsters who for decades spewed climate disinformation alongside their carbon dioxide. This December’s conference is set for the capitalist Disneyland of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Presiding will be Sultan Al Jaber, head of the state-owned energy company. Like Saudi Arabia, another immigrant slave state, the UAE is committed to unlimited exploitation of its oil and gas reserves to 2100 and beyond.
Fossil fuels and imperialist plunder
Why can’t the capitalist rulers tackle this existential threat? The short answer is that fossil fuels remain highly profitable, at least in the short term—and capitalism has a chaotically short-term outlook. After Russia invaded Ukraine, energy markets went haywire. The price of oil soared. The “supermajors”—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP—junked plans to diversify into renewables. With lavish financing from the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Citi, they doubled down on their old business model. In 2022, they plowed $4 trillion of record windfall profits into dividends, share buybacks, and expanded fossil fuel production. Barely half of 1 percent of their ill-gotten gains went toward clean energy (iea.org, May 2023). Exxon spent less than $3 billion on “lower greenhouse gas emissions initiatives” and $23 billion on new oil and gas projects (euronews.com/1/2).
Even as solar and wind prices have plunged, and clean electricity runs much of the world’s power grids, the fossil fuel sector keeps growing. When President Joe Biden rammed through his Inflation Reduction Act, media cheerleaders said it could stimulate $1 trillion in renewable energy investments. They glossed over the fact that Biden also greenlit the immense Willow oil project in Alaska and three huge pipelines for natural gas. His Energy Department is ready to lease eighty million acres of the Gulf of Mexico—twice the area of Florida—for offshore drilling (cnbc.com, 11/17/21).
The U.S. and Europe, which have plundered the world for centuries with the aid of fossil fuels, are at odds with emerging economies—notably China—that want their turn at the plundering. Although China dominates the solar panel and battery industries, and soon will dominate offshore wind, it also consumes more than half the world’s coal. Over the last year, China approved an average of two new coal-powered plants per week, a source of cheap energy and jobs in a country where youth unemployment exceeds 21 percent (statista.com).
In July, President Xi Jinping told U.S. climate envoy John Kerry that future cooperation on climate would hinge on U.S. policies on Taiwan and trade. All bets will be off if the two superpowers keep sliding toward world war—oil is the life’s blood of their armies, after all. The U.S. military alone consumes more than 100 billion barrels per year (ucusa.org, 6/1/14).
Carrots, sticks, and communism
It’s easy for the capitalists to shower clean energy with the carrots of subsidies and tax breaks. But no matter how much solar and wind and hydropower is deployed, global warming won’t stop until the fossil fuel economy gets mostly dismantled. That can’t happen without some big sticks, beginning with a punitive tax on carbon.
The issue with sticks is that they hurt certain bosses’ profits. With the U.S. ruling class deeply split, and the Republican Party significantly controlled by Koch Industries, coal giant Peabody, and other domestic energy interests, Biden’s Democrats have little room to maneuver. But the primary obstacles to meaningful climate action are the lack of discipline and long-range thinking within finance capital, the liberal main wing of global banks and multinational oil companies. Nor is there much appetite for sticks on the world stage. When recent climate summits floated a “phaseout” of coal or a “phasedown” of all fossil fuels, they were vetoed by China, India, Brazil, and imperialist Russia, which gets nearly half its revenues from oil and gas.
As workers join the mass movement against climate change, we need to be clear that individual actions can’t win this monumental battle. It’s not nearly enough to compost or recycle or buy an electric vehicle—or to vote for a “green” politician. The rulers and their callous greed created this crisis; the international working class will solve it. The fight for a sustainable planet can’t be set apart from our fight to smash the racist, sexist profit system that chokes the atmosphere. A communist society, led by Progressive Labor Party, will unleash the technology and creativity we need to forge a new world, one where workers’ lives and well-being come first. Join us!
