This fourth of July, as fireworks fill the skies, the star spangled banner plays, and Americans stuff our faces with hot dogs, hamburgers and apple pie, liberals, the “left,” conservatives and fascists are all vying for their variation of how to “Make America Great Again.”

We’re taught that democracy is an objective concept, and that the US was founded on this concept. The reality is that in a class divided society, democracy always functions for the interests of the dominant class.

From our inception, there was no democracy for the poor or landless. There was no democracy for indigenous peoples whose land was stolen, lives were taken, and culture eradicated. There was no democracy extended to the slaves who were taken from Africa and forced to build the foundations of the US.

 

 

Prior to the Revolutionary War, the Pro-British elite and the US nationalist elite divided on the basis of their personal potential to profit from separation with Britain or not. In 1770, colonial trade was worth $2.8 million. The poor settlers, slaves, and servants who took large part in the creation of that $2.8 million in profits were experiencing great suffering as a result of the vast poverty following the Seven Years War. Quartered British troops in the cities were taking jobs from sailors and mechanics. In the countryside, there were land riots aimed at rich American landlords. This led to the Regulators movement, which petitioned the government citing “the unequal chances the poor and the weak have in contentions with the rich and powerful.”

Of course, these workers did not affiliate themselves with the needs of Native Americans, slaves, or poor servants. These groups were instead manipulated with inspiring rhetoric by the nationalist elite to generate power behind their revolutionary movement. What followed was the template for American nationalism. It’s a delicate dance of emboldening the poor, but not so much that they will recognize that they are only entering into a new contract of subjugation with those claiming to be their allies.

 

 

All of the names that you remember from US history books – John Adams, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams – made it abundantly clear that they did not align themselves with the crowd action of the lower class. Accounts by many generals and heads of the independence movement show how frightened they were upon recognizing the true strength of the poor and landless they had mobilized. There were instances where demonstrations begun by “gentlemen” lead to riots and the destruction of property, at which point those men would sever their connections with the “rabble.” As the social elite, they wanted to make sure that the bounty they were sure to reap from independence would remain safe from the lower orders. By extension, the people who were behind the mounting pressure and rebellion that lead to the Declaration of Independence, officially proclaimed July 4, 1776, received absolutely no representation within that document.

This was the blueprint for bourgeois democracy. We see this in the way that freedom is conceptualized – private property, free markets, and never ending expansion of markets and profits. The “progress” of this democracy – the emancipation proclamation, women’s suffrage, the civil rights bill, etc – is the progressive veneer of a societal arrangement ruled by capitalism. Often the extension of bourgeois democratic rights to new segments of society allows for the expansion of markets. These bourgeois democratic rights work to pacify tensions between classes, ameliorate externalities of capitalism, and maintain the class interests and dominance of the capitalists. 

As long as we in the US can be free to consume cheap goods and have a degree of “equality” in capitalism, why should we care that this degree of relative wealth hinges on the exploitation of people in the US or, more often, in another country?

 

 

July 4, 2018, capitalism is in crisis. The potential to grow and expand is reaching physical limits. Finance, debt, and speculation have toxified the global economy. As a result, any progressive veneer that capitalism used to retain is being eliminated out of necessity for capital accumulation. Every element of life must be commodified for capitalism to continue, and the scope of that commodification will continue to seep from once “acceptably” exploitable spaces into the realm of middle class suburbia, as capitalism continues to fail.

Public education is under attack. In Ohio, those who choose not to vote can lose their voting rights. The right to protest can be criminalized. Free and open access to information on the internet is gone. Immigrant families are demonized as thieves and rapists, torn apart, and used to increase exploited prison labor.

The merging of state and corporate interests, the rolling back of regulations, and the loss of bourgeois democratic rights are necessary to keep markets expanding and to prevent the people from fighting back.

Trump and his social base are working to consolidate fascism, but the conditions for it have been in development well before his candidacy. Republican, Democrat, third party, whatever – they all serve capitalist interests. We are facing this moment because of capitalism, not because of any single politician or party. Democrats and some capitalists pretend to push back against fascist immigration policies, and were all in support of the tax reform bill that screwed everyone but the rich. They will always sell us out for their economic interests.

 

 

This is an incredibly divisive time. But in reality, every alternative is trying to unify us around a concept of democracy and freedom that has never been ours. Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Independents, Democratic Socialists and all their variants are rallying us to a dead cause – bourgeois democracy – democracy for capitalist interests – domination and exploitation of people and the planet.

Capitalism and imperialism is the problem, globally. Capitalists and imperialists are our common enemy.

Let’s build unity around this and consolidate our varying levels of agreement into strong, combative organizations. Let’s work towards a different form of democracy – one that we construct together.

In the process of organizing against capitalism, we can start building new social relationships and structures – the beginnings of a new arrangement of society.  

We need it, desperately. Capitalism is played out. Its very nature is the problem. It cannot be reformed, restructured or voted into the society we want and need.

If you agree, get in touch.

Stand Up. Fight Back. ORGANIZE.

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