Taken from the article: The regime of capital, workers and class Struggle
writing by Naser Paydar
Everyone is talking about the impending fall of the Islamic Republic ! and they agree on its certainty. The differences are about whether being early or late, or the date of the appearance of preconditions. Those who are waiting for this fall are a scattered spectrum consisting of 80% of the residents of the capitalist hell of Iran, whose connection point is the fulfillment of the same wish. What do they want ? The answer is as many as the components of the spectrum. ” Freedom, minimum social rights, elimination of brutal gender apartheid, retaking Iran !!, reclaiming normal life !! cancellation of compulsory hijab, democracy and refinement of the state from religion, are among the most important of them. “ What is the unavoidable reason for seeking overthrow ? The answer can be summed up in sentences like ” the decline of the regime’s legitimacy ! “, and the rebellious dissatisfaction of the masses, the breakdown in the power structure, the economic crisis and the collapse of the production cycle, and the continuous escalation of international sanctions. The roaring of the crisis and the paralyzing effects of sanctions on the reproduction of Iran’s social capital are completely exposed. The statistics and data of the Islamic Republic or even international circles such as the IMF , the World Bank and the United Nations in this case are, as always, very different and sometimes extremely contradictory. On the one hand, we are witnessing the publication of reports, each more reasonable than the other, insisting on the collapse of the process of increasing the value of the largest part of capitals, on the other hand, we are faced with a set of documents and information that contradict the above narrative. Which of the narratives is more reliable or closer to reality ? The answer is`t simple. Because, each of them sees a procedure more outstanding, another procedure more lighter, each of them have their own platform of knowledge. What is available to us is the same data, with all their contaminated, forgings and manipulated contents. In order to get a real picture, we have no choice but to explore through the maze of these statistics and information with our class knowledge and anti-capitalist consciousness. A movement that months ago, in the following many years of struggles of the working masses in various realms, including wages and livelihood, medicine and treatment, necessary and appropriate shelter, against homelessness and the lack of political freedoms and basic human rights, and also against brutal gender apartheid started, still is alive and continues.
But, as long as this social movement revolves around the existing circuit, it has no chance of victory. Worse than that, what is considered a victory is only a defeat, why ? Because it is a large protest uprising of young people whose parents, family and social class are struggling to provide livelihood, medicine and treatment, housing rent, paying university fee and at the same time they are under the pressure of economic – political, police and religious violence and gender discrimination. From top to bottom of the demands or the whole transformation and change that they are crying out for, even if these demands are realized, it is not a cure for the most urgent needs and pains. What has made these rebellious masses rise is not just the mandatory hijab, the deprivation of women from the custody of children, the law of religious inheritance, the rulings of Sharia law or even the ruling regime. Regimes, including the Islamic Republic, are the machines of the economic and political, legal and ideological, police and security system of capitalism, and cannot be separated from capital. The differences between them do not arise from the type of belief, degree of sufficiency, creed and profession or their ideology. Merely replacing them will not solve any problem of the working class, of the rebellious masses of the current rising. If we have come to the certainty of the necessity of class action to liberate ourselves from wage slavery and before that to improve as much as possible, continuously and permanently in our living conditions, then we have to look at society, struggle and the prospect of victory in a different way. One of the ugliest lies throughout history is that under the rule of capitalism, there’s the possibility of having a conventional minimum standard of living and sufficient level of health and treatment, freedom and basic human rights for the majority or even half of the working class population in the world. Another lie with the same amount of hypocrisy and anti-humanism, in the sense that the path to the challenge and destruction of capitalism goes through the deceptive delusion of democracy, the right to party formation and organization, and right of strikes and the like !!