OAK LAWN, September 6- A multiracial and intergenerational group of antiracist fighters, including members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), gathered this evening to denounce the racist Oak Lawn Police Department once again. Chants of "Justice for Hadi," and "Justice for Murod," resounded throughout the neighborhood. Murod Kurdi, a 28-year-old Arab worker was struck & killed by a white drunk driver last June. His killer was given a traffic ticket and released by one of the KKKops that had beaten and nearly killed Hadi Abuatelah last year (See CHALLENGE, 9/20). The Oak Lawn Police is an example of a growing fascist movement that marginalizes and attacks mainly Black and Brown working-class communities and immigrant workers while being used to oppress all workers.
Inside the police station, Murod Kurdi's mother spoke about how her son was killed and how the drunk driver caller her lawyer, instead of 911 to seek help for the man who had just hit with her speeding car. Her testimony was abruptly stopped after three minutes, and the kkkop board would not allow her to finish her testimony. In fact, they stopped any further public comment and ordered the kkkops to escort us out of the building. Murod's mother's bravery is even more poignant in front of these appointed cronies who acted with malice and prejudice. We will attend the next court hearing in October of Murod's killer in solidarity with his family and friends.
There is a crystal-clear connection to the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist terror unleashed against workers here and on an international level. The imperialist bosses in the United States and across Europe have for generations murdered and displaced workers across the oil-rich Middle East to consolidate their power over resources, markets and labor. To achieve this, they have needed to promote a vicious racism against workers in that part of the world, to keep us divided against our common exploiters. Now as Russian and Chinese imperialists are encroaching on what was US and European bosses’ sphere of influence, they need to ramp up racist terror against Arab and Muslim workers even harder to try and keep their grip.
For the imperialist bosses fighting over Latin America and Middle-East resources, land, oil and industrial might, workers' lives are cheap, here and there. Let us not fall for their racist tactics, whether they are from Trump MAGA racists or liberals who defend the racist Democratic Party which even more culpable in causing workers to be displaced all over the world.
Under capitalism, there is no justice for the working class. Justice will come when workers revolt and smash the bosses and establish a communist society free from racism and exploitation. Communism will mean the working class and its communist party will outlaw racism, sexism, and exploitation. Join us.
Fighting my cynicism: ‘I’m glad I went!’
When I first heard about the climate march I have to admit - I didn’t want to go. I often get very cynical when I participate in these marches. However, the Party made a push for us to participate - and I am glad they did. As school started I began to talk to students and teachers about the march. Some of the teachers were excited.
One of the teachers asked why I would want to go to this. They had the same mentality as I did. We talked about how we need to rebuild the organizing culture in our school and this might be a good first step. She agreed. More importantly, we talked about how the politics of “End fossil fuels” was not enough and that we need to be there to inject more radical politics. I showed her our flyer and she enthusiastically agreed that capitalism was the problem, but she wasn’t sure that communism was the solution. In the end the Party’s push to attend forced me to think more deliberately about how I am going to organize with coworkers at my school. I have to remember that even though the bosses right now control most of these marches, they give us opportunities to build our Party. One day we will be leading thousands to not just call for an end to fossil fuels, but call for an end to capitalism with communist revolution.
‘Looking for a political home’
After experiencing the Climate Change March through the communist contingent of Progressive Labor Party, as partners we exchanged some encouraging moments. We saw thousands of workers and students. One of us witnessed a dear comrade and PLP member fight through their fears of social anxiety and have a dialogue with a new person regarding the Pparty’s ideas of fighting back against racism, sexism and climate change, exposing truths and lies bred by capitalism. This moment made us remember that strength comes from our sharp politics and the courage starts with us the working class.
The other one of us spoke with an unemployed worker in their late twenties who mentioned that part of why they came to the march was to identify fighting organizations they could join. People were walking up to us to grab a CHALLENGE or leaflet after they heard the politics of our chants explicitly calling the bosses out. That made us think that we were doing the right thing. So many more workers and youth like that worker are looking for a political home.
By putting this need of our class over our own fears of reaching out to more workers we will open the door for masses more to find what they are looking for to smash the profit system that makes us suffer: PLP!
Workers respond to communist ideas
Our PLP contingent was organized with great chants and vitality. A group of workers from a housekeepers’ union took our flier. One pointed to the PLP logo and the word “communism” and said, “This is good.”
One Challenge seller spoke with three demonstrators who all gave their names and phone numbers to be contacted by the Party.
