Paul Le Blanc: The Third American Revolution — How do we get from the capitalist present to a socialist future?

Paul Le Blanc: The Third American Revolution — How do we get from the capitalist present to a socialist future?

Le Blanc defines Socialism as follows:

Socialism means rule by the people over the economic structures and resources that we need to keep ourselves alive and healthy, to engage in creative activity, to maintain good relationships with each other, to be able to have good and meaningful lives. The economy would be socially owned, democratically controlled and planfully utilised to meet the needs of all. It could be described as economic democracy.

This is to differentiate from the current system of dictatorship of the Capitalists, Formal democracy stops at the factory or office. Economic decisions are made in the interests of the owners, not society.

Change can only be brought about by struggle:

The actual history of the United States has been shaped and punctuated by struggles for freedom and social justice. To the extent that we have any freedoms at all and to the extent that there has been dignity and wellbeing for our people, it has only come about through the dynamics so perceptively described in 1857 by Frederick Douglass, the ex-slave who became a great spokesperson and organiser in the anti-slavery struggle:

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. … If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

The key to the struggle is the development of consciousness:

The revolutionary socialist relies on the developing consciousness and power of a mass working-class base, putting pressure on all politicians, being in the hip pocket of none. To struggle successfully for reforms can help pave the way for mass socialist consciousness and a socialist future. The key is to build social movements and struggles that are politically independent of any pro-capitalist politicians. While some members of such movements will, in fact, support such politicians, the movement as a whole will need to remain independent in order to remain effective in being able to pressure all politicians.

A revolutionary party is part of the electoral process but is beholden to none. The electoral is part of the struggle:

Activists seeking to prepare the way for a socialist future face the challenge of developing tactics, educational and organising efforts and overarching strategies designed to build a durable mass socialist movement capable of winning meaningful victories in the here-and-now while preparing the way for the working-class majority coming to power, with a transition from capitalism to socialism. There will be a need to discuss, debate and define where electoral activities, street actions and other means toward that end fit into the overall scheme of things.