We will explain a little about these two forging ideas. Capitalism has not had such a capacity in any period, and since the second half of the 20th century, it has entered a phase where it is not only unable to do such a thing, rather, it does guarantee the survival of capitalism by ongoing impose horrific hunger and reduce the livelihood conditions, healthcare and treatment, horrible intensifying the exploitation´s level of the working masses, especially on women and children and expansion of prostitution, corruption and addiction. This is the current capitalism today, but even at its highest heights, it has never had the capacity to guarantee the livelihood and basic human rights of the majority of workers. The first question is that if capital lacks the capacity for reform, why is hunger and homelessness, dictatorship and prison not the main problems of the working masses in several Western and Northern European countries. The second question is, if it is possible in the mentioned societies, why is it impossible in other regions of the world, including Iran ? The answer to both questions is like this. The beginning of Western European and Scandinavian workers reaching a relatively significant level of livelihood and well-being, healthcare and education, political freedoms and basic social rights goes back to the early decades of the 20th century. The era when the aforementioned societies were at the top of the world in terms of industrial growth and the degree of capitalist development. They were the pioneers of issuance of capital to new fields of accumulation and horrible exploitation of super-cheap and quasi-free labor power. Their social capital took the largest share of the total global surplus value. Was the capitalist class or the governments of these societies ready to accept livelihood, welfare and a level of freedom and basic rights of workers because of this situation ?! A positive answer to this question will certainly be a lie and one of the most ridiculous answers in history. No capitalist is willing to pay a single penny to any worker out of wealth, alimony and a sense of philanthropy. What caused all or a significant part of the working class of the mentioned societies to achieve minimum subsistence, welfare and basic civil rights or basic political freedoms was the glorious role of pioneer of the labor movement of these countries. A movement that had been going towards an uprising for a long time all over Europe and it had several revolutions´ experience such as June and July 1848 France in class history. By raising the flag of the First International, it was advancing to become a power for the final battle with capitalism. In the very first step, freed up the workers from the condition of being a worker in this or that factory or industrial territory, from being a wage slave of this or that capitalist or member of this or that union. In this way, it aroused workers in the form of a single social class to abolition wage labor. Certainly, it was the first step, but movement was advancing forward in a circuit that, when the Austrian workers were deciding to start a strike in their workplace, saw the British and Italian, French and German, Dutch and Spanish workers as their class allies. The movement that was struggling, was succeeding or falling and rising again, but was continuing to struggle against capital more consciously and determinedly, louder and more radical, until it raised the flag of the Paris Commune, which opened the horizon of human liberation for everyone. The movement that became the Communards and made the world stare at its purpose and struggles, infused everyone to admire the movement´s materialist narration of mankind and freedom, right and equality, choice and free human society. The European labor movement had such a glorious record.
A record that, according to Marx’s exact words, had moved the specter of communism over the head of the bourgeoisie across the continent of Europe and terrified the capitalist class. The two mentioned factors, firstly the record of the anti-capitalist presence of the working class in the field of battle for many years, and secondly the achievement of the European continent’s bourgeoisie to the largest share of the international surplus values, made this class to accept a limited and temporary retreat in front of the labor movement. The basic condition of the bourgeoisie to accept this retreat was the renunciation of the working class from the continuation of the struggle against wage slavery and falling into the abyss of decadent unionism and social democratic reformism. The retreat of the bourgeoisie and the opt out of the working class from the class battle took place, and the result was the so-called democracy and welfare that we will talk about. But before that, we must point out two key points that have an important educational concept.
Firstly, the propaganda of the bourgeoisie, from the right – wing to the left – wing , about democracy is a clear falsification of reality. Democracy is not a format based on stable principles with a fixed model. It’s only a certain level of forced and unavoidable retreat of the bourgeoisie in front of the labor movement, on a condition that this movement’s leaving the entrench of the class struggle. Democracy, welfare society and human rights are not the victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie or the capitalist system, rather, it is a rope that capitalism holds around the neck of the working masses and prevent them from their liberating class war. There is a huge difference between the proletariat forcing the bourgeoisie to surrender and retreat with the organized power of its anti capitalist council, or paying the price of this retreat of the bourgeoisie with a humiliating suspension of the class struggle. Democracy is´t the achievement of the radical power of the working class in the class war against capitalism and the victory of the labor movement in this class battle, rather, on the contrary, it´s proof of the surrender, helplessness and acceptance of decadent compromises that has caused ongoing failures of the labor