A contingent of Columbia University graduate student workers in the UAW chanted, “Up with the planet, down with the bosses.”
Our Party showed up and the demonstration was better for it.
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STRIKERS PUTS BREAKS ON AUTO BOSSES: Abolish wage system, workers need state power
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- 24 September 2023 842 hits
About 13,000 GM, Ford and Stellantis workers are on strike in what is being called “the first strike against all the ‘Big 3’” and “the biggest auto strike in decades.” Yet, as of this writing, only 10 percent of the workers are striking and 90 percent are working with no contract (the expired contract was not extended).
Against the backdrop of 100,000 striking TV and screenwriters and actors in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, a spike in strikes and organizing around the U.S., the mood of the workers is changing. After the “summer of strikes,” the pro-capitalist union leaders and politicians have a tiger by the tail! In the recent contract struggles involving 120,000 railroad workers and 350,000 UPS workers, Biden and the union leaders were able to kill the strikes before they happened! Workers are not yet able to break away from the liberal politicians and union misleaders.
Joe Biden, who calls himself, “the most pro-union President ever,” was one of the architects of the 2008 bailout that reaped $250 billion in profits for the auto bosses while auto workers saw their real wages drop by 20 percent. These concessions helped GM, Ford, and Stellantis pocket $250 billion in profits over the past decade, with the three CEOs increasing their pay by 40 percent, with each one now making between $25-$29 million annually (Economics Policy Institute).
Biden recently forced a national contract on railroad workers that they had overwhelmingly rejected, and he quickly dispatched Labor Secretary Julie Su to Detroit to resolve the strike, reflecting the larger issues at stake. One, is the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Another is winning a loyal industrial workforce as the U.S. escalates the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and prepares for a possible conflict with China.
The strike comes as the bosses are investing billions to develop EVs while facing stiff competition from Tesla and international challengers. China is the #1 producer of EVs in the world and Hyundai will soon build electric vehicles at a new factory in Georgia. John Casesa, who previously headed strategy at Ford said, “The transition to EVs is dominating every bit of this discussion.” (NYT, 9/16).
The transition from gasoline engines to EVs could affect millions of jobs as traditional auto plants that produce engines, mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components will be retooled or shut down. One of the main goals of the UAW is to get the auto bosses to agree to have the new battery and EV factories, many of them joint ventures with smaller companies, covered by the national labor contract. The union also wants to regain the right to strike over plant shutdowns.
The new “reform” leadership of the UAW, elected by an unenthusiastic 10 percent of the membership, has got a laundry list of demands they have no intention of winning, including a 40 percent wage hike, a shorter work week, and abolishing the multi-tiered wage system. They say they want to reverse concessions that they and the old leadership gave up over the past decades in order to keep the auto bosses competitive with their international rivals. The auto companies have proposed a 20 percent wage hike over four years.
In 2019, the UAW led a 40-day strike at GM while the International President and a slew of national officers were either under federal investigation or on their way to prison for bribery and other corruption charges. Then as now, the strike is at least in part, an attempt to consolidate the membership around the leadership.
For our members and friends of Progressive Labor Party, the main lesson of this current upsurge is that we must not let this moment pass us by. We are watching too many of these class battles unfold from the outside. That must change. We are calling on more comrades and readers of CHALLENGE to get jobs in auto and Amazon, at UPS and in mass transit, so that we are better positioned to fight for the political leadership of the workers. At its core, this fight is reform vs. revolution.
As Marx pointed out in “Value, Price and Profit,” we cannot restrict ourselves to fighting over contracts and grievances, to what he called the “unavoidable guerilla fights,” that spring up from the ongoing class war. “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!’ [we] ought to inscribe on [our] banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolish the wage system!’”
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Editorial: G20 Summit-U.S. has less leverage against imperialist rivals
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- 24 September 2023 880 hits
The downward spiral of U.S. imperialism was exposed yet again at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in New Delhi, India. European bosses, along with capitalist bosses from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, refused to back a statement blaming Russian imperialists for the war in Ukraine (Politico 9/14). Meanwhile, the Chinese and Russian heads of state snubbed the summit by sending junior officials in their place. They were busy recruiting more oil-rich, climate-hostile capitalist regimes into their BRICS alliance, a growing threat to U.S. dominance.
The G20, founded in 1999 in the wake of economic crises in Asia, is a working group of the most powerful capitalist economies. It’s dedicated to making the global profit system more stable for the capitalist class. But it was doomed to fail from the start, since any system driven by short-term maximum profit is intrinsically unstable. In a period of rising inter-imperialist rivalry and coming world war, “multilateral” coalitions like the G20 are useless for solving international crises, whether it’s Covid or climate or a proxy war in Ukraine. Workers everywhere must reject all imperialists. The only side our class can afford to take is the communist side!
G20 backslide on Russia is a blow to U.S.
In addressing the U.S.-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, the world leaders wound up with a soft call for “territorial integrity” and “peace and stability”--a big step back from last year’s G20, which “deplored” Russian “aggression” against Ukraine.
Ukraine’s bosses rejected the resolution outright
The reality is that the U.S. bosses no longer have the leverage to use the G20 to attack Russia (Le Monde, 9/10). As Ukraine’s military counteroffensive stalls, Russian bosses are out-maneuvering sanctions by trafficking oil to the international market across the Northern Sea. Placing oil profits over workers’ interests, they’re using non-ice class tankers in icy waters, increasing the risk of a pollution disaster (FT, 9/15).
Imperialists jockey for influence
In an effort to shore up world leaders' confidence in the U.S., India Prime Minister Narendra Modi was ushered in to present the U.S.-backed rail-and-port deal to connect India to the Middle East and from there to Europe. This Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is a direct challenge to the Chinese bosses’ Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (Economic Times, 9/12).
China’s ruling class, playing up its strength as the world’s second-largest economy, created the BRI to offer an alternative to Western debt traps for emerging capitalist economies. It provides direct investment in roads, ports, hospitals, industries, and other sectors. The debtor states’ bosses, driven by their own capitalist need for profit, are more interested in securing Chinese capital loans than completing infrastructure projects (The Print, 1/27). More than ten years in and after spending $240 billion in 22 countries, the BRI has saddled these economies with enormous debt and has yet to build a whole lot of “road” or “bridges.”
War and climate refugees
As the G20 trumpeted the inclusion of the African Union as a full member, thousands of workers were killed by massive flooding in Libya. In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, there could be an additional 143 million climate migrants by 2050 (Brookings, 7/25/19). Capitalist corporations in cahoots with the G20 nations are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But despite a summer filled with global climate disasters, the G20 killed a resolution for a more aggressive phaseout of fossil fuels (MSN, 9/11).
Kenya President William Ruto called out representatives of the world’s three largest emitters: China, the U.S., and the European Union. “Those who produce the garbage,” Ruto said, “refuse to pay their bills” (PBS, 9/5). But French President Emmanuel Macron punched back against “this rising state of mind” that “climate change is only the responsibility of the West” (TIME, 9/10). With the biggest emitters all addicted to short-term profits from fossil fuels, it’s clear that capitalism has no solution for global warming.
The devastation of climate change is felt most by Black, Latin, and Indigenous women, men, and children. Workers can’t wait for or survive on the bosses’ promises. The salvation of our class will never come from capitalist rulers, but from militant fightback and communist revolution.
Communist cooperation is the only alternative
To deal with climate change, imperialist forced displacement, and the host of issues bred by capitalist accumulation and competition, Progressive Labor Party must harness the one tool that can solve the centuries-old problems wrought by the profit system: the collective genius of the working class. Once the international working class has seized state power, first on our agenda will be abolishing money, the material basis for commodity production and racist and sexist inequality.
Communist global summits will make the “last first,” ensuring that regions of the world with abundant food stores and manufactured goods redistribute them to workers with less. We will enlist countless doctors, nurses, engineers, and teachers from around the world into service–without pay–to help and empower workers in every corner of the globe, and to expand human potential for all ages, from infancy to the elderly. Our meetings, conferences, and discussions today are the seeds of these future summits for our class. Join us!
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Editorial: The only climate solution is communist revolution
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- 07 September 2023 1313 hits
