We won’t pay their debt - let's move away from capitalism!

Thursday February 23, 2012 16:52

by EuroAnarkismo - Anarkismo European Coordination

Statement from the EuroAnarkismo network

To move ahead and build international solidarity, all the movements must come together on a European scale. The capitalists know how to organise on that level and how to adopt the treaties they expect to seal peoples’ fates with. We, the working men and women of Europe, have not yet achieved this level of organisation, even though alternative forms of trade union organistion have found ways to converge. This effort must be pursued, and a response organised on an international level. [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Nederlands]

Statement by the EuroAnarkismo network

We won’t pay their debt - let's move away from capitalism!

The end of 2011 has seen an ever-stronger offensive against the working classes by capitalists and their allies - the governments. There is a tacit agreement between both left- and right-wing governments all over Europe to implement austerity policies and on the principle of making the people pay for the crisis. Greece is emblematic in this respect: having formed a national unity government that includes ministers from the far Right, it is proof that the capitalists will not hesitate to rely on authoritarian means to force working men and women to pay for the crisis.

The deal struck between between the Right and the Left is aggravated by their joint collusion with the financial markets, the banks and industry. Alleged conflicts on the question of the debt between governments and credit rating agencies are a total sham: the governments and the financial institutions are hand in hand in agreeing to impose dire cuts on social spending and wages, to prolong our working hours and push back the retirement age, to sell off or destroy public services, to increase precarity and unemployment, all for the greater benefit of the capitalists, who still expect - surprise, surprise - to increase their profits thanks to the crisis they created in the first place! In the face of this entente cordiale between politicians and capitalists, working men and women have no other choice but to rely on themselves and to resist and force an alternative way out of the crisis.

The only way out of this crisis is to get away from capitalism. This system will never produce anything but inequality, a society where money and power will be forever concentrated in the hands of a freeloading minority made up of capitalists and bureaucrats, with a production-crazy economy wasting resources but never answering the needs of the population. By showing the need for another society, where wealth and power are equally shared between all, and where the economy is focused on the satisfaction of needs - a libertarian communist society - we can provide a political outlet for the struggles that are blossoming here and there, but that have not yet managed to spread.

By asserting the popular classes’ refusal to pay the capitalist debt, by fighting the effects of austerity policies inch by inch, by organising concrete solidarity among the popular classes and by providing structures for the fight in the midst of the social movements, working men and women will once again be able to find hope. As libertarian communists, we have the firm intention of playing our part in these struggles at the very grassroots, by encouraging radicalisation and self-management.

To move ahead and build international solidarity, all the movements must come together on a European scale. The capitalists know how to organise on that level and how to adopt the treaties they expect to seal peoples’ fates with. We, the working men and women of Europe, have not yet achieved this level of organisation, even though alternative forms of trade union organistion have found ways to converge. This effort must be pursued, and a response organised on an international level.

Our assertion that we refuse to pay the debt, that we refuse to keep fattening the capitalists, must be made all over Europe. We must demand wage increases, the reduction of working hours, a social wage for the unemployed, the resoration of retirement age to what it was, and the rejection of the privatisation of social expenditure. And, all over Europe, we must impose a total reallocation of wealth, in other words: expropriate the capitalists and the means of production, so we can move towards a socialist, self-managed society.