movement. The proletariat cannot rely on the democracy to continuously push back the bourgeoisie and impose its growing demands on the system of wage slavery and the complete abolition of capitalism. Every step relying on the deceptive temple of democracy is a step towards digging own grave and disbanding the power of own class struggle in the power structure of capital and helping to survival of capitalism. Achieving democracy isn’t a phase of the class struggle of the working masses, but an auction of this class struggle´s existence. The claim that democracy is a precondition for advancing towards socialism is nothing but driving the working masses to the most dangerous edge of abyss which is architected by the bourgeoisie. We repeat that democracy is not a victory in the class struggle, because the working masses have the full capacity and ability to impose on capitalism the highest level of livelihood and welfare, political freedoms and human rights and the greatest reductions of environmental pollution and gender apartheid, and at the same time, it makes these achievements into the next strongholds of the more radical campaigns. The pro-democracy isn’t any ring of the chain of this class struggle, but an architected trick and trap on the way of the working class struggle. The Western European working class, in specified historical conditions, traded its strongholds of ongoing class struggle with democracy, welfare society and a level of livelihood. By doing this, the labor movement made the permanency of the chains of its wage slavery much stronger, and what it lost was all its liberating power and special role in the liberation of mankind, and what it gained was first of all hasty and unstable, secondly, it did not go beyond a little higher price for the reproduction of the labor power (welfare society) and the right of bargaining with the capitalists or the state of capital (democracy). The story wasn´t limited to this extent and here, because European workers didn’t just sell their stronghold of class struggle, but in exchange for what they called welfare and democracy, it gave the global bourgeoisie the opportunity to explosively increase the intensity of exploitation of billions of workers in all parts of the world, and it imposed the most crushing blows on the conditions of internationalist solidarity of the working class against capitalism. We have already explained that capitalism nowhere in the world and in any period of historical existence, even in the risky conditions of the rebellious class struggle of the workers, in spite of achieving the largest share of international surplus values, the bourgeoisie isn’t willing to accept any cost of retreating in front of the labor movement, unless puts the costs of this bargaining matter on the shoulders of the global working class in a much larger dimensions. If the owners of capital have accepted the costs of any retreat in the form of a “welfare and democratic society” in several countries, due to the reasons explained earlier, it was because firstly, the bourgeoisie crushed the foundation of the class struggle of the working masses under the titles of democracy, right to strike and organizing, party and right to free vote and in this way, it injected the most heinous injustices in the name of “right”, and under banner of freedom, into the consciousness of the workers. On the other hand, capitalism imposed all the costs of this welfare and democracy on the lives and work´s conditions of the working masses in other countries of the world, and by this horrible class policies inflicted the most brutal forms of exploitation and poverty, homelessness and hunger, gender apartheid and deprivation of education, medicine and treatment and lack of the most basic human rights on billions of working class people. Don’t be misconstrued , the European workers were still brutally exploited with this dealing, despite the auction of their class struggle, and obeyed all the injustices and oppressions of capitalism. Despite all this, what they got for the price of auctioning the class struggle was deducted not from the profits and pockets of the capitalists, but from the quasi-free price of the labor power of billions of other workers in the world. This loss-making trade broke down the foundation of the internationalist solidarity of the working class in the world, and in meanwhile gave a part of the global bourgeoisie the opportunity to intensify the exploitation of workers in other regions of the world and by resorting to the most brutal suppression and denying the freedom and basic human rights provided the most favorable conditions for an acute exploitation of workers all around the world. By the way, by resorting to deception under the name of Communism, it also gave the other pole of capitalism, The Soviet Unions, the possibility and opportunity that turned the half of the world´s workers into infantry for participating in the competition with the rival pole over the share of surplus value.
Let’s summarize the discussion so far.
1- Capitalism, in any era and even during the time of the overflow of its profits on the one hand and the strong rise of the labor movement on the other hand, is not able to tolerate a level of welfare and human rights for an average percentage of the working masses of the world.
If in some places, out of necessity and according to the urgency, it agrees to retreat in front of the workers, but it imposes the costs of retreat on the livelihood and basic rights of the working masses in a larger dimensions
2- Democracy and welfare are not an achievement of the labor movement , but only a proof of the surrender of the working class and shutting down the process of class war in exchange with a level of improvement in livelihood and social welfare in society.
3- The bourgeoisie compensates the cost of any retreat in exchange of dissolving the class struggle of workers in the structural of political economy of capitalism order and also through the more terrifying intensification rate of exploitation of the working class in other regions of the world, of course, not from the capitalists´ pocket.
With this summary, let’s move on to the discussion. Capitalism has long since lost its trading capacity (bargaining and retreat) historically and forever. Since this system was able to pay the cost of burial of the class struggle of workers in several countries, the annual gross product of the world did not exceed 10 trillion dollars, and the total amount of capital in the world in that day did not reach 40 trillion dollars. Today, the first figure has given the place to 100 trillion dollars and the second to about 1000 trillion dollars, that´s because the world is amazingly saturated with capital. If the majority of African countries lack advanced industry, and if labor productivity is low in many societies and the power of competition of their social capital is low, and the average rate of the organic combination of their capitals is low and the share of the country’s capitalism in the global surplus values is not significant, but it has no conflict with the amazing and legendary saturation of the world with capital. Capitalism itself is an obstacle to its own development and self-expansion, and as long as it exists, it carries this unsolvable contradiction with itself. Capitalism in Guinea, Gambia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, along with America, China, Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia is a coercion and its nature, the becoming sameness of these countries under the rule of capitalism is absolutely impossible. The global capital, in the process leading to the volume of accumulation, the productivity of labor and the organic composition of the day has extremely increased the part of itself that doesn’t produce any penny of value or surplus value, and the other part, the variable component or the only source of the total production of surplus values, has made it relatively smaller and smaller again. In this regard, has raised the dimensions of its inner crisis and innate to the highest level, and the rate of surplus values has been continuously high and the rate of profits has entered the slide of falling more and more rapidly. Although all the achievements of human knowledge, inventions and discoveries, industrial and technical advances have made the basis of intensifying exploitation and raising the rate of surplus values. But the upward trend of the volume of additional capital over the years, is to such an extent that the rate of accumulation exceeds the rate of production of surplus value and inevitably the beginning of the crisis has become a routine and current everywhere issue of the largest part of global capital. The inconvenient reality combined with anger that has tangled humanity in itself is that billions of workers, men and women and children, old and young, simple and technical, industrial and agricultural, and service work day and night and create surplus values, but the total of these surplus values is not enough for the rate of profit required by the cycle of reproduction and self-increase of global capital. The capitalist system has entered this phase and its reproduction is very difficult to continue and the consecutive crises are crushing the foundation of its existence. Capitalism for the everyday´s emergency challenge of this dilemma, it doesn’t see a more than one way, that´s that in all parts of the world, including in the countries where the class struggle of the working masses has been traded with welfare and democracy, have to impose the more pressure on the life and livelihood of the working masses. Historically, capitalism around the world has reached the phase of unavoidable degeneration. The root of this unavoidable degeneration lies in the existential nature of capital, in the process of surplus value production. This process is under the crushing and ongoing effects of the rate of accumulation which overtaking the rate of production of surplus value. The attacks that originate from the depths of the existence of capitalism, it remains until this system exists , but more crushing and unstoppable. Mechanisms such as stock market and the role of states and using astonishing technical developments and information for huge changes in capitalist work organization and imposing the burden of crisis on the working class and challenging the process of the interest rate, all together played a miraculous role. Capitalist relations have fallen into such a quagmire. If it hasn’t been overthrown and destroyed, the only reason is the decadence of the labor movement and its disconnection with the approach of the anti-capitalist class battle. In such a situation, one indicator is more obvious than all other and more pondered. The fact that the period of the bourgeoisie´s resort to trading with the labor movement, the era of accepting even the lowest cost of these transactions by the capitalist class. The era when the capitalists and the capitalist state of one or more countries to be willing to accept a price for desisting of the anti-capitalist struggle by working class is over forever everywhere in the world and that can only be found in the archives of history. The bourgeoisie, anywhere in the world, neither has the ability to bear the cost of these transactions, nor does it see the need to carry them out. The bourgeoisie does not have the financial means to do it anymore. Because the amount of surplus value that capitalism has accumulated for the reproduction and self-increase of capital has become so huge that the working masses of the world cannot be able to produce, organize and realize it, even with a 1000% exploitation rate. The bourgeoisie does not see any need to pay and bear this cost because it is practically not facing any rebellious wave of the radical anti-capitalist struggle of the international working class. Most importantly, right and left-wing reformism of unions and social democracy or camp communism and anti-imperialist leftist nationalism and militant populism, all together, whether divided or united or hostile during the 20th century, have eliminated the danger of such a movement for capitalism and the capitalist class. This last one is terrible, and its radical Marxian critique is a precondition for reconstructing and flourishing of the anti-capitalist movement of the proletariat, but the first one is also a reality that the labor movement must explore and criticize radically with the class consciousness of anti-capitalism to confront it. The labor movement must use the results of this radical dissection as a means to critique its historical disastrous illusions to peaceful democratic parliamentary and militant reformism in the wage slavery system. The era of bargaining between the bourgeoisie and the working class and paying the lowest price for ending the class struggle for the sake of welfare and democracy has been discarded. This isn’t an ideological judgment. Rather, it’s the objective observation and living experience of every worker who wants to look at the society and the current conditions of the world by relying on the class consciousness. It is not necessary to look at the life of the majority of the working masses of the world in Africa and Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. But, it is enough to look at what happened to the workers of Germany, England and Scandinavia during the last three decades. In Germany, more than 14 million people of the working class struggle with the problem of livelihood and basic necessities of life, and about 20% of children suffer from poverty and most of them suffer from insufficient nutrition. In England, 10 million adults and 4 million children live in hunger and food poverty. In Sweden, where the bourgeoisie all over the world like to refer to social welfare and specially to be a paradise for children as a respectable evidence for the human rights of capitalism !! According to the announcement of the social assistance department, a significant number of school children are unable to concentrate on their studies at the beginning of each week, and the reason is poor nutrition during the holidays. The same government institution adds that about 10% of Swedish children suffer from obvious food poverty. In France, we are constantly witnessing widespread riots of millions of marginalized people who are pouring into the streets under the pressure of hunger, unemployment and poverty. The situation in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and elsewhere is much worse and there is no year that has not worsened compared to the previous year. In all the mentioned countries, the last three decades have been the years of continuous attack on healthcare and educational facilities, social helping assistance for the elderly, children and the disabled by the bourgeoisie. According to the “Eurostat ” report, about 97 million people of the population of the countries known as the European Union are living in poverty, and the average population who suffer from poverty in 27 member countries is over 21%. In Sweden, during the mentioned period, more than 30% of all schools were dismantled and the students of those schools were transferred to the remaining educational centers. Throughout Europe, we see a significant and increasing decrease in the number of teachers, social workers, nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, patient care staff, the disabled and the elderly relative to the population of each society. Throughout Europe, we see a significant and increasing decrease in the number of teachers, social workers, nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, patient care staff, the disabled and the elderly relative to the population of each society. The budget per capita of education, treatment and social service centers decreased everywhere and the efficiency of work in these centers has decreased too. This is the situation in Europe, the United States has never, in any period, had anything called “social welfare” that should need to be examined. During the mentioned decades, at the same time the increasing poverty and hunger and unemployment, diseases and addiction and prostitution in Europe with the rapid reduction of medical and educational facilities and social service, we have witnessed increasing financial aid by the government to the huge industrial and financial trusts of the capitalist class. The central and key role of all capitalist states have been to pressing as much as possible the foundation of livelihood, healthcare and education of the working masses, and to make it as a means for restoring the golden profits required for the cycle of production, reproduction and self-expansion of capital. The debts of the governments are skyrocketing and all these debts are items that the governments have deducted in advance from the livelihood account of the coming years and future generations of the working class and deposited into the account of the capitalist class and to become the foundation of capitalists’ efforts to challenge crises and ensure the day-to-day survival of the capitalist system. The amount of this debt, only in the case of America, is more than 20 trillion dollars. The governments of England and France and Germany, Netherlands and Japan and Italy, Spain, and Canada have respectively 9 trillion, 6 trillion, 5 and a half trillion, 5 trillion, 5 trillion, 3 trillion, 3 trillion, over 2 trillion and 2 trillion. In total, they have more than 40 trillion dollars in debt. The figure shows that the capitalist governments of only 9 of the richest countries in the world have paid in advance to the capitalists to deduct from the livelihood of the future generations of workers in these societies. A figure that increases every year compared to the previous year and swells like cancer. The social capital of the above countries has the highest share in global surplus values and they are in a position to continue their reproduction as mentioned, and every day, they should attack the pocket of the working masses more savagely and cruelty than the previous day, and they don’t withhold any crime in this attack. The task of other parts of the capitalist world, the task of workers in Guinea and Cameroon and Kenya, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Djibouti do not need any explanation. The number of cursed people who die under the pressure of hunger and lack of medicine every minute in each of these societies is more than 15 people. Historically, capitalism has such a situation at the global level, a situation where even its growth and development not only does not create any job for any worker in any part of the world, but also creates job loss and unemployment. Not only does it not give a single morsel of bread to any worker, but it makes the number of hungry people even more frightening. Not only does it not build a school, but also closes the existing schools, and not only is it not establishing any hospital anywhere, but it’s rapidly reducing the number of medical centers but to turn the costs of keeping them running into a support for the survival of reproduction of capital. It doesn’t build roads anymore and it gets rid of