For a future: Organize!

As the crisis deepens, so must our thinking and organizational ambition. Technology-induced appearances notwithstanding, humanity has already left the Holocene era, one characterized by relative material abundance, and entered the post Holocene era of relative material scarcity. If the former was characterized by departure from communal norms of behavior, the latter will necessarily be characterized by their restoration. While natural resources, including individual human labor capacity, will need to be conserved and enhanced, the quality of life can expand in ways otherwise stymied by the priority capitalism assigns to private wealth accumulation.

Our focus here is on the medium-term need for renewal of the political left in Canada, one allied to the global struggle for an ecologically sustainable world. This would be a world necessarily more democratic, just, and peaceful than the only one (a death spiral) on offer by the capitalist class and its supporters. We say this with all due respect for those who would, if they could, humanize the existing social system. The problem is that they can’t, and for the increasingly evident reason that while scarcity is becoming the material condition of the vast majority, capitalism continues to depend on the expansion of economic busyness to sustain the wealthy. The degradation of nature is the corollary of labor exploitation. .

Create the political movements needed!

Examples of our current starting point in Canada for building a political left capable of contributing to a future for humanity include:

Quebec Solidaire https://quebecsolidaire.net

Courage Coalition www.couragecoalition.ca

Green Left Canada https://greenleft.ca

In the kind of left political movements needed now, conditions of membership should, we believe, include:

1. Participation (virtually or in-person) at regular meetings of a local or regional chapter of a grassroots people’s political movement.
2. Concurrent participation in at least one of the other grassroots people’s movements for social justice, peace, democracy, and a sustainable natural environment.
3. Contributions to self and public education for moving beyond capitalism to the creation of a more just, democratic, peaceful, and ecologically sustainable world; and within these movements
4. Follow the indigenous practice of a talking circle to ensure that every participant has an equal voice and responsibility, with rotation of the chair (and others with specific responsibilities), to avoid hierarchy.

Political action of such a left political movement would include:

1. Organize local communities for self-reliance.
2. Defend local communities against predatory practices by the capitalist class and the governments and businesses remaining under its control.
3. Horizontally link local communities into solidarity networks for mutual support and collective action.
4. Form alternative representative chambers or councils to contest for political power at every level where capitalist institutions of political power exist, private, corporate, and governmental, including development by each of the people’s councils of a corresponding alternative people’s agenda.
5. Create bottom-up forms of democratic organization by vertically linking local, provincial, national, regional, federal, and international levels of popular decision-making, leaving ultimate sovereignty (to participate or not in higher level actions) with the base units; and in which
6. Decision-making at any more centralized level is limited to those matters which can only be effectively and environmentally efficiently organized at that level.
7. When and where sufficiently strong popular organization exists, negotiate co-power with the institutions of capitalist class power, mobilizing the people to achieve and maintain this degree of political-economic power.
8. When and where sufficient popular organization has been created, popular experience of self-organization has been gained, and parallel institutions of capitalist class rule have lost their popular support, including among the security forces the capitalist class has created for preserving its power, mobilize the people and their institutions for the defense of the popular institutions of political and economic power, and replace and dismantle the old institutions of capitalist political and economic power, including, if necessary, suppressing any violence from some members of the formerly ruling capitalist class and its supporters.

Among these political movements, we believe there needs to be at least one whose members aim to unite in action all the others, based on the following commitments:

• The liberation of the working class from capitalism.
• Sovereignty (including the right of self-determination) of the First Nations, Metis, Quebecois, and Acadian peoples.
• Internationalism, based on the equal human rights of all peoples, including to peace, democracy, justice, economic equality, and a sustainable natural environment; and to
• Self and public education in the supporting scientific and philosophical foundations of these commitments, including from Charles Darwin in the natural sciences and from Frederick Engels and Karl Marx in philosophy and the social sciences.

Revitalize the social movements!

Concurrent with the creation (or as the case may be, the revitalization) of the necessary political movements, in preparation for achieving a society beyond capitalism, we must also work to strengthen and further revitalize the grassroots peace, justice, environmental, and labour movements of the Canadian people. Among the actions that can be taken at the community level are the following:

For People/Planet/Democracy

Join one of the 65 community chapters of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest grassroots democratic organization. If there is not already a chapter in your community, consider helping to organize one. For more information and to join, see: www.canadians.org

For Peace, Justice, and Global Solidarity

Individuals and local peace and justice groups should consider joining and participating in the activities of one or more of the affiliates of the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network. For more information or to join, see: https://peaceandjusticenetwork.ca or contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, see: https://vow.peace.org or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, see: https://cjpme.org

For a Revitalized Solidaristic Working Class!

Neoliberal privatization of formerly public institutions, and austerity for working people so that more wealth can be transferred to the already wealthy have created levels of insecurity for the majority that begin to approximate the conditions of the poor and working poor of the 19th century, especially as climate change challenges us all. There is no greater need at present than for organization of the unorganized and solidarity in struggle of the entire working class. This time, there are two colors needed in our banners, red and green, symbolizing the need for an eco-socialist alternative to capitalism.

The Canadian Labour Congress at its recent convention has taken the necessary step towards revitalizing the labour movement by rooting its struggles in the community and taking on the task of organizing the unorganized. Once again, the most politically committed workers, those now active in the peace and social justice movements of the people need to include the organization of unorganized workers as one of their primary tasks. Let’s not wait to be asked by our local labour councils. Let’s offer them committed groups of volunteers to help with this vital task. In return we could ask for their moral and organizational support for all the other social and environmental justice movements in the communities where we live.

Here is a short list of movements that would in turn be strengthened by a revitalized labour movement in Canada, one that would rightly see each of these movements as their own:

• Alliances between First Nations and settler communities to protect the natural environment for current and future generations; alliances which also work for recognition and action on behalf of the rights of indigenous peoples as agreed upon in treaties they made with their colonizers, and as expressed in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to which Canada is a signatory.
• Unity of white and racialized minorities in struggle against systemic racism.
• Proposals and action for a just transition off a fossil-fuel based economy, and for a Green New Deal.
• The emergence of the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network to make peace and international solidarity a vital priority.
• The strengthening of the Council of Canadians as our largest, grassroots network of community-based chapters united in struggle for “People, Planet, Democracy”.
• An upsurge in public support for the equal human rights of the members of the LGBTQ+ community, for full equality for women, including their equal or leading role in all the people’s social movements, and for universal social programs to cover the full costs of cradle to grave education and health care, plus a universal basic income adequate to assure all the means to a life in dignity; and most significantly,
• The renewal of the organized labour movement, one committed to global solidarity as a response to the global race to the bottom in labour and environmental rights engineered by the national detachments of the capitalist class and their supporters.

On such a foundation, a more just, democratic, peaceful, and ecologically sustainable world becomes possible, certainly a goal we must aim to achieve as part of our obligation to younger and future generations.

Charles and Karen McFadden Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA