As Covid-19 strikes the market, we see stocks falling and profit disappearing. However, it is not the CEOs or owners approaching hard times. Rather, the workers they own.
Some are losing 20% of their pay, which they desperately need for basic necessities. While others have become unemployed completely, 6.65 million filed for unemployment benefits in the US alone last week. Such results only lead to an even poorer quality of life than already on offer.
Supermarkets, on the other hand, are expecting huge boosts in profit. Though, there have been little extra benefits awarded to their customer-facing employees. Rather, they have seen their workload, stress levels and risk of catching the virus all rise, while their low pay continues. Does that seem fair?
While it is a nice idea, life is not what an individual makes of it but what the few who own the world make it. That is capitalism, the ownership of the necessities for the benefit of a few, against the rest of us.
If the bosses could buy up all the air in the world, they would, and then sell it on to only those that could afford it. When the bodies start to stack up around you and you question this practise, the only reply you would get is- “it is not affordable to give everyone free air”!
In the same way they have stolen and sold on the water, properties, land, basic clothing, education, health care… I could go on. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
For it should be a right for people to have all the necessities of life before them, not for a few to make money at your expense. Such change does not come by making a vote though.
Not to say elections do not play an important part in organising but modern day liberal democracy purely presents people with the choice of who they would like to rule over them, while promising minute reforms. You cannot take control of this dying machine and expect to reform it in a way that serves the people; it must be smashed and destroyed!
The only way to bring value back into the hands of the workers is an organised struggle against the apparatuses of the state. Solidarity with each other against the repressive nature of these institutions is the way forward.
Love is not enough to save the people of our great lands. It is only the burning hatred within everyone that can lead the way into a truly fair society. One led by the workers of the world.
Where the economy can be planned to prepare for the abandonment of money completely. Where our society can become truly democratic to act within the interests of everyone. Where the people can have a manageable workload dependent on their ability. Where we can stop the rape of all the world’s natural resources and begin to protect them. But most of all, where class is a thing of the past.
These are not utopian ideas but we are far away from reaching them. We have to make the realise that parliamentarians, royals, judges, police and religions are all enemies of the people!
They are part of what makes the State, which only acts to oppress and exploit the people in order to maintain the hierarchy and greed of a few. The State must die and we must risk our own lives to make it happen. “Because we love life, we can fight to the death…”!
Whether its appearance is liberal or conservative, the status quo always fails, it is now time to organise and fight for a society that works for everyone.