building stores and distribution centers and replaces them with internet trading. In all these substitutions, it reduces the need for labor power, a certain thing that forcefully limits the source of the production of surplus values. So, it raises the rate of surplus values to a peak, but makes the rate of profits fall worse than before. It makes the cycle of production of capital critical and inevitably makes capitalism’s invasion to the workers’ livelihood faster. The basis of everything that capitalism one day and for years ago had accepted in several countries under the title of employment, unemployment insurance and retirement, sickness compensation, right to strike, organizing and protest, or welfare and democracy, at the cost of eradicating the class struggle, takes them back one after another. It implements all these because they are an urgent and unavoidable need for the continuation of increasing surplus value and the cycle of reproduction of capital. What is the annual growth rate of countries ? Is there growth or not ! Is it the peak of the crisis, or is the rising sun shining on the whole world ? The amount of capital investment for the year has skyrocketed or dropped greatly ? What do the great capitalist institutions of the world say? What are the predictions of the central banks of the countries, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Davos and the government ? As far as that concerned the conditions of work, life and livelihood, healthcare and shelter of workers or the response of capitalists and state of capital to working class protests, doesn´t make any difference. The most obvious evidence and example of the reality of these judgments are two huge economic giants of China and India. These countries have reported the highest growth rate in the last few decades based on the standards and criteria of the capitalist world. But this legendary economic growth and sucess, for the two billion workers of these two countries has not had any other results other than poverty and permanent deprivation. Even in the best and most optimistic condition, it hasn´t been resulting in the lowest improvements in the lives of these two billion workers living in these two countries, because capitalism is everywhere attacking any level of livelihood and the minimum standard of living of the working masses. If one day democracy and human rights were the price of ending the class struggle and a fake protection to moderate these barbaric attacks, but today, not only does it not have this role either, rather, is like a chain on the will of the working masses and an opium-like role against the will and determination of the workers’ class protest. All that has been said is the coercive and unavoidable function of capital in all countries, continents and poles of capitalism. Despite such a situation, relying on such a claim that just by changing regimes, arranging capitalist state and image of capitalism and purifying them from Sharia and religion, pushing back fascism with the deceptive weapon of democracy that can bring the least improvement in life of working class, is the most disgusting and heinous lies. The fundamental knot in the last uprising of the young generation of the working class of Iran lies in this very important point. The all Achilles heels of this movement just is here. This movement, in the realm of existing strategy, solution and perspective, until it hasn’t cleared them from the class foundation of its struggle and replaced them with radical class alternatives with strategies and solutions, demands and a transparent horizon of anti-capitalism, will be condemned to failure. If four months ago, along with the appearance of the first signs of this uprising, only anti-capitalist workers and activists of the wage labor abolition movement were shouting that this uprising of masses of young generation were belonging to working class. Today, even those who were responding to the above claim with the worst insult and hatred, have accepted under the pressure of reality that the current uprising is a manifestation of the rebellion of the young generation of the working class against the miseries and various forms of deprivation. The unruly protestors are generally workers and what has shaken the foundation of their social existence and life is the hardships that capital has imposed on them, because the root of all calamities lies in capital. The unruly protestors are generally workers and what has shaken the foundation of their social existence and life is the hardships that capital has imposed on them, because the root of all calamities lies in capital, because the Islamic Republic is also a machine of order, power and planning, coercion and repression that isn´t separable from capitalism. This rebellious roar isn´t against capital, but the inflamed anger against religiosity and the behavior of its rulers and the demands of the raised masses are not anti-capitalist, but only the editing and arrangement of its pattern of this order. The strategy of this struggle is not a radical class campaign against wage slavery, but the purification of the state from religion and replacement of one regime with another capitalist one. Such a rise, as long as it is so, will be caught in the path of error. The slogans of “woman, life, freedom”!!, “reclaiming life”!!, death to Khamenei and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic doesn´t have any sign of the class struggle of working masses against the main cause of hunger and misery, homelessness and deprivation of the most elementary freedoms and human rights. This movement is not following change in the root of the foundation of misery and calamities, because these slogans and demands lack the necessary capacity to realize any radical change in the lives, welfare and freedoms and the social rights of the working masses. These slogans don´t even contain the daily urgent demands of the working class. Protesters don’t express the root of oppression and pains imposed on their lives, rather, with doing this, even the most right-wing oppositions of the bourgeoisie, from the royalists mafia and thirst for blood, power and capital, to the circles eager for peaceful reform or militant capitalist reformism, have been given the opportunity to ride the wave of protest and struggle of the working masses. That the vast majority of the rebellious masses of the current movement are disgusted by these monarchist beasts and others like them, is an undeniable fact, but, mere hatred and disgust is not any cure for pain.
It’s for more than 30 years, the basis of shutting down of the class struggle and burying the power of class struggle against wage slavery in the graveyard of party reformism and militancy or tying any anti-capitalist activities of the workers to the mere overthrowing of the ruling regime and political power´s conquest has been subjected to Marxian´s criticism by the movement to abolish wage labor and the anti-capitalism. This approach has tried to make this Marxian radical critique into the consciousness of the working masses and their weapon in the ongoing struggle against capitalism. The movement to abolish wage labor has analyzed this strategy as capitalist-oriented, anti-worker in its nature and in direction of replacing one model of the capitalist system with another one. We have told the workers that any level of anti-regime demand should be an integral part of our anti-capitalist class war. The class battlefield must witness the confrontation of the real forces of the two classes of workers and capitalists over the fate of work, production and life. We must abandon the thought of always remaining workers and being an eternal wage slave of capital, and make the determination of the fate of the result of work and annual production the subject of our daily struggle. Instead of demanding more wages, we should withdraw as much as possible of our annual created surplus values from the hands of capitalists and their state and make it the basis of our demands. Instead of thinking of ourselves as the worker of this or that capitalist, the worker of this or that realm of investing capital, but, as members of a social class, the working class who is struggling against exploitation and slavery and the rule of capitalism. Instead of seeing and limiting the whole of our power in some solidarity between a few dozen or a few hundred workers of a factory, school, transport company or municipality, rather, we have to think about the class-power of organized and nationwide anti-capitalist councils of the entire working class. We should think about joining together in a more radical and nationwide anti-capitalist council, because organizing the class power to the same extent give us more exercise power to push back the bourgeoisie as much as possible for taking out much more product of our work from the possession of the capitalist class and their state. In this way and to the same extent, we can more powerfully break down the repressive fortifications of the Islamic regime of capital in denying freedoms and human rights, and not suffering a fate similar to the fate of the Arab Spring and the terrible consequences of the capitalist democracy of the 20th century and especially the last two decades. If it is to be the beginning of a new era for the working class of Iran and the world, therefore it should adopt a radical strategy and approach against wage slavery and it has to avoid getting caught up in the trans-class slogans such as woman, life, freedom and the like. If this movement leads to a council and nationwide anti-capitalist movement of the vast masses of workers, so the first step should be demanding for taking livelihood, medicine and treatment, education and healthcare for the elderly, water, electricity and gas and all the necessities of life out of domination of the commodity-monetary exchange process of capitalism. It should achieve the complete elimination of women’s unpaid domestic work and demand the termination of any type of economic dependence of women on men and children on their parents. It will replace the deceitful controversies of the right and left – wing oppositions of the bourgeoisie under the title of fighting against environmental pollution with the solution of shutting down all polluting production centers and the absolute ban of any type of pathogenic substances in the cycle of planting, harvesting and transporting and the like. The complete prohibition of any kind of government and governmental institution’s interference in people’s lives or the deprivation of human rights and freedoms by these institutions should be one of the important demands of the struggle. The uprising of the day should raise the flag of these expectations and the way to achieve them in the exercise of organized power of councils, the nationwide shutdown of the production and work cycle and occupation of the work and production centers and also occupying of all the empty real estates of the capitalists and giving them away for free to homeless workers. In this regard, in the heart of the process of this radical class campaign, will implement the overthrow of the Islamic regime of capital by relying on a radical anti-capitalist approach and move towards the complete destruction of capitalism and abolition of wage labor with a nationwide and organized class power by councils.
Naser Paydar
Jan. 2023
